81–90 of 441 posts
A lot of my family has lived in SF for decades, all of them have moved out in the past 4 years. It's a monstrous dystopia now. The ultra rich completely insulated from the human misery sprawled out in every direction around them while their peasants toil away as tiny ants looked down upon with pity from their gleaming towers.
There are homeless in several parts of the city, yes, but those parts are easy to avoid if that's your inclination.
San Francisco is a very liberal city, and with that comes compassion for the less fortunate. Because the Constitution says anyone can move about anywhere in the US, that means that a lot of those unlucky end up here because it is better than living in a conservative city where there are less activists looking out for their interests. San Francisco doesn't create homeless people faster than other cities, but it does attract them, simply because compassion isn't spread evenly across the country.
I'm not convinced it is as dysfunctional as the article states. And I'm very happy I don't live where people are screaming at other people because those people are (god forbid) wearing masks. All of the partisan hatred and vitriol that has consumed so much of the country hasn't really hit us here. At least not among ourselves.
27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
Not sure I’d call a city which had one ruling party for forty years “diverse”.
What is the point of this article? The bulk of it is explaining that things are bad in SF, and that the city government is to blame. Sure I’ll buy that. But then it makes a leap of logic by claiming—or rather insinuating—that the reason for why they don’t fix those issues is because they are dysfunctional. As for why it is dysfunctional. Well: > As it is, the city has been safely Democratic for 40 years and seems all…
I agree. I think the only explanations it gives are that the city has no middle class and politicians try to solve national problems with local solutions. Neither are root causes in my opinion. The former is explained by a lack of new home building which is a statewide and national problem and the latter is explained by the fact that the San Francisco political machine generates a lot of national political candidates…
> Matt Haney, who represents the troubled Tenderloin neighbourhood I love the characterization of the neighborhood as "troubled" like it was an accident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrific_Street#Demise
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yep. I moved to the SF Bay area from NYC 4 years ago and I routinely tell my friends that you need to watch out for human, not animal, feces on the street. It's really sad to see people who are employed that are still homeless and have to deal with mental issues :(
Reading from HN, half of Americans are either in jail or homeless dealing with mental issues. Are there proper statistics to get a better assessment of the situation?
The Federal Government estimates that about 0.4% of Californians were homeless in 2020. From what I've seen on the streets the numbers are probably a little worse now.
27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
I grew up in SF and still have family sticking it out there. I don't completely disagree with the sentiment here but last I heard I thought SF had a pretty serious diversity problem. Is that no longer the case?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I think the only explanations it gives are that the city has no middle class and politicians try to solve national problems with local solutions. Neither are root causes in my opinion. The former is explained by a lack of new home building which is a statewide and national problem and the latter is explained by the fact that the San Francisco political machine generates a lot of national political candidates…
Nope. There are plenty of local problems that the city has been completely inept at solving. Go look at how much it costs to build a mile of tunnel and how late it is. Roughly 1b and 10 years late and the clock is still running.
27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
I grew up in SF and still have family sticking it out there. I don't completely disagree with the sentiment here but last I heard I thought SF had a pretty serious diversity problem. Is that no longer the case?
Reminds me of a Star Trek DS9 episode that takes place in an SF of the near future. "By the 2020s, those without employment, as well as those with mental problems, were moved into the Sanctuary Districts, which would later become no better than slums." https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots
Soylent Green also presents an exaggerated but somewhat plausible view of the cities of the slightly distant future(stepping over piles of homeless people to get out of apartments, not the eating people)