Parking in a "ghost town"

Regarding “How S.F. is creating ghost towns in Mid-Market and the Mission” (Letters to the Editor,” SFChronicle.com, Aug. 27):

In July, I took BART to Oakland from San Francisco for a midweek, late afternoon stroll. I walked around Old Oakland and Chinatown, and up Broadway and its side streets.

Old Oakland had some interesting shops and restaurants, and Chinatown looked dowdy. Empty storefronts and restaurants dotted the landscape.

Letter writer Ben Janken cites the lack of parking as the reason for the downturn in San Francisco. Despite street parking everywhere in Oakland, there were fewer cars and foot traffic than in downtown San Francisco. 

This is post-COVID life in Oakland and San Francisco.

What has sucked the life out of the Mid-Market area is safety concerns over the proliferation of drug users and theft, a tech community that didn’t support neighborhood businesses even before COVID, and a lack of general investment in the area.

Retail and restaurants in Mid-Market have struggled for years. Hopefully, the Better Market Street plan will be a new start.

Steve Vaccaro

San Francisco