In the 1970s, New York had plunged into a nadir. The city barely scraped through a major fiscal crisis as a widespread blackout provoked looting and arson. Amid the chaos, Milton Glaser sat in a taxi and sketched what would become the I ❤️ NY logo, a Robert Indiana–esque napkin doodle that has since become inextricably linked with New York’s identity. Fast forward a few decades, and San Francisco finds itself in a similar situation. Once a haven for liberals, artists, and hippies, the Bay Area is now grappling with sky-high rents, rampant crime, a homelessness crisis, a drug epidemic, and soaring office vacancies prompting speculation about Downtown entering a doom spiral.
Much like how Glaser’s off-the-cuff sketch lifted New York’s collective spirit—a pattern that would repeat itself as the city reeled in the aftermath of September 11, 2001—San Francisco is attempting to brighten the mood. A group of local corporations recently launched a $4 million advertising campaign with the sole purpose of rescuing the city’s reputation. Consisting of the phrase “it all starts here” written in a sleek sans serif font and rendered as a stylized street sign, the campaign aims to reassert San Francisco as a place for innovation and possibility. It will appear on 375 billboards, bus shelters, and posters across the city ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, an international gathering of government and business bigwigs held there in November.
