You’ll rarely see this headline: “The Bay Area Is Working.” Instead, if you’re watching the national narrative, you’d think our region is a perpetual case study in dysfunction. Outsiders line up to spotlight homelessness, traffic, housing costs, or political drama. It makes for easy headlines, soundbites, and outrage clicks.

But here’s the truth: every single day in the Bay Area, thousands of things are working — and working brilliantly.

Our economy, for one, is constantly reinventing itself. From semiconductors to the internet boom, biotech to AI, the Bay Area leads because the best talent in the world chooses to be here. They come not only for opportunity, but for our unmatched beauty — mountains, ocean, redwoods — and weather that makes almost anywhere else feel extreme.

Walk through San Francisco, San Jose, or Oakland and notice what does not make the headlines: skylines evolving, infrastructure projects quietly improving, world-class universities graduating innovators, transit systems carrying millions, global companies creating jobs. Behind it all, tens of thousands of people are working — often invisibly — to keep this remarkable place running.

Yes, it’s easy to find what’s broken. A single negative story spreads faster than 1,000 quiet successes. But if you step back, the Bay Area is still one of the greatest functioning ecosystems of human creativity and collaboration on the planet.

So the next time someone insists on pointing out what’s wrong here, ask them to make a list of what’s right. Chances are, that list will be so long, they won’t finish it in a day.

 Mark Palermo, President -Palermo Properties Team