San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#71

Post by ihm » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

Communitivity wrote: post #26

dawhizkid wrote: post #10

Having lived in SF for a number of years now, I 100% agree that SF is just dystopian as hell. Trash everywhere downtown, human feces/needles/smell of urine all over downtown & SOMA, depressing mix of aggressive and zombie-like homeless, very few kids/families, very few minorities (especially African-Americans), barely functioning public transportation system, high rents forcing six-figure earners to live with 2 roomm…

I could so see a planet-bound version of the movie Elysium. The elite top 5% live in walled off fortresses, a la Aeon Flux's city, and have everything - while the rest live outside in a daily fight to live against a dystopian environment financially and economically. I don't think it's inevitable though, so the question is - how do we stop it? We have some of the brighter minds in tech on this forum, what are your th…

Walking around Pacific Heights gives me that feeling…

How to stop it and create a city where anyone can live:

- build world class public transit

- double the number of houses but decommodify the housing market as much as possible with lots of social housing and controlled rent increases

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#72

Post by danharaj » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

Finnucane wrote: post #39

api wrote: post #13

San Francisco is a bonsai kitten. It wants to grow into a major world city like NYC, LA, or Tokyo, but its older residents are steadfastly opposed and want to keep it in a jar so it stays cute. The result is a painful deformed mess. I don't really think city planning boards can control how cities grow. A city is a living thing. If it "wants" to grow, let it grow. If it doesn't, I don't think it can be forced. Detroit…

I've lived in New York. Why would anyone want San Francisco to become like that? Is NYC cheap, clean, free of homeless people? No, it is crowded, smelly, expensive, and only livable for the extremely wealthy.

> and only livable for the extremely wealthy.

Do you mean just Manhattan? There are five boroughs.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#73

Post by dekhn » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #15

jostmey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t even want to visit San Francisco anymore. Why would the writers want to? I’m making a point about how bad it’s become in San Francisco relative to the rest of the US

My partner and I visited SF last summer and were fairly shocked with all the homelessness, drug use on the streets and human feces scattered about. We won’t be back.

I'd just like to say, as somebody who used to live in SF, I feel sorry for tourists. What the city is permitting is unthinkable, but up to about a year ago, even saying that it wasn't acceptable was social suicide. Now it's changed a bunch- people are much more clearly stating that allowing people to put up tents and litter the sstreets with poop and needles isn't OK. However, the city really can't do anything about it because it's tolerated this for so long and anything they did would be massively controversial.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#74

Post by wbl » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #53

dawhizkid wrote: post #10

Having lived in SF for a number of years now, I 100% agree that SF is just dystopian as hell. Trash everywhere downtown, human feces/needles/smell of urine all over downtown & SOMA, depressing mix of aggressive and zombie-like homeless, very few kids/families, very few minorities (especially African-Americans), barely functioning public transportation system, high rents forcing six-figure earners to live with 2 roomm…

> very few kids/families, I am raising my kids here and disagree with your assessment. There is a pretty good community of families here.

The Ammerican Community Survey disagrees.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#75

Post by SilasX » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #9

danso wrote: post #2

For those who are wondering, given the publisher, no, the essay is not simply a rant against rent-control: > True revolution would involve curbing the authority of the San Francisco Planning Commission. If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment (density is green), they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy to align the interests of the city…

> they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy They can't bring themselves to mention Proposition 13, somehow.

Yeah, it's an unfair criticism to ask them why they aren't levying a tax they're constitutionally prohibited from.

With that said, it's reasonable to expect them to propose reforms to prop 13 that preserve its core intent but cut back on the death spiral it encourages.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#76

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #53

dawhizkid wrote: post #10

Having lived in SF for a number of years now, I 100% agree that SF is just dystopian as hell. Trash everywhere downtown, human feces/needles/smell of urine all over downtown & SOMA, depressing mix of aggressive and zombie-like homeless, very few kids/families, very few minorities (especially African-Americans), barely functioning public transportation system, high rents forcing six-figure earners to live with 2 roomm…

> very few kids/families, I am raising my kids here and disagree with your assessment. There is a pretty good community of families here.

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#77

Post by mushufasa » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #67

The elites of SF and many people on HN are caught in this loop: 1. Companies don't take personal responsibility when they do antisocial things, claiming they can't be blamed, since they are just following incentives in order to compete. 2. Companies follow incentives, and lobby government to incentivize the behaviors that make them the most money (even if those behaviors are antisocial). 3. Government, influenced by…

Absolutely.

One thing most people don't realize is that citizens own corporations. Retail investors (anyone with retirement accounts) own or are beneficial owners of the majority of public company common stock. And as shareowners, you have rights.

So, you can change this loop if as a shareowner, you change what happens between steps 1 and 2 by engaging with those companies.

I built this site to try and make that process accessible. For example, this NGO campaign for fund managers to require companies to disclose political spending: https://www.yourstake.org/campaign/disclose-corporate-politi...

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#78

Post by dmitryminkovsky » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

The author lost me at

> Cities are nearly immortal; though they decline, they rarely die.

Cities great and small die all the time. Ur died, Babylon died. SF will die. Cities die when their purpose no longer justifies their expense. And the purpose of most cities is concentrating people to facilitate trade. But increasingly there’s nothing to do in SF, especially for the masses. If people don’t figure out something for these people to do, SF will definitely die.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#79

Post by Finnucane » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #72

Finnucane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in New York. Why would anyone want San Francisco to become like that? Is NYC cheap, clean, free of homeless people? No, it is crowded, smelly, expensive, and only livable for the extremely wealthy.

> and only livable for the extremely wealthy. Do you mean just Manhattan? There are five boroughs.

I lived in Brooklyn, during an enormous construction boom, and ended up getting driven out by gentrification as the neighborhood got overrun with high-end condo buildings.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#80

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #62

I've lived in New York City for about 25 years in three different boroughs, and as as a member of the "arty bohemian gentrifier" class I was in transitional low-income areas and things like occasional street crime, gunshots and stuff like that were not unusual. But only once did I actually see two street people start a knife fight on a subway train and it was during one of my probably less than five short visits to S…

[deleted]