With $29 billion in AI funding in the first half of 2025, San Francisco is seeing office space fill, tech events multiply and public debate intensify over AI’s risks and rewards.
The political landscape has shifted dramatically in Vermont. Nationally, the election showed that partisanship matters most but active campaigning still makes a difference.
The California city was an early adopter of the election format but after clerical errors in the general election two years ago, local residents are ready to ditch the method despite its growing popularity nationwide.
Aaron Peskin, who is an advocate for community services, rent control and neighborhood preservation, is now an underdog in the famously liberal city’s mayoral race that wants a hard-line approach to homelessness and crime.
Proposition 33 would allow cities to limit rent increases. Some economists doubt that’s a good idea.
Several chamber leaders lost their seats in primaries this year, a sign of the difficulty they've had dealing with their own parties at the Capitol. Also, in a surprise, it looks like San Francisco Mayor London Breed will win another term.
Michael Makstman has been the city’s new chief information officer since July and hopes to establish citywide standards and procedures for IT while also balancing a range of technology from AI to floppy disks.
San Francisco residents will vote in November on whether they want to permanently close two miles of coastline road from cars, which, if passed, will become a historic pedestrian project. But the city is deeply divided on the project’s impacts.
The city’s pilot program gives unhoused meth users packs that consist of four doses of the antipsychotic medication Olanzapine. A 2021 study found the drug helped to reduce the frequency and severity of meth-induced psychosis.
The company behind ChatGPT funded a three-year research program on the impacts of universal basic income. It found that the extra income allowed participants to be more selective about career choices and have more time for leisure.
The area’s three largest cities set all-time highs for vacancy rates in the downtown districts during the second quarter, with San Francisco at 36.8 percent, Oakland at 31.8 and San Jose at 31.5. Office vacancies in Silicon Valley overall was 19.5 percent.
There are strong models for combating youthful disillusionment. San Francisco’s Youth Commission should be replicated across the country and a White House Office of Young Americans could address issues that affect everyone.
Chicago and San Francisco are looking to consolidate the transit agencies in their respective cities, proposals backed by state lawmakers. Advocates say such reforms could improve service for riders and make it easier for politicians to address funding issues.
In 2015, just 32 percent of the city’s single-family recycling bins were contaminated with non-recyclable material. By 2020, it was more than half. The city hopes education will help.
Although population losses have slowed in most major cities, they haven't stopped. New York has lost nearly a half-million people since the start of the pandemic.
The city’s own study about Mayor London Breed’s proposal to make it more profitable to turn empty offices into new homes found that it is unlikely to drive significant savings under current market conditions.
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