Finance & economics | Artificial intelligence

How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback

Forget the controversy. America’s tech capital is building the future

Rear view of a man exploring San Francisco
Image: Getty Images
|San Francisco

Whenever a global economic transformation takes place, a single city usually drives it forward. Ghent, in modern-day Belgium, was at the core of the burgeoning global wool trade in the 13th century. The first initial public offering took place in Amsterdam in 1602. London was the financial centre of the first wave of globalisation during the 19th century. And today that city is San Francisco.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Comeback city”

From the February 17th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Donald Trump in Brownsville, Texas on November 19th 2024

Trump wastes no time in reigniting trade wars

Canada and Mexico look likely to suffer

Illustration of a large anvil falling down on a government building.

How Trump, Starmer and Macron can avoid a debt crunch

With deficits soaring, their finance ministers will have to be smart


Scott Bessent speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington, DC.

What Scott Bessent’s appointment means for the Trump administration

The president-elect’s nominee for treasury secretary faces a gruelling job


What Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders get wrong about credit cards

Forget interest rates. Rewards are the real problem

Computers unleashed economic growth. Will artificial intelligence?

Two years after ChatGPT-3.5 arrived, progress has been slower than expected

Should investors just give up on stocks outside America?

No, but it is getting a lot harder to keep the faith