New York City not only pulled out of the death spiral but came out of it 100x stronger than before. Most people don't remember when Times Square used to be a wa

New York City not only pulled out of the death spiral but came out of it 100x stronger than before. Most people don't remember when Times Square used to be a warren of brothels and drug dens, even though most of the people on HN were alive when the changeover happened. L.A. pulled out of a decades-long spiral within the past 15 years (Skid Row notwithstanding), as developers took advantage of high demand and low/0% interest. Staples Center and Bottega Louie deserve a lot of the credit for that. Cleveland did...eventually. It took decades of home-grown investment and federal tax dollars. Washington D.C. did. Mostly. As with Cleveland, it took years, largely because Congress controls a lot of its budget and purse strings and it was convenient to use the Capitol as a punching bag. Detroit is still in the process of pulling out of its decades-long spiral. It's no longer at rock bottom, but it's still got a long way to go. It's hard to say whether SF is starting a doom spiral or just returning to its naturally seedy state (SF was a port city before it was a tech hub, with all of the seedy establishments that being a port city entails). Only time will tell.