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California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

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Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#101

Post by api »

sethammons wrote: post #78
api wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What logic could that person possibly be following? It's just mind boggling. In any case, that's why I want to see local planning just abolished. These people are so clueless or self-serving (not sure which, don't care) that I don't see any reasoning with them or even talking to them. Just fire them all and abolish their offices.

Easy: people require infrastructure and many land developers ignore it. More lanes on roads being a big one. In my former neck of the woods, a developer is putting in 1 or 2 thousands homes. They will connect right onto the two lane highway, miles from the freeway that already has too much traffic causing chaos in the rush hours. The developers will make a bundle if they don't go bankrupt first, and the community wil…

That's a failure of urban planning too. Either better infrastructure is needed or density needs to be located closer to good infrastructure. NIMBY planners in California are opposed to both. They block construction near high capacity transportation and they oppose the extension of that transportation to new places.

The whole state seems to be run as a giant housing supply restriction cartel for the purpose of enriching existing property owners and speculators at the expense of newcomers, the young, the working class, and the poor.

It's common to a lot of "blue states" but California has the worst case. It's rank hypocrisy and everyone involved should be ashamed.

I came up with a way to show the hypocrisy: point out that "red" states like Texas and Arizona are more liberal than California because in those states a working class person can afford a place to live.

Seriously... what kind of brain damage allows someone to advocate us being a "sanctuary state" for immigrants while simultaneously opposing any housing or infrastructure expansion? Where are these people supposed to live? Are they utterly incapable of rational thought?

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#102

Post by gfodor »

throebd wrote: post #10

It is a ban of plastic bags from supermarkets. People have some decency, but with ban there is no way to dispose excrements.

holy cow this is a great theory. i haven't heard it before, and it would cut through a ton of noise if this could be supported by data. can it?

the disappearance of readily available plastic bags (in the trash, floating around, etc) certainly would make way more sense as something that could suddenly have a huge impact than other theories which are stabbing in the dark at higher level variables that have trended slowly over time like shelter access or density of public restrooms. it would also explain why this problem is uniquely SF -- given the social signaling that is associated with a store being seen as environmentally conscious (by abandoning plastic bags) compared to other cities, it wouldn't surprise me if the rate and degree of abandonment of plastic bags outpaced other California cities.

this certainly seems like the kind of thing that will bubble up to economics textbooks if true, a classic case of unintended consequences by tweaking incentives and regulations. i hope it gets more attention.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#103

Post by strenholme »

ravenstine wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #2

> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…

There are public toilets in some of these cities. San Francisco has had self-cleaning public toilets for a long time, but probably has the worst feces problem of any first world country. On Google maps, it appears there are at least 20 public bathrooms in SF within a few miles radius. That's way more than I see when searching for the same thing in Santa Monica, another homeless mecca that doesn't have anywhere near t…

When I lived in San Francisco and brought family and friends to enjoy walking the streets of the city, one logistical problem was finding toilets they could use. There are, for all intents and purposes, no public toilets in the city (e.g. we went to an underground public transit station and they worker there told us there was no bathroom available); one time my mother had to use a porta potty put in front of someone’s house for construction workers doing home improvements because there just was no other restroom around.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#104

Post by xyzzyz »

CydeWeys wrote: post #87
archaea_hao wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In fact there are a near infinite variety of reasons for being homeless" Near infinite in the sense that there are near infinite ways of dying. You could be hit by an asteroid. You could fall off a cliff. But that obscures the fact that most people die from some sickness or disease. I've done volunteer work with the homeless. There are 2 major causes of homelessness: mental illness and drug addiction. Everything els…

It sounds like you've only done volunteer work with specific types of people. The homeless people who simply can't afford housing and thus live in vehicles, and have jobs, want to stay under the radar. It's unlikely you'd make contact with them during volunteering unless you specifically sought them out. You're not going to find them at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, skid row, etc. They're normal people like you a…

This kind of people doesn’t contribute to defecation crisis, and they tend to not stay homeless for very long anyway (unless they start doing drugs).

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

weeksie wrote: post #14

Build. More. Homeless. Shelters. California is so damned NIMBY'd up that they refuse to build shelters and act surprised when homeless people sleep outside. Then they throw their hands up in the air like "uh, it must be the weather" It's stupid. In New York we have more homeless per capita and in absolute numbers but we have nothing like the street issues that west coast cities have. It's because we actually house th…

> Build. More. Homeless. Shelters.

Making the existing ones safe enough that the homeless don't actively avoid them should probably come first.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#106

Post by CydeWeys »

xyzzyz wrote: post #104
CydeWeys wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you've only done volunteer work with specific types of people. The homeless people who simply can't afford housing and thus live in vehicles, and have jobs, want to stay under the radar. It's unlikely you'd make contact with them during volunteering unless you specifically sought them out. You're not going to find them at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, skid row, etc. They're normal people like you a…

This kind of people doesn’t contribute to defecation crisis, and they tend to not stay homeless for very long anyway (unless they start doing drugs).

They likely are not, but I wasn't saying they were. I was responding to someone who was claiming that these types of homeless people don't even exist, which is far from true.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#107

Post by microtherion »

mdorazio wrote: post #67
weeksie wrote: post #14

Build. More. Homeless. Shelters. California is so damned NIMBY'd up that they refuse to build shelters and act surprised when homeless people sleep outside. Then they throw their hands up in the air like "uh, it must be the weather" It's stupid. In New York we have more homeless per capita and in absolute numbers but we have nothing like the street issues that west coast cities have. It's because we actually house th…

It's not quite that simple. The West Coast has seen a huge influx of homeless people (ex. [1] - 12% YoY increase in LA) while the nation overall has seen a drop [2]. If your homeless population is steady or falling it's easier to build enough services for them than if thousands more arrive every year. Also, I agree that more shelters and services need to be built, but it would be nice if the Federal government pitche…

> The West Coast has seen a huge influx of homeless people

Your source shows an INCREASE of homeless people, but not necessarily an INFLUX, i.e. it's not clear whether the newly homeless are in fact "arriving" (from out of state) or have been prior residents who lost their shelter.

Anecdotally, I don't think I've ever met somebody who had a PLAN to move to California to be homeless there. But I've met a number of people who moved to California with limited financial resources and precarious employment prospects, and subsequently became homeless.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#108

Post by api »

bradleyjg wrote: post #84
sethammons wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: people require infrastructure and many land developers ignore it. More lanes on roads being a big one. In my former neck of the woods, a developer is putting in 1 or 2 thousands homes. They will connect right onto the two lane highway, miles from the freeway that already has too much traffic causing chaos in the rush hours. The developers will make a bundle if they don't go bankrupt first, and the community wil…

The proposed 5000 unit development which has just been killed by NIMBYs is within blocks of two different subway stations. Few if any any of the residents would have owned cars. Roads are not an issue here. It's pure against-all-change conservatism. It's fine to have that personality type, but the vast, overwhelming majority of the country is filled with landscapes that change slowly if at all. Can't the small island…

My cynical take is that we just have to wait out the boomers. We changed and grew in every way until they took over and everything stopped. I think it will restart when they retire.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#109

Post by IllogicalLogic »

weeksie wrote: post #14

Build. More. Homeless. Shelters. California is so damned NIMBY'd up that they refuse to build shelters and act surprised when homeless people sleep outside. Then they throw their hands up in the air like "uh, it must be the weather" It's stupid. In New York we have more homeless per capita and in absolute numbers but we have nothing like the street issues that west coast cities have. It's because we actually house th…

Could the Andrew Yang 2020 "Freedom Dividend" solve the homeless issue? Yes.

Extra $1,000 a month allows these homeless people to move to smaller/rural areas and get cheap permanent housing.

We can even create a program where if you help a homeless person on the street get into an apartment, you get a $250-500 referral reward from their dividend.

Many ways to incentivize people to help the homeless. This solution sounds better than increasing congestion/traffic with more high density buildings to house the homeless in SF,LA,SD city limits.

Re: California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

#110

Post by groundlogic »

throebd wrote: post #10

It is a ban of plastic bags from supermarkets. People have some decency, but with ban there is no way to dispose excrements.

Relevant:

"Plastic-bag ban led to hep A health crisis?"

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/sep/08/stringers-pl...

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