From earthquake’s destruction, a new San Francisco rises three decades later

As seen from a neighboring building, the newly completed Salesforce Tower dominates the skyline in downtown San Francisco on January 23.

least a rail line from Silicon Valley – comes to San Francisco, it will go down as political folly and one of the dumbest public works project since the pyramids,” Peskin added. But if the money does come, “it will look like we made a brilliant decision for the future of Northern California.”

The development is also causing growing pains. Many fear this new San Francisco is out of reach for all but the most wealthy. Amid the glittering new buildings in the South of Market area, the homeless are everywhere. And as San Francisco has attracted the newly moneyed tech elite, longtime residents are being pushed out.

Just blocks away from Salesforce Tower are rundown buildings that have provided low-cost housing – offering single-room occupancy, or SRO, units with shared bathrooms down the hallway. Now, in a development that would’ve been unthinkable a decade ago, there are an increasing number of companies trying to buy them up and turn them into tech worker dorms, said Fernando Marti, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.

“We’re losing that housing that had been housing for last resort for a lot of folks,” Marti said. “When we see the visibility of homelessness, that’s where a lot of that is coming from.”