Next San Francisco Mayor Sees City Making a Big Comeback

A year ago, Daniel Lurie could move anonymously through the streets of his home city. But on a recent walking tour here, the newly elected mayor was greeted as a celebrity.

- JIM CARLTON

"Clean up the streets and the homeless, please," an older woman implored, shaking Lurie's hand vigorously. "We're going to," he responded with a smile, tightening his jacket against the morning fog as he resumed his stroll through a financial district still hobbled from the pandemic.

In recent years, no American metropolis has drawn more headlines about civic dysfunction than notably liberal San Francisco. Now, the storied city's renaissance rests on Lurie, a moderate Democrat and Levi Strauss heir whose victory over incumbent London Breed and four other City Hall veterans marked the first time since 1911 that voters here chose a mayor with no government experience - a reflection of the appetite for change.

Tech backing

Lurie, 47 years old, assumes office Jan. 8 with plans for swift action on the myriad problems that knocked San Francisco from its tech-boom heights. His initial agenda: Declaring a fentanyl state of emergency; reinvigorating the depleted police force; and ordering his direct reports at City Hall back to the office full time to set an example-and attack an office-vacancy rate topping 35%, the highest among major U.S. cities.

And while President-elect Donald Trump has counsel in Elon Musk, Lurie has allies in San Francisco's tech sector, which after years of staying out of local politics has been pushing to move the city toward the center and make it a more amenable place to live and work. Lurie named OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-chair of his transition team and appointed former Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal to a newly created position, as San Francisco's first-ever chief of housing and economic development.