35 percent of San Franciscans consider leaving for good, according to city survey

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Controller’s Office released additional data from the city’s annual resident survey, this time detailing how many people think about leaving SF in the near future.

The city, which released most of its survey data in May, conducted the poll using 2,218 San Franciscans between November 2018 through February 2019.

The question of whether or not people will leave San Francisco has proved something of a preoccupation for pollsters in recent years; according to the city’s own assessment, most residents are neither more nor less likely to ponder relocation today than in the recent years:

• Among those polled, 20 percent say they’re “somewhat likely” to leave, and another 15 percent say they’re “very likely.” Note that this leaves one percent undecided.
• On the other hand, 42 percent say they’re “not likely at all” to leave the city within the next three years. Another 22 percent characterize themselves as “not too likely.”
• The combined 35 percent of those “somewhat” or “very likely” to depart is about the same as it was in 2005, and “relatively consistent” with the trend during the interring years.
• Younger people and people who have lived here the shortest times are more likely to consider leaving—48 percent of those under 35 considered themselves at least “somewhat likely” to relocate, versus just 22 percent of those 55 or older—and renters are almost twice as likely to leave as residents who own homes.

Looking back at 2005 (the year San Francisco first started including this question on its survey), the Controller’s Office found at the time that one in three residents were “somewhat” or “very likely” to leave, while another 67 percent said it was unlikely. The 2005 survey covered 3,635 people.

The city also notes that, per the U.S. Census estimates from 2013 to 2017, half of the people who left San Francisco move somewhere else in the Bay Area, with Alameda County the most common destination. Another 20 percent who leave relocate somewhere else in California.

According to the U.S. Census, San Francisco’s population continues to rise annually, albeit at a slower rate in recent years. The biggest contributor to the city’s population increase is immigration, which makes up for the city’s net negative outflow from other U.S. cities.