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

San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

dustin-godevais.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 229 posts

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#171

Post by colpabar »

ajmurmann wrote: post #158
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Tenderloin in SF was a worst in class skid row area pre-pandemic; post-pandemic it is a full blown open air drug market zone, ala Hamsterdam from The Wire.

Hamsterdam in the Wire seemed kinda organized and civil

I'm currently rewatching it and no it didn't - there are several scenes where the cop who started it experiences how awful it has become for the people who live near the area. The other corners improved because nobody was selling drugs on them, but hamsterdam itself was a complete shitshow. Don't you remember when bubbles was walking around at night and even he was horrified by what he saw?

Also, for anyone reading this who has not seen the show - watch it. I know it's fiction but it does such a good job of showing how complex all these problems and their solutions are.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#172

Post by grumple »

chucksta wrote: post #124
not_the_fda wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philly is a literally a city of zombies that will stab you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl0fDm7HSQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y

Kensington is hardly an example of the city, it was a mess before the pandemic. Drug epidemic is bad but that's all cherry picked, dude even said it https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0?t=169 "one block is clean, the next isn't"

As someone who lives in Olde Kensington, that means half the blocks are bad. There are drug addicts, stick up kids, and insane people wandering every block throughout most of the city. The fact that I have to walk a few blocks to see 1000 zombies pass by doesn't mean it's not a problem that affects me. Go onto any of the main thoroughfares in Philly, even in upscale center city, and you'll see lots of addicts.

It is not overblown, if anything it's underplayed. Those videos don't capture the scale. It's like an entire stadium of addicts on Kensington Ave every day. And that many again wandering throughout the city and on the trains.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#173

Post by bluefishinit »

zdragnar wrote: post #102
bluefishinit wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity Wouldn't it make more sense and be potentially more cost effective if the focus was on giving people food and other essentials so they could survive without having to steal scooters? Police and prison are super expensive. You're going to be paying for the food,…

There's a lot of people imagining this crime to be Jean Val Jean stealing a loaf of bread to eat. It isn't; much of the crime is committed via organized retail theft. A relatively small handful are disproportionately abusing the system. The NYPD released some stats awhile back- one of the highest rates of recidivism for an individual in NYC was an offender with 101 arrests, 88 of which were since 2020. Another farthe…

People steal from retail because "playing by the rules" nets them nothing. The choice isn't between "work hard and succeed" and "steal and live an easy life". The reality is there is no option for success or living an even dignified existence under the current system. That is the root issue, not people stealing razors from Walgreens.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#174

Post by wonderwonder »

tootie wrote: post #170
wonderwonder wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, George Floyd was killed. BLM happened. People rioted. Police stepped back as calls to defund the police began. African Americans began dying due to homicide in massively increased numbers. Did I miss anything?

Rather than answer with something overly sarcastic or assume you're being deliberately obtuse, I'm just going to answer earnestly and mention that there was global pandemic.

There was indeed a pandemic. Are you saying that is what caused homicide rates to spike amongst African Americans and not Caucasians? Has the homicide rate gone down since then? I would posit that police withdrew from high crime / predominantly African American areas and in the void that was created, violence increased. Logically if there is a high crime area and you remove police enforcement from it, then crime will increase. My focus is not on the African American murder rate though, that is just a pertinent example of my overall point which stating that if you remove law enforcement or otherwise cripple them, then crime will increase as is happening in SF which was described in the original article.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#175

Post by marsten »

qqqwerty wrote: post #142
marstall wrote: post #66

I lived in SF in the late '90s and saw many of the same things people have been posting about here lately . Tweakers on every corner in the Tenderloin, intense/overwhelming-at-times homeless presence in the blocks near Mission and lower Market ... latino gangs operating in the blocks south of 14th ... I heard gunshots fired in my neighborhood (24th street) on two occasions. Anybody here experienced SF then and now? I…

Born and raised here. It is different (of course no city stays exactly the same over three decades). It feels like it is more concentrated now. Back then, there were a lot more areas in the city (and in the Bay) where one would be a little on guard. A lot of those places have gentrified to the point where they are much nicer than they used to be. But the hotspots have gotten a lot worse. On balance, I think more of t…

Spot on, this is my experience as well. A lot of the once-sketchy parts of Berkeley, Oakland, East Palo Alto, etc. have gentrified and become safer since the 70s and 80s. Part of that has been big shifts in racial makeup and socioeconomics. Starting in the mid-late 90s tech began to really dominate Bay Area employment, bringing in a lot of new (well-paid) people and forcing out many others.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#177

Post by bluefishinit »

vasco wrote: post #105
DoreenMichele wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. And/or: We need to make affordable housing available, make a car-optional lifestyle more viable, etc. "The beatings shall continue until morale improves" isn't an effective approach to anything, especially since if…

> The beatings shall continue until morale improves Sure beatings don't improve morale, but since we're not talking about improving the morale of thieves, but rather about making theft a losing proposition, I think the point is not as invalid as you frame it. Unless your point is that there's no advantage in creating consequences for crime because you don't think negative consequences have a deterring effect, which i…

> Surely you have been put in time-out by your parents or gotten a toy taken away which illustrated this point for you.

Your parents also put a roof over your head, feed you and hopefully provide a positive environment that fosters growth. The government is 100% punishment, even the support it gives gets fed into structurally unequal feedback loops. Like WIC cards given to people who can only spend them at food deserts.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#178

Post by labcomputer »

StephenSmith wrote: post #85
DoreenMichele wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. And/or: We need to make affordable housing available, make a car-optional lifestyle more viable, etc. "The beatings shall continue until morale improves" isn't an effective approach to anything, especially since if…

The long term strategies you suggest almost certainly are the long-term answer. But that's just it, those solutions may take years. San Francisco may not last that long.

The trouble is that they’ve been putting off long-term solutions for a very long time, at least 30 years.

The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The second best time is today.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#179

Post by marstall »

Some hard numbers from the FBI on historical crime #'s in SF:

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/prope...

TL;DR most categories show significant drop between 2000 and 2018, including violent crime, and, to the the point of the article, motor vehicle theft.

(edit: looks like there has been a significant rise in motor vehicle thefts in particular since 2018, but that is not specific to SF (TikTok to blame??) https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-crime-r.... )

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#180

Post by david38 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #46
sylens wrote: post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. And/or: We need to make affordable housing available, make a car-optional lifestyle more viable, etc. "The beatings shall continue until morale improves" isn't an effective approach to anything, especially since if…

Right, because all these brazen thieves have a right to do that because housing is expensive.
Post reply on HN