I’m in California
I saw the headline of this article – “San Francisco falls into the abyss,” and it certainly struck home:
Some blame San Francisco’s high cost of living for the exodus. San Francisco housing costs have contributed to this loss, but many of those leaving the city are those with very high incomes who can afford to live in San Francisco. Instead, they are choosing to move to locations, many of which are also expensive, that have much more sensible city governance.
They are moving to destinations that do not have San Francisco’s drug and crime issues, its poorly performing public schools, its homelessness, its extremely high cost of doing business, and other issues that people have tolerated for so long, only because San Francisco was once one of the world’s great cities. As someone who loved San Francisco, it pains me to say it no longer is. And I suspect that those who departed San Francisco, whose exits left the city with 60,000 fewer taxpayers, feel the same way.
I’ve been coming to San Francisco very regularly for over 50 years. I’ve seen the decline firsthand, and it’s huge. I don’t spend much time anymore in a city I used to love, although I still visit several friends and relatives there. But the problems really were brought home to me – at least in a small way – on Tuesday when I flew from Boston to San Francisco.
The Jet Blue flight was great, smooth and on time. But oh, that San Francisco airport has the most bewildering (or absent) signage! The train that takes you to the car rental place is in a strange place with many twistings and turnings to find, and the airport authorities are very sparing with their signs.
Last time I was there, in the fall, car rental lines were so long that it took over an hour to actually get the car. This time? It turns out that reservations there no longer mean much, if anything. They had no cars available at any car rental company, and the room was filled with people sitting around dismally, waiting, after being told that in three hours maybe, maybe, a car would somehow arrive.
I guess if you were staying in San Francisco the situation was sort of okay; you could just Uber or Lyft to your hotel and get around that way until a car materialized (although I think you’d have to go back to the airport and wait again in order to actually receive it). For me it was no solution, since I had to go about 150 miles in that car the next day.
But in what seemed almost miraculous by then, after about two hours I managed to get a car. I don’t actually know how that happened. I’m just glad it did.
I was told this type of situation is a frequent occurrence at the San Francisco airport. The long-suffering clerk, who has to deal with all those frustrated and weary travelers, said that not only do people often keep their cars longer, but that vandals often break the auto windows and the cars have to be repaired. So the turnover is slow. And of course, the lockdowns have wreaked havoc with car rentals all over the country.
But my guess is that it’s worse in San Francisco.
I would bet that some of the rentals have the catalytic converters stolen off the cars. Big problem here in CO. HD actually had all their rental trucks out of service because of the thefts.
Neo, glad you arrived safely and the flight wasn’t a hassle.
Peace
I used to love San Francisco and spent many happy times there. The American College of Surgeons had their annual Clinical Congress there every third year until a few years ago when they gave up on the city. The annual attendance was about 50,000 people so it was costly for the city to lose. We used to drive up there when I was in college just to have fun. One year (1972) I was hosting a Dutch surgeon and his (we thought) wife. She was his mistress and the wife of a prominent architect in Holland. There was a fun place called “The Roaring Twenties” which featured a Dixieland band. Maria, the alleged wife, wound up on the stage with the band. At the end of the week we were staying for the USC football game on Saturday. We invited Gerhard and Maria to attend a USC rally Friday night.
He told me that was the most interesting part of his visit. He said that, in Germany, it would be unsafe to be stranger in a rally with martial music and drinking. In America it was all fun and everyone was having a good time. He was much impressed.
Fond memories. I haven’t been there in ten years.
I visited San Francisco regularly a bit over 30 years ago, and loved it. It was one of my favorite cities. I returned 5 years ago, and discovered that it wasn’t the city I loved, and likely never would be again.
So glad you were able to get a car in the under 3 hour window. I know a number of us are praying for traveling mercies, so I thank God for the intervention.
Yesterday, I just read a Nextdoor account of a couple that were on their way to the airport to leave Oakland and their rental car was broken into while they were in a place to stop for food. Everything taken along with the car windows and trunk broken. Our son and his family live in the East Bay. Still a beautiful area. We do not fly into San Francisco when we visit. There is a small airport in Concord and well worth the extra money to fly directly there, 10 minutes from his home. Luggage off the plane within 10 minutes and your ride right outside the cyclone fence.
Prayers that your time with Gerard will be especially blessed.
My friend, who goes up not too far from Chico, flies into Sacramento.
I agree with Sharon W. about the prayers for travel mercies. Who’s to say it doesn’t help?
I haven’t been out to see my siblings in Southern California in several years. I used to fly into LAX and take a shuttle bus. Now, I think I’ll fly into Burbank or Santa Barbara, despite additional airfare.
Video tour of Downtown LA here.
If this gets any attention at all, the mainstream media will try to debunk it and say that the videomaker happened to drive down the same street more than once, but it’s quite damning.
It’s like Biden, Newsom, Bass and others are trying to make Blade Runner a reality.
I read awhile back that rental cars are specifically targeted by thieves in SF. No one gets arrested or prosecuted and visitors aren’t going to be around to testify even if a case were brought against the thieves.
I’ve had a long-term relationship with San Francisco as well. Lived across the bay in Alameda for six years. Was domiciled at SFO three different times during my airline career. Visited friends and family there many, many times, and as recently as three years ago.
The CITY. What a beautiful vantage point overlooking the Bay and the Golden Gate. A storied place, that has been ruined by too many years of poor governance.
We visit third world countries and see this, but we never expected to see it in the USA. Marxist policies can ruin even the best of places.
Traveling is expensive these days. I just donated to Neo. It doesn’t have to be a large one if many people choose to do so.
Thank you for all your work over the years Neo.
A few years before I left the Bay Area, probably around fifteen years ago, I gave up on SFO and OAK. No one ever thinks of Sacramento as “in the neighborhood” of the Bay Area, but if you are dealing with any travel north of the Dumbarton Bridge, SAC is MUCH easier to deal with.
This being, at least on the local level, more or less a democracy, it’s not a bad idea to suggest they did it to themselves.
I wonder if, looking at the inevitable result of their vote, they go ahead because “it’s the right thing to do”.
And, of course, somebody else will be paying the price.
I had surgery in Sacramento thirteen months ago, the first time I had visited in several decades. I was stunned by the tent cities, the homelessness, and the societal decay. I think most of us know, by reputation if not by first-hand experience, just how bad San Francisco and much of CA is, but seeing it with our own eyes is just stunning. And yes, the car break-ins in the city are legendary now. Who’s going to stop them? Not law enforcement.
Marxism? Maybe not — it might just be venal politicians who think they can use the public purse to buy votes ad infinitum, and never suffer the circumstances. I wonder if there ever will any repercussion, and I fear not.
I had many conversations with the IMF representative in Bangui when I was assigned to our embassy there in the early nineties. One day he told me he had discovered the Central African government would go bankrupt in the next month if there was no change in policy. I asked him what happens when a government goes bankrupt. He didn’t know.
Maybe one of these days soon we’ll find out what happens when the government of San Francisco or California goes bankrupt. Maybe we’ll even find out what happens when the US government goes bankrupt. I hope I’m not around to find out.
There are no nonstop flights to and from Sacramento, so the air journey becomes far longer. And I usually also visit friends and relatives in San Francisco as well. So that’s why I don’t generally fly to Sacramento.
My Mom worked there in an Armaments Factory during WWII.
That’s where my Mom and Dad met, on a blind date. He was on leave from the War. Honeymooned at the Drake Hotel I believe.
We stopped there to and from Hawaii in the mid 50’s when he got orders there.
I visited San Francisco 40 years ago when I had a few days stopover on my way to East Asia – I loved it! Although, I’ll admit I didn’t do much else besides ride cable cars all over; I had a blast doing just that.
I’ve often thought of revisiting; but, having colleagues who work there and hearing their horror stories of what the city has become I think I prefer at this point to just have the pleasant memories of that city by the bay.
And the denizens of SF are still voting into office those who created and/or maintain and/or worsen the problem.
Just another illustration that when people enter a voting booth, they must be stepping into another, not-of-this-earth, dimension that disables the brain’s capacity to think, because they continue to vote for those who support and increase the homeless/crime problem (much of which is due to drug addiction or mental illness).
I am assuming of course that the folks of SF find their homeless / crime problem unacceptable; but then again I could be all wrong.
Philly’s Kensington’s district – a gathering point for drug addicts – is another example of the great job demokrat politicians and DAs are doing.
See here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwQ3JZR7Iug
As in SF, the folks in Philly also keep voting in the same politicians that created the problem.
Maybe someone can help me out here:
I cannot figure out where the drug addicts living on the streets get the $$$ to buy drugs?
I can’t imagine that their criminal activities provide the $$$ they need to purchase their drugs.
Can someone shed light on this???
John Tyler: I saw a video last year, by Shellenberger I think, in which some of the homeless addicts in Venice Beach CA were interviewed. They said they had come there from southern states because California pays them.
I biked all around sf yesterday. I know my way around having lived there for 21 years but not for the last 20. Drugs got so cheap and welfare so good bums hardly beg at all. And it is so pretty still. But rapidly becoming unlivable. The problem is the voters. They vote in the homeless industrial complex that makes everything worse and permanent. All bums should move there. Bum and criminal life is the best in sf
stan on January 26, 2023 at 2:51 pm said:
I read awhile back that rental cars are specifically targeted by thieves in SF.
I think that is the case world wide. An Egyptian friend of mine had his rental car vandalized and had all his luggage stolen in Spain. In Florida, in the past, British tourists were targeted. It is probably more frequent in SFO because of the collapse of law enforcement.
I last visited SF a decade ago. We rented a Smart Car for kicks & giggles – bad choice due to potholes everywhere. At least the unobtrusive little thing wasn’t broken into. We stayed on the west side of town at the Seal Rock Inn, where Hunter Thompson wrote Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972.
Simpler, more innocent, less dystopian times. Bless you, Neo, for doing your duty.
SF has lost 6.3% of it’s population:
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-population-decline-us-census-data-17203868.php
I was born & raised on the San Francisco peninsula. SF was “the city.” “Baghdad by the bay”. Special occasions were celebrated there (the Cliff House). As a kid I remember the “Sherwin Williams covers the earth” neon sign – “big” dates were taken to the Tiki Room at the Fairmont. My grandparents lived in the city.
I am saddened as this beautiful city falls into 3rd world conditions.
My son took some friends from Sweden there a few years ago. Car was broken into and everything of value (and much of no value) was stolen. A rent-a-cop watched it all and did nothing. Very sad.
I’m part of the SF exodus. 1982-2016.
I always knew I lived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I had my ups and downs, but I was always grateful I lived in San Francisco. I’m still grateful I did.
I am so sorry to see its decline.
Anyone who refuses to lie in the bed they’ve made, reveals the depth of their moral cowardice. Those who voted for those who championed and implemented those policies of disaster, stand guilty of the ruin they have enabled.
I lived in central Contra Costa Co. for 40 years, 1977-2017, and still have family there. You might find another airline that flies into Sacramento (although I guess you won’t need to anymore). A friend flew from Newark(?) NJ to Sacramento (2016) to visit me. Even then I requested Sacramento airport. She may have had one stop along the way. I now live in TX: Southwest has direct flights to Sacramento from here. TX is not perfect, but you couldn’t pay me to live in CA again. My move here was one of the best things I ever did.
The road to opportunity is paved with Californians.
–Firesign Theatre
_______________________
It could be cruel, but to a more modest measure the California miracle worked for millions of people for decades.
Now, not so much.
San Jose airport (Silicon Valley) is just 45 minutes south of SFO, clean, safe and always has cars if there is not a major convention.
I have frequent business in the Valley but refuse to go to the city, even skipping conventions downtown I should probably go to.
My condolences to you, and prayers and thoughts to Gerard. I loved his blog and was always amused when he commented here, and am now pleased knowing the reason he did. When I read he started his blog in in 2001 I couldn’t believe I’d been reading him that long but did the math and it’s right. I had my own blog for some years in the the early 2000s and assumed it was then when I stumbled over both of you. Can’t believe it’s been around 20 years.
God speed to Gerard, and you hang in there.
I’ll know that SF is circling the drain when 1) the Giants relocate to Vancouver (to replace the Montreal Expos); 2) the A’s return to their city of origin (Philly); and 3) the Pelosis pack their bug-out bags for New Zealand.
}}} And of course, the lockdowns have wreaked havoc with car rentals all over the country.
I think the problem is Cali and/or SF.
From August of 2020 to April of 2022, I had a job that had me travelling routinely from my home in FL to many other locations, and renting cars there.
These places included:
Greenville SC
Charlotte, NC
Houston, TX
Chicago, IL
Madison, WI
Milwaukee, WI
Newark, NJ
Auburndale, FL
Phoenix, AZ
Never once did I have any issues with a car rental, either availability or otherwise… And that’s probably a good 25-30 rentals, at least.
Anyone else remember SF in 1967, the so-called Summer of Love? That was the summer after my freshman year of college, and Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco” was the unofficial anthem of the counterculture:
If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there
For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair
The song is almost unbearably ironic 56 years later, while the video (with lyrics) manages to make SF look like a city worth visiting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPy1JBlxcI&ab_channel=MEGAet3
I left my heart in San Francisco
My camera, phone, and wallet too.
The lovely little cable cars where riders sit behind iron bars,
The homeless people fill the square, the pols don’t care
My love was once for San Francisco
But now it’s doomed, dysfunctionally.
I won’t come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun went dark for me
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tonybennett/ileftmyheartinsanfrancisco.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLS5m5-b52w
AesopFan–
I see that Tony Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s some time around 2016, although it didn’t affect his performances until 2021 or thereabouts. He’s 96, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he outlives San Francisco.
Speaking of SF’s long history as a refuge for nonconformists, do you know George Sterling’s poem, “The Cool, Grey City of Love–San Francisco”? Sterling was a California transplant from Long Island who was famous in the pre-WWI era for his poetry, his membership in the Bohemian Club, and his acting in the plays put on the Bohemian Grove. Sterling was married but was nonetheless a predatory tomcat. Among his many women was a poet who killed herself with cyanide in 1907 following an abortion. Sterling’s wife divorced him in 1913 and died of cyanide poisoning in 1918, and Sterling himself took cyanide in 1926 at the age of 56. A detailed account of Sterling’s role in shaping an early version of the Bay Area’s counterculture– including its fascination with a destructive lifestyle– can be found in a 2018 essay from Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/146051/bohemian-tragedy
As for Sterling’s poem about SF: here are the first and last stanzas:
Tho I die on a distant strand,
And they give me a grave in that land,
Yet carry me back to my own city!
Carry me back to her grace and pity!
For I think I could not rest
Afar from her mighty breast.
She is fairer than others are
Whom they sing the beauty of.
Her heart is a song and a star—
My cool, grey city of love. . . .
Tho they stay her feet at the dance,
In her is the far romance.
Under the rain of winter falling,
Vine and rose will await recalling.
Tho the dark be cold and blind,
Yet her sea-fog’s touch is kind,
And her mightier caress
Is joy and the pain thereof;
And great is thy tenderness,
O cool, grey city of love!
The complete poem can be found here:
https://allpoetry.com/The-Cool,-Grey-City-of-Love–San-Francisco
It’s a bit much for my taste, though it does provide an interesting take on the kind of love on offer in SF. I can only imagine what George Sterling would make of today’s drug den by the bay.
I was in college during the Sixties and I knew the “gentle” thing. We even had a “gentle Thursday” one time where…everybody was supposed to be nice to each other. Some congregated tenting that week, nobody watching. Some predators–being watchful was not gentle–and the usual stuff resumed shortly. You can’t do gentle for long.
I hadn’t been to San Francisco at that time, but I’d been in the Boy Scouts and would shortly be in the Army which would reinforce my belief that if you have indoor plumbing, everything else is gravy.
I do not grok the enormous output of professed love for any place except for one’s nation, and that for reasons not applying to SF.
What is Sterling’s “love”? Are people nicer to him in SF than in other places? Is sea fog better there than at Nauset Beach on Cape Cod?
I did tour San Francisco. There were some nice buildings–world’s full of them–and some hills.
Two things about California had in emotional impact. I think was in San Luis Obispo where there’s an old monastery. I sat in the garden and I don’t think the feeling of….peace was entirely self-generated.
And on I5, full dark on an overpass with a gas station. full dark, furnace wind, no lights except for the other truck stop, out to the horizon. wondered what planet I was on.
Some years back, a friend had several misfortunes, which are not usually coincident, strike all at once. Happened at a Wesco station. Between customers and staff, he could not have been treated better and helped more. Not only were people right on it, they knew what to do.
The Sixties gentle, if I recall, thought knowing what to do in various difficult circumstances could be overdone and was not gentle. Useful but, you know, not our kind, dear.
All of which said, did some version of gentle, specific to SF, require the locals to shoot themselves in the foot as they have?
My liberal brother has lived in SF since 1981. He’s seen the decline. But he won’t acknowledge that the Dems created it.
Last time I was there, all sorts of homeless people.
The tragedy is that SF was once one of the greatest cities in the world and now it is a third-world shithole.
I particularly like the reparations proposal. He and his wife would be out $500k.
I remember driving over the Golden Gate Bridge in the 80s to head up to Napa. Magical.
I haven’t been there in 30 years.
I’d prefer to remember it, and the rest of the state where I grew up, as it was then.
PA+Cat: California native (and recent state poet laureate) Dana Gioia has written about San Francisco’s literary history:
https://danagioia.com/essays/literature-in-california/fallen-western-star-the-decline-of-san-francisco-as-a-literary-region/
No mention of Sterling in the online text of Gioia’s essay. Have to check Jack Foley’s book.
I first visited San Francisco in 1980. It was beautiful and safe. By the time of my last visit in 2003, the deterioration was noticeable but not yet overwhelming. Like CC, I prefer to remember it as it was when I first saw it.
San Francisco was certainly one of my favorite cities. So sad one has to use the past tense now when lauding it. I watched Chicago deteriorate in the ’70s, only to see it turn around incredibly in the ’90s and now it descends again. In the ’70s I agreed with Carter and thought it was an inescapable malaise; the entropy of American greatness waning. But it turns out it was political leadership. We got another Mayor Daley in office and the city rose, like a phoenix from the ashes. And now, Lori Lightfoot lights the fires and returns it to ash. Giuliani ushered in a similar, amazing turn around for New York around the same time, and, like Chicago, the heirs to his work usher in decay through sloth and spite.
Regarding car rentals:
Over the past several years I have frequently rented cars at the Jacksonville, Florida airport and the staff at all the agencies are extremely friendly, helpful and efficient. It’s impressive. I don’t know what they know that other airports don’t, but they have it figured out.
California is so rich in resources, beauty, infrastructure and human talent (even given its deterioration) that it wouldn’t that hard to turn it around with proper governance and a realistic electorate.
Few places on the planet have the luxury of screwing up so badly and coming back.
In a way California’s wealth has been a curse, like the rich kid with a trust fund who can defer consequences for a dangerously long time.
Perhaps California will die in the metaphorical gutter with a needle in its arm. That’s not how I would bet though,
David Rubin was in SF visiting twitter, and took this video of SF commenting he wanted to wear a mask…
https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1618422328937033728
Musk’s comment on the twitter code is priceless. ““a flaming dumpster rolling down the street.”
https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1618673857988272130?cxt=HHwWhIDRiYfT1_YsAAAA
I’m so sorry for your loss of a person so much a part of your life. That is a huge loss. Wishing you some peace on it, in time.
As for San Francisco, like many, I’ve traveled there a lot over my life. At one time I lived out that way (San Rafael), but it was SF that always drew me. It once was so unique an American city, so pleasant and different in amazing in so many ways. Now it’s so unpleasant and closer to a 3rd world landscape than a great city. Even though I traveled there for work many times over the years, about 6 or so years ago I quit staying in the city, choosing instead to stay in Marin Co. somewhere more civilized. A place where I did not have to step over a prostrate human laying in his own piss to enter into my hotel. As for SFO, it has always been a CF in my book. The winding trail to the car rental is bizarre, as are the elevators to get to your floor. But..in the last few years it was for a good cause: to get my car and drive north of the city. I would do my business everyday IN the city, then leave it to drive back to Marin Co. to stay in my hotel. San Francisco’s greatness will be talked about for years, but it’s greatness has passed. Much like my hometown of Detroit. Once great cities that will have to fight like hell to regain their reputations as great cities. That will take years, and very different leaders, if it ever does happen.
Rubin’s Twitter thread is excellent.
Back up a bit from the link Ray posted for the beginning.
https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1618667912377810945
It was Tennessee Williams who said “America has only three cities, New York, San Francisco & New Orleans Everywhere else is Cleveland.” My older sister lived in Mill Valley & Alameda in the mid/late 1970’s so I would spend a lot of time visiting a great city. Loved The Buena Vista–now you couldn’t pay me to go there.
I actually did have the opportunity to be in San Francisco for a couple of days in the late 1970s. I enjoyed seeing at least some of the iconic sights, took a ferry to somewhere in the Bay, and saw the Golden Gate Bridge.
Although I can appreciate the city’s appeal, I had no desire to stay longer.
San Francisco, a city with no summer.
Some years back, I went to a wedding at a New Age place on Old Topanga Canyon Road.. NW of Los Angeles. Below the Inn of The Seventh Ray–the wedding venue–was a New Age retail shop.
I was in the middle of doing a little business with a New Age publication, so I went there to see if they subscribed. Another guy was there, trying to sell the proprietor a couple of cartons of a photographic trip up he Amazon.
They were both doing business, careful to speak in New Age.
After that was over, I asked the proprietor if he subscribed to the magazine. He was still kind of annoyed and thought I was trying to sell a subscription. His New Age deserted him as he blew me off.
Quite an amount of effort on everybody’s part to act the part.
Glad none of that was required of me.
Kate —
I’ve had to fly to LA a couple times for work in the last ten years, and Santa Ana/John Wayne Int’l is (was?) very nice and usually nearly deserted.
Loved The Buena Vista… — Bill Serra
I loved the Buena Vista. My first real software job was in Fisherman’s Wharf, just a block from the Buena Vista. It was the first authentic San Francisco restaurant I ate at.
Supposedly, the Irish Coffee was invented at the Buena Vista. That’s what they say.
Armistead Maupin started his “Tales of the City” series with Maryanne Singleton, the Everywoman character, visiting SF then changing her life after drinking three Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista.
My mother lived in San Francisco as a twenty-something in the 1950s, and her sister lived in Santa Rosa, so when I was a kid in the ’70s we visited several times. At first I was too young to get more of an impression than “ooh big city!!” but I remember some of the sights and places, but when I was 13 in 1978 I found the waterfront and Chinatown to be unlike any place I’d ever visited or even heard of.
In the ’90s I happened to visit a few times since my then-brother-in-law was at USF. The Haight was interesting, and Chinatown was pretty much the same as it had been, and one time we drove all over the city to see how all the parts fit together and so I got to see Sunset and the Castro and the Mission and all the areas I’d never seen before. It was a great experience, but it felt like the city was just starting to go downhill from the high point of the ’80s, and I remember being struck by how closed-off the residential area around the university felt, with no windows on the street. I expect that was probably due to rising crime.
At this point, you couldn’t get me to go back on a bet.
I’ve only been to San Francisco once, in ’70 when I was 14 years old. I suppose my parents took us to all the usual tourist spots, but the only real memory that I still have is riding on a crowded cable car, where some faggot with a big erection was grinding into my ass. At that tender age I didn’t really know what was happening, but I didn’t think it was right. I turned around to look at him, some guy in his late twenties I guess, and he just gave me an embarrassed smile and then backed off.
Has the city changed much since then?
Is there any particular reason you don’t fly in to Oakland or San Jose (though, if you’re going to Sacto, SJC would extend your drive by a good bit.) I don’t know about where you’re coming from, but I can get direct flights to both out of Austin.
I grew up in Alameda county (east of the hills), and my parents still live there. I don’t think I’ve flown into SFO in over 20 years, and that was only because we were catching a Giants game Sunday afternoon and I was flying back to WA immediately after.
Oakland especially would shorten the drive to Sacto, and no need to fight through the Bay Bridge approaches.
Dave L:
I used to always fly to Oakland till they ended all nonstop flights there from Boston. There are no nonstops to San Jose from Boston, either. Nor to Sacramento. Also, this is the first time I’ve ever had car rental trouble in SF.