Unlike seemingly every other mayor in the country, San Francisco’s London Breed was not interested in playing Amazon’s HQ2 game.

“I got enough to worry about,” she said on the latest episode of Recode Decode with Kara Swisher.

Breed’s shortlist of worries includes a homelessness epidemic, mental health care reform, public drug use, streets so dirty she had to convene a “poop patrol,” a shortage of affordable housing for middle-class workers, and policymakers who would be happy to see more housing built so long as it doesn’t cast a shadow on a public park.

But as she approaches the end of her first year in her office, Breed also has a valuable card to play: San Francisco is a city with a low unemployment rate and many skilled workers, so Breed can pressure their prospective Big Tech employers to be part of the solution.

“It wasn’t necessarily a tech company, but I had a company in my office who wanted to expand, and usually most mayors would be really excited about that,” she said. “But I said, ‘So where’s your workforce? Where are your additional 400 employees going to come from? Where are they going to live?’”

“It’s not to say people aren’t invited, but it’s to say if you’re going to expand, there has to be some accountability,” Breed added. “How are you going to invest more in San Francisco?”

On the new podcast, she also talked about a new initiative called Opportunities For All, which aims to place all San Francisco high school students in paid internships. She singled out Airbnb for its support of the initiative, indicating that despite some past “challenges,” the company is “rolling up their sleeves to be better community partners.”

“I want them to invite internships in their businesses and not where the kids are kind of pushed to the side, I want these to be meaningful internships so that they learn about this industry, about what’s possible in engineering, HR, or anything,” Breed said. “I want them to be committed to really investing in our future in San Francisco.”

You can listen to Recode Decode wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Overcast.

Below, we’ve shared a lightly edited full transcript of Kara’s conversation with Mayor Breed.

Kara Swisher: You just got back from something. Where were you just at?

London Breed: I was just at Grace Cathedral, we were having a solidarity concert for Notre Dame, and just what happened there just with the Paris people who live here. We have over 60,000 people who live in San Francisco that are from Paris, and great musicians, the opera, the symphony, really heartfelt event with the Consulate of France and so many amazing people. So, I had to sneak out of church. I felt kind of bad. You guys remember the finger, right? When you walk ... Okay, maybe that’s just the black churches.

Yeah. Yeah, I run out of churches, before they fall down. So, anyway … I am so excited to have you here. I’ve been wanting to do a podcast with you and an interview with you, and live interviews are my favorite thing. We have a lot to talk about, we have a lot to cover, so let’s just go right in. Let’s start talking about ... Where should we start with San Francisco? So many topics. Let’s talk about how you feel about being mayor. I’ll give you an easy one, how is it going so far?

It’s challenging, but I gotta tell you, like sitting in Grace Cathedral today, I was looking up at the beautiful ceilings and just the windows and just thinking, “Wow, this is a beautiful facility, this is an amazing city.” And I can’t even believe that I’m mayor of the place that I was born and raised in, that is really how I’m feeling.

So, when you think about getting that job, when you thought about doing it, the circumstances to get here recently has been unusual, what did you think your biggest job was? Because one of the ... obviously there’s the issues around ... we’ll get into homelessness, we’ll get into housing, we’ll get into all the big issues, but what did you think of as your biggest job?

I think my biggest job for me, because this is why I got into politics in the first place, is honestly to really change the future of San Francisco to make sure that people who, sadly, grow up in poverty don’t have to have the kinds of experiences that I had to have growing up in San Francisco. You know, I just think of prevention, prevention, prevention, how do I stop something bad from happening so that people can have a better future, a better opportunity?

I felt like my biggest job was to really address that with the decisions that we make, whether it’s policy decisions, whether it’s how we invest our resources in this city, and also making good decisions. And, of course, not providing any false promises that something is actually going to effectively work when we know that it isn’t. And so, being realistic about what we can do and making sure we make the right investments, and doing things differently so that we can get better results. I mean, that’s really how I felt about being an elected official, a public servant and all the work that I continue to do in the communities that I serve, so that’s what I felt my job was.

How do you assess San Francisco, then, right now? How would you honestly assess the city of San Francisco right now?

I will say that it’s heartbreaking to see how much it’s changed. So as I said, I grew up here, and I actually grew up in public housing and poverty, in a neglected community. And I also feel like ... I see just, really, the changes in the communities, like I walk even in the Western Addition, and I feel like I grew up here, but I don’t really recognize my own community anymore. And I also see just more homelessness, I think, than even when I was growing up here, because honestly, there were affordable places for people to live. And back then, too, there were more families here, and so, even though a lot of us didn’t have a lot of money, we still had a lot of family members who lived with us, so there were places for people to live. And it’s just changed a lot.

I mean, sadly, there’s always been challenges with homelessness, but now, it’s difficult for people to find housing. I mean, I was just talking to one of my friends about the public housing I grew up in, and some of you might have grown up here in San Francisco, across the street from the Pink Palace, and it was called Plaza East, and it was nicknamed “OC: Out-of-Control Projects.” And if you weren’t African American, you didn’t walk through where I lived. And I saw someone pushing a baby stroller and riding a bike and I just was like, “Whoa.” It’s changed significantly.

And, I think, part of the challenge is, as it changed, it kind of pushed out a lot of people and also left behind a lot of people. And the kinds of policies that, I think, we put forth in San Francisco, some have been good policies that have helped people, but in other cases there’s been unintended consequences that have created what, I think, has a real significant divide.

People have talked a lot about income inequality, I mean, that’s not new, income inequality has existed, I know definitely, in San Francisco since as long as I can remember. And part of what we have to do in addressing the challenges that we face as a city is to also remember and start thinking about young people now, and that’s why I’m pushing for providing, through Opportunities for All, paid internships for all high school students, because we have to make sure that that’s not the difference between, sadly, what happened in my community...

And I keep going back to this, but like, it wasn’t hard to go sell drugs in the Tenderloin, or even in my neighborhood, it wasn’t hard to go downtown and steal things and then sell those things for money. People in my community, sadly, did things that landed them behind bars and in terrible situations, because they needed money. And so, I want to cut back on the barriers to accessing money so that people are able to generate enough money to take care of themselves.

So, let’s start with homelessness. Obviously, it’s … do you consider it your biggest problem? Because now it’s across the entire city.

It’s definitely ... and across the entire state of California.

California, absolutely. It’s obviously increased everywhere. I can tell you, in my neighborhood, it’s never been ... I mean, there’s tents on every street. It’s bad for the citizens, it’s bad for the homeless, it’s bad for the police. Do you consider it your No. 1 problem? Or is it just the visible problem of other things happening?

I would say it’s the No. 1 priority. It’s important in terms ... Because yes, it’s more visible. But also, there are real ... if it were easy, as easy as helping to get people housed, that’s an easy thing to do in comparison to trying to help people who struggle with mental illness and substance use disorder and a number of challenges.

I mean, just working with some of these individuals, which I have, even before I was mayor, to try and get people into supportive services is a real challenge, it’s complicated. And the reality is, we don’t have all of the tools that we need in terms of our laws, especially with our state law, that allows us to really help people the way that I know we can in San Francisco. So, to say we’re going to solve this problem, it’s not realistic without changes to our conservatorship laws for people who are struggling with mental illness.

Senator Scott Wiener is working on a bill right now in Sacramento, but that is not going far enough. Our jails and our hospitals are being used to cycle people in and out. You see it, you see it all over San Francisco, sadly, someone who is clearly struggling, and the police come, the police may take them to the hospital or take them to jail, depending on the situation, 72 hours later, after a 5150 hold, they’re right back in the same place, doing the same thing.

And we’re wondering, what is the city doing? Why can’t the city do something to stop that person from taking off all their clothes and running in the middle of the street where they almost got hit by a car, or all of the things that we are seeing in our city more than we ever have before? And so, part of it is we need some major changes, major money for mental health reform.

What would you like? What would you want, as mayor?

So, first of all, I hired a new mental health reform director to look at ways in which we can improve the number of mental health stabilization beds we have, wraparound supportive services, and just really shining a light on mental health reform in our healthcare system, period. We are starting that on the local level, but what I would like to see, on a statewide level, is I want to see changes to state policy, which give us the ability to really enhance our conservatorship laws, so that we can provide a guardian who can make decisions for someone who clearly can’t make decisions for themselves. That is definitely something that’s really needed.

That will entail them staying longer in these facilities? Because that was one of the ... during the Reagan administration, everybody was turned out.

Yeah, and it’s not about putting a time limit on staying in a facility because it’s not one kind of mental illness, people are struggling with various layers of challenges, which in some instances may require that they go into a facility, and they may stay a short period of time and then transition into housing, like the Richardson Apartments where we have wraparound supportive services for people who are mentally ill but still need someone to help them and support them, and they, you know, live their lives and they go out and do what they do, but they also have support, like family members or friends or social workers.

But then there are other folks who may need a longer time period. Sadly, you know, the psychosis cause now from this, this craziness with all of the drug use, it’s sometimes not even reversible. So, how do you help someone like that? Part of it is, you don’t lock them up and throw away the key, they need medical help and support, the appropriate diagnosis, the appropriate plan of action. And again, we don’t have the tools to force anyone into that.

How do you think about policing? I was just thinking on my way home today, I saw three people using heroin, just walking. I was just walking in downtown San Francisco. And it was common, I’ve seen it over and over again, I think, most people have that experience. Anywhere you are in the city now at all. How do you instruct the police to behave in these situations?

So, I think for the most part, you know, the police’s job is if someone, unfortunately, is committing a crime, their responsibility is to address it, whether it’s a citation, whether it’s an arrest or what have you. And that’s what their role is. And the challenge is, for example, yeah, we all sadly see people out in the streets shooting up. But when you think about it, arresting someone who’s shooting up is not going to help them.

So, part of one of the other things that I think is important, yes, we need to crack down on drug dealing and address those issues, but how many years has it been and that continues to be a problem? So, the fact is, sadly, people who struggle with substance use disorder, they end up with drugs, and then what happens? You know, we don’t provide, I think, a good plan around treatment. So part of what we’re doing here in San Francisco is our Department of Public Health employees have ways to provide this new drug, and please don’t ask me to pronounce it, but they’re out there, and they can provide treatment on demand.

And one of the reasons why I support safe injection sites and want to make sure that we have safe injection sites here in San Francisco is because, sadly, once someone gets ahold of their drugs, I want them to have a safe place to be, so they’re, No. 1, not overdosing, No. 2, it’s not out in the streets, No. 3, the needles aren’t everywhere in the streets. But most important, I want to be able to be the place that someone who’s struggling with addiction can get help. So, that’s the place that they’re going to go and they’re going to say, “Well, you know, Derwin, he helped me last time, he welcomes me with a smile, that’s who I need to go to.” And we need to meet people where they are: As soon as they tell us that they’re ready to get help, we need to be able to provide that support.

What’s the reaction from citizens to this, to the idea of helping people? Has it gotten harder? I mean, these are harder times, you know, the whole country has this sort of ...

Helping people in what capacity?

Not help, like moving. Other municipalities have done much tougher things. This is not what San Francisco will ever do, presumably? And should not?

Well, I think there’s a balance. I mean, what has being tough on crime really done for us in terms of just locking people up and throwing away the key? I think that we need to focus a lot on rehabilitation, we need to focus on understanding that just because we don’t like what someone is doing that all of a sudden they’re going to disappear, or what they’re doing is going to stop, and so, just looking at different ways.

I’m not saying that people who commit really horrible crimes, there should not be consequences for that kind of thing, I’m just saying that we need to look at things differently: How do we provide the kind of support that’s going to hopefully help this person, and help change this person, or get them on the right path in some capacity, or to do something different? So, for example, we are really cracking down on the drug dealing. But we take the drugs, we take the money, and then folks, sadly, are right back on the streets, doing the same thing, but it doesn’t mean that we stop, right? Because the other side of that is trying to offer people support, trying to offer people employment opportunities.

So, talking about the image of San Francisco, because, I think, is there more ... Do you feel more pressure from some citizens to clean it up? I mean, did you think that was your job? Because, I think, when you look nationally, they’re always pointing at San Francisco as, sort of, an Armageddon like ... I’ve watched different news things seem to write it like that, how do you look at that as mayor?

I take it personal, because, like I said, I grew up here. And my grandmother, she said, “Just because we live in the projects doesn’t mean that we don’t take care of our community.” And I would go kicking and screaming, she would make us clean up the front, pick up trash, take the water and the soap and clean up the stairs. And that kind of stuck with me. I always felt that sense of pride and taking care of and cleaning up my community.

So, it’s not about, necessarily, what other people are saying, it’s about, what are we doing as a city? No matter what your circumstances are, we also have to take responsibility. Yes, we can pour millions of dollars, which we are, into pit stops, where people can use the restroom, and millions of dollars into cleaning up the poop and picking up the needles and cleaning up the trash. 311 has been an incredible tool that people can call to get things cleaned up and picked up.

But ultimately, we have to start changing the behavior of all of our citizens. It’s not just homeless people who are throwing crap on the ground. I mean, I’ve confronted people out on the streets who just walk in and had a sandwich and just finish a couple of bites and threw it on ... And I’m like, “What are you doing? What are you doing?” They’re like, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mayor.”

You, sort of, do that once it starts to get messy, do you know what I mean? It leads to... It’s the broken glass theory. The idea that if it’s messy, what the hell? It creates that.

I think part of it is ...

I get it, I chase people around my neighborhood all the time.

Yeah, I think nowadays people are so caught up in their gadgets and everything else that we don’t always talk to one another …

We’ll get to the techies soon.

… and sometimes people are like, “Well, it’s not my problem.” Or you never know how somebody is going to react because you just never know. And for me, I just ... maybe it’s my grandmother and maybe because even when I was running an arts organization, the kids, they’re like, “Oh, you better pick that up, here comes London.” That sort of thing. And then these kids grew up in this environment where they felt it was their responsibility to clean up their neighborhood.

And so, I think, part of it is we have to work on — and this is something I’m talking to our departments about, in addition to our clean teams and all the things we do, and the Fix-It Team and things, and going into communities — we have to have conversations with people, we have to work on changing behavior.

Oh yeah, yeah. I have this whole thing around a bag of urine in my neighborhood, this guy always leaves it, I’m like, “You have that bag of urine, you throw it out if you’re going to do that.” And stuff like that. It’s a really interesting thing that you have to ... It’s true. It’s the Castro, it’s every day.

Or there’s trees, I mean, that’s like fertilizer.

Okay.

Just turn away from the streets.

You know what? I don’t think that poop map was good for San Francisco.

Well, the poop is a whole ‘nother ballgame.

All right, okay. Explain that ballgame then, please.

Yes. I mean, the poop is a whole other challenge. And I’ve seen people where there’s a pit stop a block away and it’s like, “Sir, there’s a pit stop, right there where you can use the bathroom, and it’s there all the time.” So, I’ve had those kinds of conversations. Again, it goes back to behavior, because, sadly, it’s human poop, it’s dog poop. I’ve seen people not pick up after their pets, which is a whole ‘nother issue. And it’s just really important that ... Of course, we have our poop patrol that’s out there in our hotspots, and we’ve seen ...

That is some job, but go on.

And can I tell you? I met one of the guys and he whispered to me, he’s like, “Mayor, I’m your poop patrol.” And he said to me, he said, “I grew up in the city.” And I was like, “So, you know?” He was like, “Yeah, I’m out here, I’m talking to people. I’m out here cleaning up, but they got to take care of the city, too.” He was really proud of what he was doing, to take care of the city.

So, let’s talk about paying for this affordable housing. Let’s start with affordable housing. There’s been so many stories and controversies around the Embarcadero thing. You appeared at an event the other night, it got testy, I think, a little bit. Talk about that. You had changed the idea of how many beds ... a lot of people are against this idea of putting these facilities in these neighborhoods, especially without full cooperation of the neighborhood.

Yeah, and the thing is, I think, we all have to share in on what we know we need are more shelter beds and more housing. And we can’t, again, say we want the problem to be addressed and not be open to solutions that we know effectively work, regardless of what neighborhood they’re in.

I think that’s been a real challenge with San Francisco, it’s like soon as you want to build something across the street, it’s like, “Wait a minute, hold on, not by my place.” It’s gotten us nowhere, things have gotten worse. And housing projects have been stalled. I mean, we’ve focused on jobs and building the economy, but when it comes to housing, everyone wants housing, but as soon as a couple of units just one story too high gets placed in the wrong place and all craziness breaks loose and ...

This is the shadowing...

I mean, it is nonstop. And I just think with this shelter, it’s going to really help and change and save lives, like some of the other shelters do as well. And it won’t be easy, but we’re committed to working with the neighborhood, starting off at a smaller number with the ability ...

It was 25 beds to start.

Yeah, we have the ability to go up to 200 beds. And hopefully, like what happened in Dogpatch, they were opposed to the Navigation Center that was built there, and we did it. And, in fact, before the lease was up with the Port, they went to the Port and said, “Look, we support extending the lease.” And so it’s still there. I think that’s just an example; we have to prove to them that this will work.

All of the things that we say that these things can do, these Navigation Centers can do in order to help transition people into permanent housing, we’re proving that with each person we help, but we have to have places for people to go and we need more shelter beds. And it’s a really complex, challenging problem. It’s not, again, as simple as you have a unit, which is difficult to find in San Francisco as it is, but it’s really challenging because you’ve got to meet people where they are, figure out what the challenge is, and provide them the wraparound support to help them transition into what will be, hopefully, a permanent housing situation.

And then housing, not just for the homeless, but for teachers and firefighters and police and things like that. The thing around the shadowing, talk about that.

So, CEQA and the whole shadowing issue was just used to stop this housing because a lot of times, sadly, you have organizations who feel like they want more, and the challenge is it’s a balance between giving more and also losing the housing, period. More affordable housing, yes, we all want more affordable housing, more community benefits, yes, we all want community benefits, but when it’s all said and done, if it doesn’t happen, then that means those units don’t happen. And that continues to contribute to the high cost of housing because, again, we’re not building enough housing fast — we’re not building it fast enough.

But what about SB 50?

So, I support SB 50. And I know it’s very controversial.

This is near transit.

This is about, really, building more density along transit corridors. And I actually, years ago, introduced legislation to do this in my district when I was supervisor for District 5, it didn’t increase height, it just increased density, so remove parking minimums and a number of other things that would ...

For example, there was one project without even increasing the height, based on the old zoning of this particular property, they were going to build 16 really large units and they were going to be rentals, and based on the changes that I made to transit corridors, NCT, Neighborhood commercial transit district legislation, they basically were able to reformat the project without a height increase and build 66 units of one, two, and studio units which are smaller units, but more affordable, without the parking minimums and a number of other changes to this particular housing. And so information was put out there that I’m increasing the height and shadowing and all of this, and it wasn’t even true. And the project still hasn’t been built, it’s still delayed, and this is like five or six years later.

How do you remove delays? One of the things is your proposal to put things on public lands, this idea to build affordable housing on public lands.

So San Francisco is such a complex city. I know people wonder why there’s like all these tall buildings downtown and then all of a sudden you’re like, “Wait a minute, everything is like on the floor over here” and ...

There is no city like it, other cities are so dense, densely ...

It has a lot to do with our laws that were created forever and a day ago that are just really outdated. And what I tell people who live on the west side is, they talk about neighborhood character, we don’t want high rises on the west side of town, we want to protect neighborhood character. And I’m a native, I know what they’re talking about and I respect what they’re saying, and this is not about tearing down sound housing to basically build more, this is about taking underutilized properties and creating an opportunity for housing.

And I say, “Hey, did you raise kids in San Francisco?” “Yeah, I raised kids in San Francisco.” “Do your kids still live here?” “Well, no, my kids don’t still live here” and I think about my friends and so many of my family members who no longer live in San Francisco because we have not invested enough in building more housing. And so getting creative, I mean, people were saying, “Well, there’s not enough land.” There’s opportunities all over if we just open our eyes to explore what is possible.

So the Pink Palace, which I brought up before, became Rosa Parks Senior Homes. So right in front of Rosa Parks senior homes is this kind of underutilized property that was used for parking and some other stuff. Well, we built 98 new senior housing units right in front of Rosa Parks with that property right there, that little sliver of property, really nice accessible units for seniors, and so that’s an opportunity.

We purchased the McDonald’s site on Haight and Stanyan by reaching out to the owner and asking them to consider it, we’re going to build a 100 percent affordable housing on that site. There are so many opportunity sites in San Francisco, and what I want us to do is not only get creative about those sites but completely rezone all public property, not including parks, so that it’s easier to build on public land.

Easier meaning it doesn’t take years and years?

It doesn’t take an additional two years to get housing built once we say, look, we got this parking lot, we can build housing, it’s not zoned for housing.

How much acreage do you have to do that? Have you done a study of what you can build on?

We have some information but we don’t have the details around, this is all the property that we can build on. We’re just starting down that road map.

So that would be on sites like that, where the city can’t ...

Or the site ... Like for example, the school district has a site that they’re building at the old Francis Scott Key, it’s an old school that’s been shut down for some time. A couple of years ago, the city and school district agreed, we’re going to build 100 percent teacher housing and there’s an additional two years of process because it’s not zoned for housing. So it’s taking properties that we know we could potentially build housing on, 100 percent affordable housing, and making sure that we cut back that years of process so that we can get that housing built faster.

So how do you cut back on that years of process?

Well, part of it is what I’m proposing to put an ordinance on the ballot to completely rezone all public property so that we cut that process out of the equation completely. It doesn’t cut the housing process period in terms of the permits and all the things you need to do and approvals you need to get it. Just the rezoning of the property, which can be very lengthy.

And what about other things to allow housing to be built quicker? Obviously you want safety in San Francisco, earthquakes and everything else. What is the thing that’s in the way most from your perspective?

The thing that I think there needs to be some reforms to CEQA because I think there’s a lot of abuse with people who are looking to stop projects because they want to protect their views or they want to honestly get more money for themselves or their organizations. I’ve seen some really horrible things.

But then there are people who genuinely are concerned about their communities too and they want to make sure that someone is held accountable to invest in the community if they’re going to build in the community. So there’s a wide range of things, but I discovered that bureaucracy is probably the biggest challenge, getting through the city’s process.

I mean, for example, accessory dwelling units, in-law units, we passed legislation back in 2012 or ’13 to make it legal and easier, and it was taking people still like almost two years to get one little in-law and their unit built up to code. And so when I first got in office, I put out a directive, I made all the departments who work on this issue come together, they were given the directive to clear the backlog within a six-month time period, and for any new permits they would need to deal with those within a four-month time period.

And they cleared the backlog, they’ve dealt with a number of new units, permits, and we’ve been able to do more in that short time period than we have over the whole three years of the program. And we’re even taking it a step further to waive all the department of building inspection fees for accessory dwelling units to encourage more people to use this as a tool for housing. And we’re talking about over 900 units that could be in the pipeline, but it has to be made easier for these small property owners to choose to use this as a way to add more housing to our housing stock.

So let’s talk about tech then, because that’s had an impact. How do you assess your relationship with tech? And we’ll talk about the IPOs that are coming and the wealthy people moving around.

I think it’s a challenge.

These IPOs might not go that well, by the way.

It’s challenging because we were at a point in San Francisco where it was all about the jobs, and so there were a lot of decisions made to really boost the economy. We were really lucky, we have like a 3.5 percent unemployment rate, and on the flip side of that, as we created between 2010 and 2015 eight jobs, we only created one new unit of housing. And there was this super influx of so many people who were then descending upon San Francisco and our housing stock was not prepared to deal with that.

And I think that that has been really what the challenge has been because people have been pushed out, people have been displaced, the prices have skyrocketed, the communities have changed, and it is really … how things happened, they happened so fast that we were not prepared to just really at least try to protect people in their existing housing and really also provide opportunities for San Franciscans to even be a part of this new economy.

You can say we were not prepared or we were, not you in particular, but the politicians, some of them were in the pockets of these tech people. That was leveled at Ed Lee, it was leveled that a lot of people, the idea that these companies got to come and get all kinds of gimmes and the people get to buy the houses and then jack up prices.

How do you look at your relationship? How do you look at how about what happened there? Because it didn’t just happen, it was allowed to happen. Just the similar way what’s going on with social media now, it didn’t just happen, they were allowed to behave that way and that’s why we are where we are with social media today. How do you look at your relationship with tech? How do you think of the tech community here? Because it’s the biggest industry, it’s one of the biggest employers, maybe it is the biggest employer.

I think that there’s a disconnect between tech and San Franciscans. There’s not necessarily a disconnect between people who come here to work for in the tech world, but there is a disconnect between a lot of San Franciscans and what actually happens in the tech world and how the tech world could actually be better supporters of the community. And so I see my role ...

Talk about that disconnect. What do you mean?

So for example, the percentage of women who work in the tech industry, the percentage of people of color, specifically African Americans, who work in the tech industry, there’s no direct outreach to these communities or no bridge to really try and diversify the community.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that.

Yes, and I have very serious concerns about that. And part of what I believe my role is to be a bridge builder and to also hold them accountable and to work with them to open the doors and provide these opportunities.

So that’s in the jobs area?

In the jobs area, yes.

What about them moving, the people who work there moving into the city and changing the face of it, what do you think it’s done? How do you look at it, besides jacking up prices?

Yeah, so part of it is ... and I’ll tell you, and it wasn’t necessarily a tech company, but I had a company in my office who wanted to expand, and usually most mayors would be really excited about that, but I said, “So where’s your workforce? Where are your additional 400 employees going to come from? Where are they going to live?” I need to have a clear understanding, and I think that’s the new conversation, it’s not like we need to make a video to attract people.

So you weren’t in the Amazon thing?

No, I got enough to worry about. So I think it’s really changing how we work with companies, it’s not to say people aren’t invited, but it’s to say if you’re going to expand there has to be some accountability. Where are your employees going to live? Where are they going to come from? How are you going to not change, continue to change the fabric of San Francisco? How are you going to invest more in San Francisco?

So there’s a different kind of conversation we have to start. Yes it’s about making sure people are paying their fair share, but we also have to make sure that there’s a level of accountability that ties whatever it is that they are doing in terms of increasing their capacity to our transportation system, our housing, and how they play a role in that because ...

How do you do that? Now, one of the ways was this recent thing that Marc Benioff passed that some of the tech companies, about taxing them and you came out ... I am somewhat confused about where you came out, to be honest with you. So what happened?

I came out against Prop C, and let me just say this, again, it’s not as simple as, okay, anyone who has gross receipts of over $50 million should pay this tax. Because it’s one thing to a Salesforce company who basically spends more than that on office supplies, but what happens to ...

No, that’s kombucha, but go ahead.

But here’s the thing: San Francisco is more than just tech companies, we have manufacturing, we have retail, and when I think about something as simple as Macy’s, so many of my friends grew up and still live in affordable housing and work for Macy’s. Macy’s is closing their stores, they fit within this category, but their expenses, compared to the expenses of a Salesforce, are two different things.

And they’re this corporation that it’s like, okay, we’re not making any money in San Francisco so we’re gonna just start closing these stores. And that’s what they started to do, closing their stores, reducing the number of workers, moving some of them to dot-com, some of those people are older and not prepared to work in those particular industries, and so it’s not a one size fits all. You can’t just look at $50 million-plus, there has to be different categories of taxes for different industries based on also what their expenses are, based on the workforce they have, and how they contribute to the economy.

So those are the kinds of things that I was thinking about. The popular thing, yes, would have been to jump on the bandwagon and say “Yeah, I want to take all your money,” but I also have seen San Francisco change and lose certain businesses, lose certain kinds of people, job opportunities, and we need a diverse workforce, we need diverse job opportunities and this is not necessarily a one size fits all, it wasn’t a one size fits all proposition.

So that’s why I proposed legislation that would allow companies — because we have to collect the tax anyway. So we’re collecting the tax, we can’t spend it until the whole lawsuit is settled, but if a company wants to opt in and allow us to use the money now and without expecting to get it back, which there are some companies who can afford to do that and I will be reaching out to other companies to ask them to do that, especially because we know most likely there’s a significant number that can probably afford to allow that money to be used. But then there are other companies who may not be able to and I think that was more of the issue for me is, again, changing San Francisco in that way, assuming everyone in that category is tech companies and not really looking at the bigger picture of all the various industries that exist in our cities.

It would be nice to just take their money, right?

Mm-hmm, sure, if they want, yes, why not?

What’s your relationship with Marc Benioff like now?

We have a good relationship. I mean, we fight it out and we have the conversations, the thing about Marc is he loves and cares about the city just like I do and so we really connect on that level, and we both have a passion for wanting to address this issue, and we sometimes have differences of opinions about how we might want to address those issues, but I value his work with Salesforce and what he’s done in San Francisco, his contributions to just supporting so many amazing initiatives in San Francisco, the hospital, UCSF, and a number of other things he continues to support, his love for the arts and everything. So he is an important part of San Francisco, important part of the fabric of San Francisco, just like I am, and our relationship will always be solid despite our disagreement on this one.

I’m going to finish with the tech companies, what would you like from them? What would you like them to give you? Because I do think ...

More money!

More money, right? They have a lot more money. One of the things that’s interesting, that I find interesting is that when you think about corporate citizenship and over the years, like Wells Fargo or whoever, the banks were part of the fabric of the city, a lot of the tech companies do not feel that way to me or they don’t feel like ... So what are the precise things you’d want besides the money? Because I always use the expression, “they’re so poor, all they have is money.”

Well, I think part of it is being a part of the solution with helping with the challenges of housing and not just think that they could expand without having a real plan for their employees and where those employees are going to come from. So that’s something that even now we’re working to begin conversations around those kinds of things, I think that’s important. I also think that contributing to just really the kinds of resources and programs and housing and the things that we’re doing will make a big difference. As you know, Marc Benioff, I asked him for a couple of million dollars for a building that I really wanted to get, it was on the market, it was ready to go, and he said yes.

For what?

It’s move-on housing, it’s where people have their own restrooms and that sort of thing. Because a lot of the places we sublease for formerly homeless individuals, they have a shared bathroom, and so this is step-up housing in terms of allowing people to have the dignity of having their own restroom. And so he immediately supported that project. So I’m looking for more support, I’m looking for more access for people in San Francisco.

And part of my Opportunities For All initiative where we provide paid internships for all high school students, I not only want them to contribute, which they have, but I want them to provide, I want them to invite internships in their businesses and not where the kids are kind of pushed to the side, I want these to be meaningful internships so that they learn about this industry, about what’s possible in engineering, HR, or anything. There’s so many layers, here’s design and all this stuff, I’m not completely familiar myself, but there’s all these different things that they can learn in this industry or any other industry in San Francisco, so I want them to be committed to really investing in our future in San Francisco. That’s an important part of it as well.

Do you feel like they are? Have you reached ... Who do you have relationships with? Marc, who else?

So there’s a bunch of ... I don’t necessarily have relationships with a lot of the maybe people in charge, but a lot of their community.

Jack Dorsey?

I know Jack, but we haven’t hung out or anything.

He’s been hanging out with President Trump recently.

We haven’t had coffee yet.

I can help you with that.

Yes, and part of it is ...

Zuckerberg? He has a house, near my house.

I met him too, I haven’t had coffee with him. I actually met with his wife Priscilla, which was really cool because we were talking about her initiative, which I think is absolutely incredible. Where they are raising money to provide support for housing, like gap funding.

There was a project where we had 250 units and we just needed 10 million more dollars to get it done, and this is the kind of initiative that they’re pushing where these projects that are ready and just need this gap funding that will help formerly homeless individuals and families and so on and so forth, this could provide an opportunity for support. So we were talking about those initiatives, which she’s getting off the ground, which I’m super excited about, but for the most part ...

Brian Chesky?

I met him, a lot of the people ... we talk on Twitter, we don’t necessarily hang out or talk in person.

They’re not that much fun. So I’m thinking of Brian because of Airbnb and also the controversy around him. They’re gonna go public soon.

I will say about Airbnb, I don’t necessarily know Brian and we don’t engage in conversation, but the folks who work for him have been incredible supporters of Opportunities For All. They not only contributed to the program, but they are going to provide paid internships where the kids make more than minimum wage and they’re really learning about that industry and what’s going on there. So they’ve had some challenges of course in the past and we have finally got that industry under control, but they are rolling up their sleeves to be better community partners, which I definitely appreciate.

And again, when you think about, say, the impact of Airbnb and the housing, they’ve wrangled, that company which is going public at some point, they’ve wrangled with cities across the country, including San Francisco, around rules.

Yeah. And I think part of it is, again is ...

Same thing with Uber, same thing.

The challenge of San Francisco as a kind of bureaucratic city, not necessarily keeping up with the changes in technology, in a way, all of a sudden it’s like Uber and Lyft and Airbnb and scooters and all these technologies that just descended on San Francisco, and we have not done a good job. We’re reacting to these industries rather than being proactive and really getting them to come to us from the onset, which is what I am trying to do in terms of developing a better relationship. It’s like, I need you to come to us before you do something that’s going to impact the public.

Yeah, they don’t tend to do that, that’s not their jam. I always ... My big joke is that San Francisco is assisted living for millennials and all their services that they bring them, but San Francisco is the experiment place for that all of this stuff.

Well, it was for the scooters, but we scooped them up real quick.

Yeah, I love scooters.

Yeah, I love them too because you can ride them in a dress.

Do you ride scooters in a dress?

I have. When they first came out, I’m going to admit that I was really excited about them but I didn’t realize that they didn’t do what they were supposed to do. They just start putting them on the streets and I was like, “Oh wow, it’s a scooter,” and one of the young folks that I know was like, “Here, you want a ride?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’ll take a ride.” But I was like, “Wait a minute. How did this happen and what are they doing? Do they have a permit?! What’s going on?!”

“Wait a minute, I’m mayor, I can do something about that!” I have just a few more questions, then we get questions from the audience. When you think of those things, I always think that San Francisco should be the city of the future where all these things are actually being experimented on. I don’t know if you think of it that way, do you imagine all these kinds of things should happen first in Francisco because this is where they’re born, do you look at it that way?

Well, I think San Francisco has always been willing to try new things and be the place to experiment, but I also think there’s responsibility that comes with that. So for example, we’re excited about different modes of transportation and having scooters. And access to scooters is great, but what about safety and what about permitting and what happens if everyone who makes a scooter all of a sudden puts their scooters everywhere, all over the sidewalk?

There has to be some level of accountability and some sort of regulation and just a way to make it work. And from my perspective — and this is what I’m really pushing companies to do — don’t make us come after you, come to us and talk to us about what you’re proposing so that we can do it in a responsible way. Otherwise, look what happened.

Again, I go back to the scooters, everyone had to compete. There’s all these companies, I think there were two companies selected, we’re gradually rolling them out and letting them increase the number of scooters that they put out there, but it took us a long time to get to that point when if they had come to us in the beginning ...

But you can look at Uber and they did it, it worked for them, and they’re about to go public at a $120 billion valuation.

Yeah, and that’s another one that needs to be addressed. We got a tax that’s going to be on the ballot, the TNC tax that’s coming up in November, to get ride-share companies to pay their fair share. And part of it is, we need to make sure that everyone is paying in terms of congestion and all the other things that we have to deal with.

People want us to fix the potholes, they want us to make sure the streets are safe. And I know we love convenience, but convenience is quite challenging and it’s taxing on our city and I think there’s a balance. I mean, there were limits to the number of taxis that could be on the street in any given time, but the flip side of that is the west side of our city and far areas of our city didn’t always have easy access to taxis.

So where’s the balance? And with this particular industry and the challenges with state law, it has made it really difficult for us to push for regulations, but here’s an opportunity where we could at least generate money that’s going to help with MUNI, that’s going to help with our infrastructure and that’s going to be important.

Do you ever imagine those services as they expand — they’re going to do buses, Uber’s going to do buses, they’re just working on certain things — taking over public transportation? How would you look at that?

Well, let me just say that from my perspective, and this is what I try to push for, I want us to be a city where we’re using the least amount of car as we possibly can, understanding that there are some people who definitely need their vehicles, but having people on bikes and scooters and walking and on public transportation means those people aren’t in vehicles, and that’s less congestion.

And I think you have to be open to the idea of providing opportunities that would move people around safely and more efficiently than what’s happened in the past. I’m open to having the conversations, but if they just show up with a bus trying to pull in the bus stop from MUNI, there’s going to be problems.

Oh, we won’t even get to the buses. I think you should declare a car-less San Francisco. Just decide it.

Well, hold on now! Hold on! My seniors in the Western Addition would lose their minds.

I get that, but I just wrote a column in the New York Times, saying, “I’ll never own another car.” I’m going to get rid of my car.

So, let’s just talk about that. Here’s the thing. I’m okay with significantly reducing the number of cars, but I don’t think it’s fair to say no one should ever own a car. I mean, there are people for various reasons who need cars.

I get that.

And I just think there’s a balance to strike.

Well, I didn’t think not marrying it with creative solutions to move people around, but it’s the idea of car ownership is one that is just like the way we moved to mobile phones, the way we move to all kinds of things.

Yeah, but how do you get someone that you’re taking care of, that’s elderly and can hardly walk, how do you get them back and forth, like I had to with my grandmother, back and forth to the hospital? How do you, in some cases, with a lot of kids, if you’re taking a lot of kids places and you’re doing carpools. There’s different reasons for different things and everyone is not a single millennial in San Francisco. We have all ...

Wait, what? What did you say?

Well, I’m too old to be a millennial. Well, maybe I’m not. We have to think about, as we transition, how do we not leave people behind in the process? It’s easy to say, let’s not do this or not do this but how do we make sure those people ...

Well, I was thinking self-driving cars would be at the forefront of all this.

I’ve been thinking about my grandmother. My grandmother, Mrs. Brown, would never get in a self-driving car.

Yes. She will. She will someday. She will. She’ll love it. So, vertical lift and take-off vehicles are out for her, too, right?

We’ll see, we’ll see.

All right. Those are the things they take off from the top of a building and land in other places.

We’ll see. And we’re going to have to change, but again, I want to make sure that in the process we’re considerate about people who may rely on other things or may be stubborn or have other challenges.

So, questions from the audience for the mayor?

Alejandro: Thanks. Hi, my name is Alejandro. I own a small nonprofit focused on ending the cycle of poverty with high school students and I was curious, from your perspective, if politics weren’t an issue, where would you focus your nonprofit efforts?

London Breed: Where would I focus my nonprofit efforts? It’s what I’m doing now with Opportunities For All. I used to run a nonprofit and I basically took a lot of our money and I paid all of our teenagers because, sadly, I didn’t want them out there doing things that would land them in Juvenile Hall, and that was a way to get them more actively engaged.

Part of what I’m doing with Opportunities For All is making sure that even the kids you’re working with, we would provide a paid internship where it wouldn’t come out of your proceeds. We pay them directly, we work with you directly, so that way we keep them engaged, we keep them supported, and that’s just a step of what we’re proposing to do. That is something I’m determined to make that sure we do and build in San Francisco.

Alejandro: Thank you.

Back here. Right here.

Emily: Hi. I’m Emily and my question is ... I represent, I guess, tech millennials here.

I’m tired of you! But go ahead.

London Breed: She’s a woman! We need her!

Oh right. Okay, no, we’re not. You, in front of her...

Emily: I listen to your podcast every day! Anyway, my thing is, we’re not complacent is one thing that I think positively we are not. You can ask our managers, we always want to do something next. I guess my question is, we all talk about the things that are going wrong in the city in a social setting and a lot of us do want to do something to help contribute. We don’t want to leave it to our CEOs to do something, so if I go back to my social settings and relay a message from our mayor, what would be something you say that we can do on this level of this population of tech millennials who do generally want to make it a better place also?

London Breed: Well, I would say one of the things to start with is to make sure you register and you vote and you get more actively engaged in San Francisco outside of the companies that you work for. There are a lot of great nonprofits. Did you hear what he [Alejandro] just said he works with? He could use board members, he could use people to help raise funds, he could use mentors for his young people. See, I know because I had to deal with this.

There are great nonprofits that are working with people on these various levels, so getting involved in those boards, mentoring young people, working with various community-based organizations, serving on commissions for the city for things that you might care about. There’s a number of various things.

I know it’s kind of more broad, but depending on what your interest is — whether it’s homeless, whether it’s young people that are homeless, whether it’s seniors or what have you — pointing you in the right direction means actively getting engaged with the organizations who are on the ground doing the work, who can always use help and support. But it can’t just be a volunteer day. It has to be consistent. For example, even if it’s every Monday from 8 til 3, I’m going to do XYZ at this organization, and the folks that you serve oftentimes realize, they’re going to be looking for you every single Monday at that time.

And the difference that you can make in someone’s life, part of it is more of us getting more of us actively engaged in the things that we see and the organizations and working with the people on the ground because yes, there’s money, of course, in terms of helping people, but how do we help people’s spirits? How do we help organizations that need additional support when they are struggling to really keep their organizations going to help that population? Those are the kinds of things that I would say would be really helpful.

Right here.

Teri: Hi, I’m Teri. What are your thoughts about having a navigation center and/or shelter beds in every district in the city?

London Breed: So, I think that I’m fine with wherever we could find a location that makes sense to have one, and what I have tried to do is identify places where we know that there’s a large homeless population.

As a former supervisor of District 5, we had a building that we master leased in the Tenderloin because that’s where we were able to find a place, and unfortunately some of the people from the Haight-Ashbury did not go. They still stayed in the Haight even though they had a place. Not all of them, but a few of them. It was very challenging.

What I’ve discovered sometimes is, even if we have a place, like we have a navigation center for mentally challenged folks at Hummingbird in San Francisco General and some of those folks want to go back to where they feel comfortable, so we run into challenges like that. I think what’s most important is identifying a place, period, wherever we can find one, but also just knowing and understanding the landscape of that particular population is going to be easier to help people if ...

Where they are. Right, right.

London Breed: Where they are, thank you. Yes.

And they are all concentrated in certain areas. Right here. This young man.

JJ: Hi, my name is JJ and I think this is kind of a weird question for a kid to ask.

Oh, no.

JJ: But what are you going to do about gun control in our city and in the Bay Area? Because I see a lot of kids, they have guns and it’s unsafe for them to have them and personally, I don’t want to get addicted to them.

Wait wait. Do you have a gun?

JJ: No.

You shouldn’t. That’s good parenting right there.

London Breed: Well, thank you so much for your question.

That’s a great question. It’s not weird.

It’s a great question. I gotta tell you, sadly, I grew up in a community where there was a lot of gun violence and I lost so many friends and family to gun violence in this city and it is heartbreaking. Sadly, it really changes a community and it changes who you are as a person and no kid should have to ever grow up being afraid that something might happen. Especially when they’re at school — or any place else, for that matter.

A lot of the work that I’ve done had been more on the community level in terms of providing access to opportunities. Here in San Francisco, there has been a number of pieces of legislation that have been passed in terms of banning the gun magazines, getting rid of gun shops in San Francisco, banning hollow-point bullets, and, most recently, I’m so excited that the legislation to basically ban the gun show at the Cow Palace has finally passed.

I think that’s part of it is, yes, trying to get rid of it and trying to stop places from selling it and having it easily available, but there’s also another thing. It’s really conversations and education with young people and having mental health support for young people in our school systems, as well, to identify challenges that might exist, that might lead to that level of activity in the first place. Thank you so much for your question.

It’s a great question.

I think on the local level, we will continue to push for changes, and truly, I would love to see us on a national level finally really get rid of guns and just pass the kind of policy that will make it difficult for anyone to have access to a weapon of any kind.

Which is growing. Which is growing, 100 percent. All right, one more question right here for the mayor. Oh. Would you mind doing two?

That’s okay.

Oh okay. Good.

Brian: Thanks guys. Hi Mayor, my name’s Brian. I’m a local business owner, small business owner actually, a block away from here at 16th and Mission. We talked a lot tonight about making it easier for people to access affordable housing. I’m curious how you think about making it a little bit easier to operate a business, especially a small business in this city.

You’re probably aware that there’s a lot of empty storefronts throughout various neighborhoods in this city. Just like on the housing side and the job creation side, there’s been a lot of legislation that is really well-meaning but has had unintended consequences and made it really difficult to hire and support the types of communities that we’re often talking about needing housing, but they also need jobs and small businesses often provide those jobs. So, I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that.

What’s your business?

Brian: It’s a restaurant called Kitava Kitchen.

I’ve had a lot of restaurant people talk to me about this, about this issue. Several different restaurant people and I’ve noticed in the Castro, three restaurants have closed that were there.

Brian: It’s a big issue.

Yeah, they were all discussing the difficulties of running a restaurant.

Brian: I believe that restaurant and hospitality accounts for over 50 percent of the revenue that goes to the city, actually. While tech is huge, we actually provide a lot of revenue for the city. So again, London, just really curious to hear how you think about this.

London Breed: Thank you. So, I think part of what we’re proposing is to cut back on fees, because part of what we do best, sadly, in this city, is we’ll charge you a fee for your cash register, we’ll charge you a fee. Every little thing. I mean, you want to paint a wall? We’ll charge you $20. It’s really crazy.

And one of the things we’re working on now, and I’m not prepared to provide the details on it because I want to make sure that we can do as much as possible for small businesses that have businesses where you’re the single business, the single owner and those kinds of things, proposing reduction or removal of certain fees, which could help. I’m hoping to get to a few thousand dollars of, really, reduction in fees. So the office of economic and workforce development, they’re working on a plan for things that we can definitely cut out, that are redundant and are just making it difficult for small businesses.

Or make the process quicker.

Ah yeah, that is a whole other ballgame, but yes. Definitely on that. The other thing that we’re investing in is our SF Shines program, so that we can provide — usually they say “loans,” but I want to turn them into grants, so that we are able to give them to small businesses that meet a certain criteria. Legacy business and other businesses so that they could avoid closing, but just ways to improve their facades, provide additional cleaning in their area, improvements on the interior and those kinds of things.

We’re working to put together, especially as we approach Small Business Week in San Francisco, a way to really cut back the expenses of doing business in San Francisco. I know that the other challenge is, there’s a little tax that you’ll get charged, the healthy … What is it?

Brian: Healthy surcharge.

London Breed: Yeah, and that’s definitely ... I’m just going to be honest, there’s no support really on the Board of Supervisors to make, unfortunately, any reforms or changes to that particular tax, which I know has been really challenging. Especially if you provide health care and all of those things for your employees. I know that that’s a complex issue, but I do think that we’re hoping to, within the next couple of months, based on some of our research and review of some of the impacts, we want to roll out a number of changes to support our small businesses.

They will be reflected in my upcoming budget, because as we cut those fees, that means a reduction in the amount of money that we take in as a city. My plan is to make sure that it’s going to actually effectively deliver support for small businesses because there are empty storefronts all over the city. Downtown, as you can see, retail has changed and that’s ...

It’s all over the country. That’s a secular trend.

It’s definitely all over the country, but it’s changed but the rent hasn’t gone down.

Right.

And so we also have to hold property owners accountable, which recently I know the board passed legislation to help address the challenges with people reporting their empty storefronts, which they’re supposed to do by law. I think that there are a couple of initiatives that we’re going to be coming out with that hopefully will be helpful to our small business community in San Francisco.

Okay. One more question. Right there. Oh, which one? I don’t know. You pick.

I’m in here burning up. Are you guys hot?

Yeah, it’s hot.

It’s like having hot flashes!

Talia: Hi. My name’s Talia. Thanks to both of you for being here and engaging in this conversation. My question for you, Mayor Breed, is about local politics and the millennial generation who, I think the tech people specifically, who come here and largely are not here for longer than five to 10 years. Engaging them in local politics, how do you think about doing that?

London Breed: It’s really tough because you’re right, most of the data shows that folks who come here to work in San Francisco in the tech industry, they usually won’t register to vote because they’re registered at home and they don’t necessarily get involved in politics because they’re here to do a job and you don’t know if you’re going to stay or not and put down roots in San Francisco or what have you. I do think it’s important that you do get involved in some capacity.

Politics is important because elections have consequences and policies have consequences and bad policies can be devastating. I’ve always felt like one of the things that I had to do no matter what is vote, no matter what. That was important to me and I think that part of what, and I’m a Democrat and I’m a proud Democrat, but I also think that the Democratic Party and other parties in general need to do a better job with getting people excited about voting again and getting actively engaged in that.

I was very bold. I would go out with my little ironing board with NAACP and register people to vote and that was my first kind of interaction with the whole politics and elections. I was in college and I loved doing that work and that was really fun for me. Also, because I thought it was fun, it was easy to get people to register and get them engaged.

I think technology, not to say that it’s ... but people don’t really talk to each other in the same ways. They’re on their phones, on their gadgets. You don’t see that same, all those people out there with ironing boards registering people to vote and the kinds of things that used to occur. I would just say, get to know the landscape. Get to know your elected officials. Get to know your community and the people in your community and your neighborhood organizations.

I think that could be a first step to not only getting more actively engaged, but developing great relationships with people who you meet in the process and that’s really what it’s about. It’s about great relationships, coming together, and really, you can make magic happen. You can’t always do it by yourself, you have to work with other people in order to really get great things to happen, and I think that’s something that you can take back, is just really getting involved and working together can be really powerful.

Yeah, I think you’re saying analog. Okay, I have two very quick questions to finish up. One is, you’ve said that twice, people looking at their devices. People staring at them. How do you feel about tech? As a consumer thing, when you think about that? Especially, this is the city, or this was the area, where it was all invented.

Well, you know, I love it. I mean, I do. I love the fact that before I was mayor, to get a ride when I wanted one if I was running late, to know when the bus is coming from my little app, all those little things. So I love that. But I also notice that it also really disconnects people from people. Part of my concern about technology is the fact that we don’t just have a conversation anymore and we’re more kind of focused on our devices and communicating through our devices.

It’s different when … you can curse people out on your device and it’s not a big deal, but if we’re sitting here having a conversation, the likelihood that you’re going to curse me out is less likely, so I think things have changed a lot and technology has changed things. Some of the things are great and I love the things, but at the same time I’m struggling with just what’s happening to the next generation and how are they communicating with each other? How are we ever to identify when someone is struggling or in need, a friend. Just those kinds of things are really what I’m thinking about.

Do you know what you can do, since you like to yell at litterbugs, is what I do is I go, as people are walking in the streets of San Francisco and they’re on the phones like that, I get right behind them and I go, “Look up!”

You do that?

Yeah, I do. All the time. It’s really good.

No. You don’t!

“Put it down! Put it down!”

No way!

And the thing is, people are super polite and they’re like “Oh. You’re right.” They don’t ever hit me with them, but since you’re mayor, it would work better.

Oh my God. It might, but I don’t think I’m gonna yell at anyone.

Why don’t you ride by on a scooter doing it?

That would be hilarious!

I give you a perfect way to do this, I give you all these opportunities. Speaking of which, do you have bigger hopes for bigger office? We just got Gavin in the governorship, but ...

Yeah. I mean, I’m a city girl. I like being in San Francisco. I love being local because even though it may seem challenging, going to a meeting and getting yelled at, I still like the human interaction. I like engaging in conversations with people. I like being out in the community. I like walking to the grocery store. Getting my nails done. I like being in the city.

Places like Sacramento and DC are very institutional and that’s not my style. I mean, I’m a San Franciscan and I’m not thinking like, “Oh, this is a stepping stone.” I never thought I’d be here in the first place, and so I want to take advantage of every opportunity to invest as much time as I can in improving our city because I want to look back on my time as mayor and think, “Wow! San Francisco had definitely gotten better.” That’s what I want to do.

So you’re not going to be one of those 53 people running for president?

No, I’ve already gotten a number of gray hairs since I’ve become mayor. To minimize the number of gray hairs I think I’m probably going to get, I think I’ll stick to this.

All right. Mayor London Breed, thank you.

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