Photos of San Francisco taken 10 years apart show how much the city has changed
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San Francisco has visibly changed in the last decade as tech companies and workers have continuously made themselves more comfortable in the city.
Luxury glass high-rises and tech offices have gone up, and new tech sprouting up on city streets has become so common that an office devoted to regulating emerging technologies is set to launch.
Tech money has even helped some city projects become a reality.
A lot has changed in San Francisco since 2010.
Ridesharing cars and e-scooters moved in, robots started roaming the streets, and Twitter and Uber planted their global headquarters in the city instead of down south in the Valley like their tech-giant counterparts.
Luxury glass skyscrapers have been erected, and more tech offices have sprouted up.
And perhaps nothing has shifted the cityscape as visibly as Salesforce Tower; the high-rise that houses the cloud-software giant now appears in the distance behind the most iconic views of the city.
The omnipresent tower is emblematic of big tech's growth within San Francisco in the past decade as tech companies and workers have continuously filed into city limits. The tech invasion has visibly choked much of the bohemian spirit out of the city, with decades-old music stores closing and artists being driven out.
Tech money has even enabled projects in the city to come to fruition — the Golden State Warrior's $1.4 billion world-class sports arena, for example, wouldn't have seen the light of day without big tech bucks.
Here's how some parts of San Francisco have changed within the last 10 years and what that means for the city.
The city skyline was void of the imposing Salesforce Tower in 2013, which was when construction began.
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But in 2019, the figure reigns supreme over its neighboring high-rises and even the Transamerica Pyramid.
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The Transamerica Pyramid had been the tallest building in the city ever since it was built in 1969.
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Source: Business Insider
But it was surpassed by Salesforce Tower when the high-rise was completed in 2017.
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Salesforce Tower now serves as the global headquarters for the cloud-software company. It may just be an addition to the skyline ...
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... but the prevalence of the Salesforce Tower is indicative of the footprint that the tech industry has made upon the city, specifically in the last decade, from emerging technologies to tech-branded sports arenas.
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Since 2006, AT&T signs have been displayed on the home stadium of the San Francisco Giants.
Eric Risberg/AP
Source: The San Francisco Chronicle
But AT&T relinquished the naming rights to the stadium in 2018, and the Bay Area-based Oracle seized the opening.
Jeff Chiu/AP
A price was not disclosed, but the SF Chronicle reports Oracle could have shelled out anywhere between $300 million to $350 million for a 20-year deal. The name change was an adjustment for some die-hard Giants fans, who had supported the sports team in what was then-AT&T Park for so many years.
Oracle had previously held the naming rights to the Oakland home stadium for the Golden State Warriors before the Bay Area basketball team moved to the new Chase Center in San Francisco.
The Golden State Warriors obtained the land in the city's Mission Bay neighborhood from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff for an undisclosed price for their new home stadium. Construction broke ground in 2017.
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And the glitzy new venue was completed in 2019, to much fanfare.
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The team privately financed the $1.4 billion arena thanks to backing by some of the biggest names in tech. Before the arena even opened, the team had already brought in $2 billion from the sale of tickets, suites, and corporate sponsorships. And the team will also see revenue generated from office space that was built as part of the project. The new office is set to be filled by ride-hailing giant Uber.
Uber was the one that kicked off the introduction of ride-sharing in San Francisco in 2010, without permission, with Lyft following shortly after. Before, the city's fleet of taxis ferried people around.
Jeff Chiu/AP
Now taxis account for 1/12 of the trips made by rideshare cars, according to a report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.
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Studies have shown that ride-hailing apps have contributed to increased traffic congestion, in San Francisco and in other metro areas where they're used.
Uber was the first to launch its product in San Francisco without the city's permission in what has become a trend that sees the city streets acting as a playground for tech startups looking to test new technology. Electric scooter startups would later follow suit.
Source: San Francisco County Transportation Authority
Before 2017, San Franciscans used bikes to navigate the city.
Leonardo Patrizi/Contributor/Getty Images
But in 2017, e-scooters entered the city's ecosystem, and now San Francisco is crawling with them.
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In 2017, electric scooter startups Bird and Lime launched their dockless scooters onto the streets of San Francisco without the city's permission. They were banned from the city for a short time, but it marked a shift. Since then, other scooter startups have moved in, and complaints have been made about safety as well as disorder as users can leave the scooters practically anywhere on the city's sidewalks once they're done (although there are now guidelines), since there aren't any docks.
Delivery bots have also entered the fray, like delivery startup Marble, which began testing sidewalk delivery bots in 2016 before the city's Board of Supervisors swooped in with some of the country's most restrictive regulations on delivery bots. Sidewalk congestion was one of the biggest factors.
The surprise launches in San Francisco have prompted the city to open an office devoted to regulating new tech before it enters public areas.
Despite all the growing pains, some quintessential parts of San Francisco have maintained their appearance.
Geok N. Leong/Contributor/Getty Images
The city's Chinatown district, aside from a few storefront changes, looks about the same.
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So does North Beach's City Lights Bookstore, the country's first all-paperback bookstore that opened 70 years ago.
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The bookstore published poet Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" in 1955, establishing itself as a heartbeat of the Beat Generation and a go-to destination for tourists and locals alike to this day.
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The bohemians of the 1960s and 1970s would later leave a powerful mark on the city as well. Remnants of that bohemian spirit have been pushed to the wayside as tech companies have made themselves comfortable in the city.
A 40-year-old music store in Haight Ashbury, opened by the brother of Janis Joplin's bassist, recently announced that it is closing. And though you'll still find artists around, many have joined the exodus out of the Bay Area to escape impossible living costs.
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