Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 441 posts

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#111

Post by space_fountain »

ecf wrote: post #96
LordDragonfang wrote: post #54

>One City Hall insider suggests that San Francisco overreacts to issues that are in the national news, and designs solutions to the country’s problems rather than its own. For example, when Mr Boudin ran on his platform of less punitive justice, San Francisco already had one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country. In 2019, 106 adults were in prison for every 100,000 people, one-fifth the rate in California…

Are incarceration rates low because people behave or are they low because SF police don’t bother to arrest people?

I think that's irrelevant to the point which is that in electing a candidate campaigning on criminal justice reform SFs voters are reacting more to national issues than local ones. SFs criminal justice system is already quite "reformed" and probably the issues that people are seeing aren't primarily in SF

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#112

Post by Manuel_D »

reilly3000 wrote: post #69
fallingknife wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city. You mean in exchange for living in a city with high paying tech jobs?

San Francisco was brilliant before tech, and will be shining in the next boom. Some things are bigger than now, and maybe bigger than we can fully understand. Here’s some enjoyable reading for those with a few minutes to spare: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/early.html To me the confluence of cultures, like the brackish waters of the bay, are it’s hallmark. The issues around sudden wealth, excess, limited housing, and…

San Francisco had a declining population from 1960 until 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco

So according to people voting with their feet: no, San Francisco was not a brilliant place before tech. Or at least it wasn't brilliant enough to attract a net increase in population.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#113

Post by johnny53169 »

kelnos wrote: post #40
hamburgerwah wrote: post #11

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.

Er, what? Anyone who has walked through SoMa or the Tenderloin or the financial district or... quite a few other neighborhoods knows that no one here is "insulated from human misery". Also what "gleaming towers"? We have, like... 5 of those in the entire city? Most residential stock is low-rise or SFH, and the rich certainly mostly live in the latter (see: Pacific Heights and parts of the Sunset). I'll be the first t…

What would be some of those issues for you?

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#114

Post by nradov »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #29

I will note that California seems to be America's dumping ground for the nation's homeless problem. There are also long-standing federal and state housing policies impacting San Francisco. I have no idea how dysfunctional the local city government is in this case, but there are things going on here beyond its control. It's not fair or reasonable to act like the condition the city is in is entirely due to local govern…

San Francisco has also given homeless people one-way bus tickets to get rid of them. It's a common practice in many cities nationwide.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#115

Post by systemvoltage »

Manuel_D wrote: post #106
systemvoltage wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this. Do you have any citations for "America's dumping ground". How many homeless are migrating to California? > As the data shows us, most of the homeless people you pass on the streets every day are in fact Californians. > Less than a fifth (18 percent) said they had lived out of state before becoming homeless. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-population.ht... Everytime this argument ha…

It's crucial to dig into the criteria for what studies consider living in the state at the time of becoming homeless. Plenty of studies consider prison to be "housing" so someone who was homeless before moving to California, then commits a crime and spends a month behind bars, and is homeless after release becomes categorized as living in California when they become homeless.

My problem with these assertions is that there is no data supporting it, but these stories and anecdotes keep circulating. I could make up 100 reasons to hypothesize how homeless could possible end up in California, but without data this is just thinly supported.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#116

Post by [deleted] »

dayyan wrote: post #8
TMWNN wrote: post #4

>As it is, the city has been safely Democratic for 40 years and seems allergic to choosing a Bloomberg-type figure from one of the big tech companies to try something different. San Francisco is what New York City would be like if it only had the UWS, Village, and Wall Street/Midtown. To put another way, if the Bay area had been unified a century ago as "San Francisco" including the Peninsula and East Bay, things wou…

The logic here implies an already dysfunctional government would fair better with more to govern.

[deleted]

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#117

Post by thatswrong0 »

kmtrowbr wrote: post #64
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Per my own experience SF is not a bad place to live. I have the opposite view. In SF, your risk of the following occurring is non-negligible and in some cases, shockingly quite likely: - Being mugged/robbed - Having your car broken into - Being harangued or even assaulted by someone who is mentally ill and/or under the influence - Witnessing public urination, defecation, drug use and grab and go retail theft - Step…

I've lived in San Francisco for 16 years. Yes, I have experienced the homeless problem. I had my car broken into once when I left my backpack inside. I have never been mugged or robbed or had any physical violence occur, or be threatened. We have many lovely friends who live here. San Francisco is under a lot of pressure: population, finance, environmental. It is not a dystopia. It is a community where people build t…

Really? Having lived in both for a good period of time, I found New York City to be far more livable and safer. The homeless, petty crime, and general disfunction issues here in SF are laughable for what some might consider to be a "world class city".

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#118

Post by runarberg »

flyinglizard wrote: post #43
rpmcmurdo wrote: post #17

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”.

San Francisco (and much of California) has effectively a one party system. This means that often the real elections are primaries or along party lines. Chesa Boudin and Gavin Newsom are both in the same political party, but their political views are vastly different.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#119

Post by Manuel_D »

systemvoltage wrote: post #115
Manuel_D wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crucial to dig into the criteria for what studies consider living in the state at the time of becoming homeless. Plenty of studies consider prison to be "housing" so someone who was homeless before moving to California, then commits a crime and spends a month behind bars, and is homeless after release becomes categorized as living in California when they become homeless.

My problem with these assertions is that there is no data supporting it, but these stories and anecdotes keep circulating. I could make up 100 reasons to hypothesize how homeless could possible end up in California, but without data this is just thinly supported.

More robust question is to ask where they were living 10 years ago. It turns out half of the homeless weren't living in San Francisco ten years ago. Or put differently, they moved to the city within the last ten years.

https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#120

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #114
DoreenMichele wrote: post #29

I will note that California seems to be America's dumping ground for the nation's homeless problem. There are also long-standing federal and state housing policies impacting San Francisco. I have no idea how dysfunctional the local city government is in this case, but there are things going on here beyond its control. It's not fair or reasonable to act like the condition the city is in is entirely due to local govern…

San Francisco has also given homeless people one-way bus tickets to get rid of them. It's a common practice in many cities nationwide. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

[deleted]
Post reply on HN