Where San Franciscans are really going
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
From this San Francisco neighborhood, it's possible to look longingly across the Oakland Bay Bridge to Alameda County. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
We've all seen countless stories about San Francisco tech workers decamping for Texas and Florida — but according to U.S. Postal Service change-of-address records, they're mostly moving to Bay Area suburbs, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The big picture: The Chronicle analyzed postal service records and found that "the top six destinations for those fleeing the city were all Bay Area counties: Alameda, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Sonoma."
- After that came Los Angeles, San Diego, Napa and Riverside.
- The No. 1 destination — Alameda County, where Oakland is the biggest city — is directly across the bay from San Francisco.
- Austin and Denver were the "only two out-of-state destinations that made it into the Top 20," per the Chronicle.
Details: It is true that lots of San Franciscans moved away from the city during the eight-month period between March and November (which is what the Chronicle examined).
- "While the influx of new residents coming into the city remained constant between 2019 and 2020, the number of households leaving skyrocketed by more than 35,000 — from 45,263 in 2019 to 80,371 in 2020."
- Roughly 41% of the change-of-address requests were moves within San Francisco.
- Those movers were taking advantage of falling rents — and the lower-rent trend could be a happy and lingering outcome of the pandemic, San Francisco economist Ted Egan tells the Chronicle.
Between the lines: The tally is city-specific and doesn't capture all the people coming and going from the Bay Area, which includes all the counties close to San Francisco proper.
- Numerous real estate, moving and transportation companies have been trying to capture the migration patterns and have been feeding reporters (like me) surveys that show where people are going.
- Those results don't always speak with one voice, but they do show consistent patterns.
- For instance: "The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving," Nellie Bowles writes in the New York Times.
Reality check: With companies like Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise moving headquarters out of the Bay Area (to Austin and Houston, respectively), it makes sense that some workers will follow.
- But as Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes, "Silicon Valley's powerhouses aren't putting out the "moving sale" signs, even as a handful of high-profile departures raises questions about the region's status."
