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Thousands Are Coming to SF Next Week for APEC. Here’s How It’ll Affect Life in the City

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A street scene in San Francisco from above, with an advertising banner in the foreground that reads "APEC is going to be Epic."
People walk under signage advertising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings ahead of the summit at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Nov. 9, 2023.  (Loren Elliott/AFP via Getty Images)

View the full episode transcript.

Next week, San Francisco is hosting its largest international event since 1945. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — or APEC — is expected to bring at least 10,000 visitors and foreign dignitaries to the city. With lots to prove to its guests, including President Joe Biden, San Francisco has ramped up preparations that have already affected local residents.


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Episode Transcript

A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.

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Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. San Francisco has been preparing for months for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, or APEC. Thousands of visitors, business leaders and foreign dignitaries are expected to flood the city, and local officials are hoping they’ll spend lots of money here and come away with a good impression of San Francisco. And if you live, work or commute into the city, there are several ways that this conference is going to affect you.

Sydney Johnson: It’s been dubbed the largest international event that San Francisco has hosted since 1945.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: APEC is already having an impact on traffic in the city’s south of market and people living in homeless encampments say they’re being asked to move out of sight because between Maryland and Breed’s reelection and all that bad press about the so-called doom loop, the city’s got a lot to prove. Today, how San Francisco is preparing for APEC and how it might affect you.

Sydney Johnson: A lot of people are comparing it to when San Francisco hosted the Super Bowl a few years ago. But think of this as like a Super Bowl for presidents and prime ministers.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Sydney Johnson is a reporter for KQED.

Sydney Johnson: Roughly, it will be taking place from about November 11th to the 19th. But most of the events and an impact for people who are in the city or commuting in and out of the city will be around the 14th to the 17th. Tens of thousands of people are expected to come to the event, whether those are attendees, journalists, company CEOs, presidents, prime ministers, President Biden will be there, along with more than a dozen other heads of state Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines.

Sydney Johnson: Even China’s president Xi Jinping, is expected to join. Although not officially confirmed yet, there is a lot riding on this. For one, there is a lot of important diplomacy work that’s going to be happening inside meetings all week. But it’s also a big chance for San Francisco to really put its best foot forward, so to speak, and try to counter some of those so-called doom loop narratives that we’ve been hearing all about around crime and homelessness. So there’s a lot riding on this event.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Let’s talk about driving into the city. Should I drive into San Francisco from Vallejo next week or no?

Sydney Johnson: It really wouldn’t if I were. You and I have some friends in other industries whose bosses have, you know, straight up told them, don’t come in next week. Work from home. There is going to be a lane on the Bay Bridge that’s closed going both ways. And also there’s going to be freeway on ramps and off ramps in the downtown area that are totally closed as well. So it’s important to check that, too. You might not even be able to get off at the stop that you need to if you did wait through all of that traffic. Bart and Caltrain are not planning any disruptions. So really, if you have to get into the city, that could be your safest route. But still do plan to give yourself extra time if you are going to commute in and out of San Francisco next week.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Certain streets will be closed off as well. And as we were talking about earlier, there to be a lot of security, Secret Service and heads of state. What is that going to look like and what neighborhoods will be affected the most by this?

Sydney Johnson: So streets around Soma, Nob Hill and the eastern waterfront are going to be most impacted on certain blocks. You will have to do a security check to get through. It will pretty much just be a bag check. But residents and employees of businesses in those areas will all be subject to that type of screening. There are also going to be some blocks in these areas where cars cannot pass through and others where cars that do need to pass through, say, like commercial delivery trucks, they will have to go through a vehicle screening.

Sydney Johnson: So, you know, definitely on the one hand, you’re going to want to probably avoid some of that if you can. But obviously, some people won’t be able to choose that. And it’s important to know that businesses in those areas will be open. You know, if you need to go to your pharmacy or pick up groceries, you can still do that, but you’ll probably have to be on foot. And, you know, it might also be a sight to see.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And I know another thing folks are anticipating are protests all around San Francisco. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?

Sydney Johnson: Certainly what we’ve heard already is that there are groups that are planning protests both around the specific leaders that are going to be in town that week. These are some of the wealthiest, most powerful leaders that are going to be flying in on private jets. And there’s definitely going to be some climate protesters happening, as well as civil rights protesters. And there are also protesters who are planning to come out and criticize some of the CEOs and companies that are going to be represented at this conference. Also, there’s definitely going to be planned disruptions from the city, but also disruptions to those plans from protesters.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I know we are still a few days away, but there has been a lot of prep already starting. And if you live in San Francisco, you’ve probably seen a little bit of it. What has been the mood in San Francisco in the last couple of days in this sort of lead up into APEC?

Sydney Johnson: I think there’s some anxiety. You know, people want to put San Francisco in a really positive light and there’s some excitement that comes with that, too, right? It’s a really big opportunity for San Francisco to, you know, show everything that it’s capable of, of being and providing. The city has been advertising this event on bus stops and billboards doing door to door outreach to businesses and residents in the high security zone areas. So, you know, let’s just say it’s really hard to not know that APEC is happening in San Francisco right now. If you live or work here.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Coming up, what San Francisco is doing to try and impress its visitors. Stay with us.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: It clearly is a really big deal that San Francisco is holding this. I mean, these adjustments being made to the city are, I think, a clear indication of that. But I think there is also, of course, the this bigger question of the city’s image here. London Breed is up for reelection next year. So how is the city been preparing for APEC on this front?

Sydney Johnson: London Breed really wants to say, hey, come to our city, do business here, visit us.

Mayor London Breed: A successful APEC’s what it looks like for me is that everyone is able to do what they intend to do in a safe way.

Sydney Johnson: And she actually talked about this recently on KQED Forum.

Mayor London Breed: Whether it’s the folks who are attending the CEO summit and the various events, going to our restaurants, shopping in our various shopping areas, it’s not just about APEC. It’s about our communities. It’s about the money that conventions and tourism generates to help support this population.

Sydney Johnson: So San Francisco has been raising millions of dollars over the last few months from companies like Apple. Actually, one of the biggest donors was a casino in the North Bay. With that money, San Francisco has been really just trying to get prepared for this event. The city has really cleaned up. U.N. Plaza, I walked through there yesterday and there’s a new skatepark and some new greenery that’s been out there. So, you know, of course, I think Brad wants this to be a safe and, you know, politically successful event as a place where, you know, San Francisco can say, look, we can host these types of of events and we can really be a global city. But, you know, also really hoping to put San Francisco in a better light that it’s been recently.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What is this meant for homelessness? That is such a huge part of the image that San Francisco has really been known for. So what does this mean for for folks on the streets?

Sydney Johnson: So the city started doing outreach around a park and, you know, homelessness in the areas around these venues weeks, if not months ago. Well, I have been told by city officials is that the vicinity around the conference, so the areas near Mosconi Center and Nob Hill are definitely going to be prioritized. And so, you know, there’s kind of this big elephant in the room because San Francisco also has a lack of shelter beds and and housing overall for people who need it. There’s probably going to be some relief there because we’re getting into the winter months and the city will be opening up some of its winter shelter beds that usually only come online when the weather gets colder.

Sydney Johnson: And that means that there’s going to be a little over 300 more shelter beds that are open. But that’s still such a drop in the bucket. And there’s going to be a lot of back and forth over priorities. Should a bed be prioritized for someone who is, you know, sleeping right outside a conference venue, or should it be for someone who’s been on the waitlist already waiting for a spot in a shelter for potentially days? You know, I just looked at the city’s online shelter waitlist and it has over 400 people on it.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What does this mean for sweeps then? Has that been happening already in some of these areas where a peak is going to happen?

Sydney Johnson: Yes, they have been asking people to move. I was walking around Soma kind of in the area where the conference is going to be, and I actually ended up talking to two people. Earnings are Tage and Matt and they’ve been sleeping rough outside in that area for several weeks. And they told me that a week ago they were sleeping in an alley under the 80 freeway overpass and they were woken up by a team of street crews, police, public works asking them to move. Matt told me that he heard that Biden was going to be coming into town and that it was going to be near the area that they had been staying in and they didn’t receive an offer for a shelter.

Sydney Johnson: That’s what they told me. And the city is required to offer that when it does these types of resolutions. So it’s complicated because the city is also right now facing this lawsuit over how it handles homelessness and particularly how it treats people during encampment clearings. But I asked, what are you guys going to do now? You know, the conference is a week away and they’re still in kind of the area that they’ve been staying at. And Taj just said they don’t know and they’re just trying to stay anywhere that they won’t get harassed.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I mean, city leaders seem really concerned about making sure that APEC goes well. Do you think that whatever happens next week is going to affect the city’s image at all?

Sydney Johnson: I do. I think that what happens next week is important. I think that the stories that come out of it and the stories that we tell ourselves about it is going to have an impact. But I also think we’ve seen, you know, this pendulum swing back and forth a lot over the years, for decades even. And in many ways, San Francisco has always represented a little bit more than what it actually is as a progressive city, in my view. So I think the real question is whether the city will be able to keep up the positive image if it is able to achieve that next week.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I think that’s a big question here. Like, are things just going to kind of revert back to the way they were before APEC and before all these heads of state came to San Francisco? Like once APEC is over? I think that’s a big question on people’s minds.

Sydney Johnson: It is, and it’s definitely on my mind, too. You know, that was on Taj and Matt’s mind to you know, the flipside to that I did hear was that these types of events show what the city can do. It shows that the city can really make San Francisco look great and it can open up more, you know, shelter beds and these differing agencies can be mobilized. But the the will and the resources to give actual long term solutions to these problems that are going to exist well beyond APEC. I think that’s where a lot of the disappointment has sunk in. But really, you know, that’s one of those things that we’ll have to see once that happens.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Sydney, I guess we’ll be watching what happens next week. Thanks so much for joining us.

Sydney Johnson: Of course. Thank you.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Sydney Johnson, a reporter for KQED. Again, APEC takes place in downtown San Francisco this Saturday through next Friday. You can sign up to get alerts about APEC related disruptions by texting APEC 2023 to 888777. That’s APEC 2023 to 888777. We’ll also leave you a link to the city’s guide on how to prepare for street closures, transit impact, all that jazz in our show notes.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: This 30 minute conversation with Sydney was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Allen Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape shout out as well To the rest of our podcast squad here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our podcast engagement producer. Maha Sanad, our podcast engagement intern. And Holly Kernan, our Chief Content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Peace.

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