Live data from Hacker News

Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

latimes.com

41–50 of 488 posts

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#41
I may as well represent a different perspective here.

I am not leaving San Francisco. It's beautiful here. I'm excited to see it get weirder. I will always choose to live somewhere that is exciting over somewhere that will be the same forever. Everything about San Francisco has always been "temporary." This city is boom/bust, constantly changing. It's interesting, having a front-row seat to the ways that people and culture change over time.

Some of the most interesting, most cherished times for native San Franciscans was the 60s/70s, when crime was way higher than today, there was no real tech presence, and the art scene here was booming. It was expensive then, too. It's probably always going to be expensive to live here.

If you're here, you can probably already feel the city starting to get into the bust times, the times when the culture really starts to get shaken up and things start evolving into something new. It's not for everyone, but for a certain kind of person — it's better than anywhere else.

You probably won't agree with me, and that's okay. I don't expect, or want, everyone to. But the changes I've seen in SF recently — personally, I like them. There's so much potential.

EDIT: The level of hostility in the comments here is a little staggering. Please, readers, consider that others may have a different perspective than you. Obviously, I am not condoning any further human suffering. If that's all that you can see in my comment, consider if the cynicism in your comment may effect others.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People of San Francisco passed a law t̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶r̶o̶b̶b̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶$̶1̶0̶0̶0̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶p̶s̶.̶ They also expect safe neighborhoods. You can't have both. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26040812 Liberal policies such as this does not solve the actual problem. Instead of providing food and shelter to the poor, perhaps st…

> People of San Francisco passed a law to allow any robbery under $1000 That’s just not true at all, come on, you’re intentionally spreading misinformation. It raised the limit to $950 for the felony threshold for simple theft. Robbery is still a felony. “Prop 47 doesn’t cover robberies, theft by the use of force or fear. It doesn’t cover burglaries,” Gascón said. “If you break into a structure with the intent to com…

Not intentionally. I corrected the post before you posted.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#43
post #6

I'm leaving San Francisco next month also. I just see no reason to continue living here. The weather is nice in California, but the city is so mismanaged it's a joke. The homelessness has been an issue for decades now and local politicians always talk about it, but what do they actually do to help? I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism…

Just want to point out, this could be the result of socialist values. Throughout all history from Rome to Soviet Russia to the Bay Area. Giving away free stuff leads to an influx of people to the population center. They wanted or needed a free ride. The population center doesn’t get taxes from those people, so they are a burden on the system. Further exasperating the issue, corruption. There’s always corruption, in a…

How does this reduce the number of homeless? This "socialist" values maybe the reason why SF attracts so many homeless but it's not the cause of their existence.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#44
post #6

I'm leaving San Francisco next month also. I just see no reason to continue living here. The weather is nice in California, but the city is so mismanaged it's a joke. The homelessness has been an issue for decades now and local politicians always talk about it, but what do they actually do to help? I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism…

> I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism, yet in Tenderloin every day for decades tech bros step over needles and homeless people on their way to make their 200k a year

Why's that ironic? Isn't that exactly liberalism? Accepting and tolerating different people behaving in different ways and not forcing them to change? Individual rights and responsibilities, limited government intervention, freedom of way of living, rejecting authoritarianism and the nanny state?

I feel like tons of people don't know what the word 'liberalism' means.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#45
I never understood why companies paid the living costs of SF instead of locating in the Midwest or smaller cities. Someone told me it’s because SF is where all the talent goes so it would be unwise to locate elsewhere.

Maybe COVID has revealed that geography is not as important to success as people believed.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#46

SF needs to get the message fast that there are serious issues there that need to be fixed. Money is not going to fix a lot of these issues, policy changes will. Coming from someone who left for Colorado.

There is no chance SF will change in time. It's just not how the city works.

I can imagine it gets lucky, and things fix themselves.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#47
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, tents. https://sfist.com/2021/03/04/insanely-it-is-costing-san-fran...

Worth noting that the actual tents are cheap and what's expensive is the security, social services, meals, etc that come along with it. For comparison, the cost to incarcerate someone in California is around $7k/mo and what that money is spent on is broken down at https://lao.ca.gov/PolicyAreas/CJ/6_cj_inmatecost

Last I checked, California cost per inmate was more than double the national average. Interestingly, from what I remember, 20 years ago the same cost in California was about national average.

California should investigate contracting the prison service to Oklahoma: Oklahoma spends per prisoner something like a quarter of California spends, so California could save lots of money this way, and Oklahoma would make a lot of money, a great example of positive sum trade.

Of course, that’s not going to happen, because California rulers don’t want to incarcerate all these people, and from this perspective, high cost is a feature, not a bug: it helps in arguing against incarceration.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#48
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guaranteed a decent amount of people won't see the sarcasm in this comment.

And that, my friend, is the final reason why I am leaving ;-)

The downvotes confirm.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#49
post #6

I'm leaving San Francisco next month also. I just see no reason to continue living here. The weather is nice in California, but the city is so mismanaged it's a joke. The homelessness has been an issue for decades now and local politicians always talk about it, but what do they actually do to help? I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism…

> the city is so mismanaged it's a joke

> I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go.

> tech bros step over needles and homeless people on their way to make their 200k a year.

> Why didn't they build more houses here?

I don't think you've learned about Prop 13 yet. Ignorance is bliss here. Yes there are answers to your questions, but California is more enjoyable when you're just confused about these things.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#50
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to point out, this could be the result of socialist values. Throughout all history from Rome to Soviet Russia to the Bay Area. Giving away free stuff leads to an influx of people to the population center. They wanted or needed a free ride. The population center doesn’t get taxes from those people, so they are a burden on the system. Further exasperating the issue, corruption. There’s always corruption, in a…

How does this reduce the number of homeless? This "socialist" values maybe the reason why SF attracts so many homeless but it's not the cause of their existence.

It can cause population centralization, which can actually make the problem harder to solve. Other parts of the country are more than willing to help
Post reply on HN