Nearly 8% of people living in San Francisco and Seattle plan to move to a different city

Residents in San Francisco and Seattle are more likely to move to a different city as they experience high crime rate and homelessness, according to a new survey. 

For the first time ever, the American Housing Survey asked residents in the nation’s 15 major cities if they planned on moving, with many Dem-led cities leading the way in the looming exodus. 

About 7.6 percent of those in San Francisco said they wanted to move to a different city, with Seattle coming in second at 7.2 percent. 

Following them was Washington D.C and Detroit, who both reported that 6.8 percent of residents wished to move away, with Detroit coming in fifth at 6.6 percent. 

New York City appeared to have the most content residents out of the bunch, with only 3.2 percent saying they wished to move to another city. Both Phoenix and Philadelphia followed behind with 3.7 percent. 

More Americans living in San Francisco and Seattle said they wanted to move away than any other major city in the nation

About 7.6 percent of San Francisco residents said they’re thinking of moving away as the city continues to be plagued by crime and homelessness  

The city’s failure to quell crime has further hampered the situation, with city leaders vowing to crack down on increasingly prevalent open-air drug markets

Both San Francisco and Seattle championed the Defund the Police movement in 2020 prior to their crime spikes. Pictured: A Defund the Police protest sign in Seattle 

San Francisco’s problems began to inflate in 2019, with the pandemic only making things worse for the Golden Gate City.  

According to the latest available FBI Unified Crime Report, San Francisco had the highest overall crime rate of the 20 largest cities in the United States, recording 6,917 crimes per 100,000 population in 2019. 

That was more than double the crime rates in New York and Los Angeles, and well above the rates in the next largest US cities: Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix. 

A year later following the Black Lives Matter protests, the call to defund the police grew among Democratic leaders.  

San Francisco Mayor London Breed demanded cities defund the police last year, announcing that the Golden Gate City would be one of the first to do so and promising to slice $120million from the budgets of its police and sheriff’s departments.

The city also greenlit its first open-air drug market in San Francisco’s civic center, which spurred vagrants in homeless encampments across the city to use illegal substances out in broad daylight.  

Breed has since made a screeching U-turn and announced she was asking the city’s Board of Supervisors for more money to be given to the police to stamp out drug dealing, car break-ins, and theft.

After initial calls to defund the police, San Francisco Mayor London Breed (pictured) has made a screeching U-turn and announced she was asking the city’s Board of Supervisors for more money to be given to the police to stamp out crime

San Francisco has the highest overall crime rate of the 20 largest cities in the United States, easily exceeding the crime rates of the five largest cities (seen above)

Overall crime in the Golden Gate City is up 7.4 percent so far this year

Crime remains stubbornly high in the Golden Gate City, with overall crime up 7.4 percent as of August 14 compared to the same time last year. 

Assaults are up nearly 12 percent, and robberies are up 5.1 percent. Thefts have spiked by 15.1 percent compared to last year, and rapes have also increased by 9.7 percent.   

In June, citizens fed up with the state of their city voted to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose anti-incarceration policies have been widely panned as causing the ongoing crisis.

He was originally elected on a platform of criminal justice reform, but his notoriously progressive laws have been widely blamed for rising crime and homelessness in the Bay Area since the start of the pandemic.

Chesa Boudin (left) was ousted from his position as District Attorney in June, after critics accused him of not doing enough to keep residents and business owners safe amid a crime wave.  Brooke Jenkins (right) has since taken over and fired 15 members of Boudin’s team

During that time, San Francisco also lost 25 percent of its late-twenties white population, as the city experienced the biggest drop in household income of any US city. 

The data, compiled by the US Census Bureau, looked at the median income of the nation’s top 25 most populous metropolises from 2019 to 2021.

The Bay Area, long been known as the home of Big Tech – as well as the wealth the industry has created – saw the biggest drop in citizens’ earnings.

Median household income for the area fell from $121,551 in 2019 to $116,005 in 2021, the data shows – a reduction of 4.6 percent.

The statistic illustrates San Francisco in particular’s failure to recover following the spread of the virus, with homeless encampments and open-air drug markets since springing up and becoming commonplace.

The data also serves as fresh evidence of the city’s loss of its hallowed high-income earners – with over 72,000 moving out of Silicon Valley Between January 2020 and September 2021, according to University of California Consumer Credit Panel data.

The data, compiled by the US Census Bureau, looked at the median income of the nation’s top 25 most populous metropolises from 2019 to 2021. The data also serves as fresh evidence of Democratic-run cities’ loss of high-income earners

Meanwhile, the mass exodus of citizens deterred by rising mortgage rates, crime, and warnings of a looming recession has caused property prices along West Coast metropolitan areas to dip, due to a glut of properties on the market,

Contributing to the rapid cooldown is the country’s surging mortgage rates – which rose above a record 6 percent this summer.

Consequently, in addition to the widespread migration, the markedly less people are moving to the city amid its current state.

Since the start of the pandemic, move-ins to San Francisco are down by a marked 24 percent. The Bay Area has also failed to replace its displaced teach workers who left between March and October 2020, city data shows, restoring just 96 tech workers for every 100 tech workers that fled.

In a report by the California Policy Lab that tracks Californians’ credit history, research fellow Natalie Holmes labeled the phenomenon ‘a unique and dramatic exodus.’

Crime in Seattle has remained persistently high, with the city documenting about 3,887 violent crime reports so far this year, slowly encroaching on last year’s total of 5,407. 

Rapes and robberys appear on track to match or exceed last year’s totals, with 191 and 1,244 cases reported so far, respectively. 

The same is true of aggravated assault cases, with the city reporting 2,413 cases in 2022, coming up on the 3,316 cases reported last year. 

There have been 39 homicides in 2022, nearly as much as the 42 total recorded last year. 

The city saw it’s latest murder case in August, when distressing footage showed a disabled 66 year-old being beaten to death with a metal pole in Seattle – allegedly by a serial criminal cops say had been freed by a local judge on a separate felony charge just eight days earlier.  

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Aaron Fulk, 48, was caught on surveillance footage as he bludgeoned 66-year-old Rodney Peterman with the makeshift weapon in the city’s notoriously crime-ridden downtown.

It happened close to Seattle’s world-famous Pike Place food market, a popular tourist-hot spot, KOMO reported.  

Prosecutors say Fulk kept on beating Peterman even after the victim fell unconscious during the August 2 attack. 

Aaron Fulk, 48, was caught on camera brutally attacking 66-year-old Rodney Peterman, striking him in the back of the head multiple times with a metal pole

Surveillance footage and cell phone video clearly caught the moment Fulk carried out the brutal beating in downtown Seattle

It’s alleged Fulk was able to strike Peterman over the head at least three times 

It fractured the skull of Peterman – who had mobility issues and used a walker –  who  was struck at least three times in the back of the head and on the temple.

Although bystanders performed CPR on Peterman, he never regained consciousness and died in hospital four days later.

It’s unclear if he knew his victim before the attack, and what his motive was.

But he might not have been out on the streets at all were it not for the actions of Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Thornton.

Thornton had come across Pierce days earlier, and decided to release him without bail on felony harassment charges after he allegedly threatened to kill a local city worker.

Thornton released Fulk on his own recognizance, and asked him not to commit any more crime.

The serial criminal’s subsequent behavior has sparked fury over Thornton’s decision to ignore prosecutors’ request for $10,000 bail, and is being viewed as symbolic of Seattle’s apparent unwillingness to crack down on serious crime.

Seattle protesters are seen calling for the police to be defunded are pictured marching in August 2020. The following month the city council adopted their call, and police numbers have been falling ever since

The city of Seattle has been facing an uphill battle when it comes to tackling crime.

In July, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it filed 598 felony cases, adding up to about 30 charges filed every business day.

The majority of the charges are connected to violent or gun crimes with 21% related to domestic violence. Felony charges relating to firearms and repeat offenders were also filed each business day throughout the month.

In the city of 724,000, 16 percent of its police officers are on leave, while others have left permanently.

Between January 2020 and December 2021 at least 339 Seattle police officers retired or resigned, The Wall Street Journal reported, noting that the city has an authorized force of 1,347 but only some 1,000 deployable officers.

During summer 2020, woke ex-mayor Jenny Durkan infamously handed over a large section of the city’s once bustling Capitol Hill zone to a group of anti-police anarchists, turning the area into a hot bed of crime, and bringing businesses to their knees.

In September 2020, Carmen Best, the widely respected then-chief of Seattle police, resigned hours after the city council made good on its promise to approve sweeping proposals that would cut about 100 officers and slash the department’s budget.

The 2021 police budget, approved in September 2020, was reduced by nearly $35.6 million, or nine percent, from 2019.

A year later, the budget was cut again.

Well-paid millennials left New York and California in the THOUSANDS early on in the pandemic, many for lower-tax living in Florida and Texas 

New York and California lost tens of thousands of wealthy millennials in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, as lower-tax states like Florida and Texas saw an influx of rich young professionals, a study of tax returns reveals.

An analysis of Census Bureau and Harvard University data reveals that 15,788 more wealthy young professionals left New York than relocated there between 2019 and 2020, while California recorded a net outflow of 7,960.

Many appear to have opted for sunnier southern climes like Texas and Florida as the pandemic ravaged dense cities, forcing businesses and offices closed as millions switched to remote working on their laptops.

Texas recorded a net inflow of roughly 3,800 wealthy millennials — those aged under 35 and earning more than $100,000 per year — while Florida saw their numbers rise by 3,400.

Stephanie Horan, a data analyst for fintech firm SmartAsset, said California and New York, destinations for generations of upwardly mobile college-leavers, were ‘struggling the most to keep rich young professionals’. 

Isabelle Novak, 30, a communications manager, and her partner, software executive Reid Gridley, 29, were among the millennial-generation professionals who made a switch during the pandemic, buying their first property in Portland, Oregon

‘Combined, these two states lost more than 57,000 wealthy millennials in 2020, while gaining fewer than 34,000,’ Horan told DailyMail.com.

Texas and Florida, she added, were ‘winning big, ranking as the number one and two states, respectively, where rich young professionals are moving.’   

After New York and California, the areas with the biggest drop in numbers of wealthy young professionals were Illinois, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Louisiana, North Dakota, Virginia, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Relative to its population size, Washington, D.C. saw the largest proportion of rich young professionals moving elsewhere, with a net outflow of nearly 2,100.

The two top destination states — Texas and Florida — are both notable for having no income tax. 

A furniture delivery to Prosper, Texas. The state recorded a net inflow of some 3,800 people aged under 35 and earning more than $100,000 per year in 2020

Other states with significant inflows of moneyed young adults were Washington state, Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, Arizona, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Oregon.

The analysis of tax returns echoes other research into migration patterns in the early pandemic, when some took advantage of remote work and ditched big cities for sunnier, more rural climes with lower taxes.

Even so, some researchers say the often-touted ‘Great Migration’ was overblown, and that overall movement patterns were low, as people postponed life-cycle events such as marriages or having babies that often lead to moves.

For many, the mass movement of Americans at the start of the pandemic was exaggerated. Eight-in-ten young adults live less than 100 miles from where they grew up; and only 10 percent had moved more than 500 miles away.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s mover rate has declined steadily for decades — and the pandemic did not change that. In 2021, 8.4 percent of people had changed addresses in the previous year, compared to 9.3 percent in 2020.