And like all Potemkin Villages, it will revert to ruin when the visitors leave

Panicky San Francisco pols rush to sweep the homeless from the city’s streets before next month’s global economic conference.

The city expects to welcome 20,000 visitors when APEC begins next month, and plans to shut down large swaths of roads and freeways near where the conference will take place, Fox2 KTVU reported. San Francisco plans to repaint its fire hydrants, scrub its sidewalks, replace older trash cans, fix broken windows at the planned conference site and find beds in shelters for more homeless people on the streets ahead of APEC to make San Francisco look like “one of the greatest cities in the world,” according to Bloomberg.

“It’s less of a safety issue and more of a perception of safety,” Ken Bukowski, the city’s convention director, said about cleaning up the city, according to Bloomberg. “We’re working with the city to make sure there is a lot of outreach ahead of APEC.”