San Francisco is back in the spotlight but this time for reasons that both politicians and company executives want to discuss. After years of “doom loop” headlines and rankings at the bottom of most pandemic recovery metrics, San Francisco posted a 21.6% year-over-year increase in office foot traffic for July 2025 — the strongest performance of any city tracked by Placer.ai.
People are taking notice.
While New York City offices are actually fuller than they were pre-pandemic, all eyes are on SF. “This has been by far the most interest we’ve had on monthly updates on our office index,” said R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at Placer.ai, during a phone call with SFGATE about San Francisco’s gains. Placer.ai captures location data from over 25 million mobile devices through partnerships with app companies and uses “the latest in machine learning and AI” to assess full attendance figures, according to Hottovy. In San Francisco, approximately 100 office buildings are tracked.
The July numbers reveal a dramatic rise from earlier in 2025, when office visits in the city were consistently at 44% to 51% below 2019 levels. San Francisco also rose by two spots in national rankings in July, crawling out of last place by surpassing both Denver and Los Angeles…