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San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

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191–200 of 229 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I don't recall this and should definitely rewatch it. I haven't seen it since 2009, so I probably forgot a lot.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus, punishing breakage of the rules more severely would lead to fewer people breaking the rules. As per your reasoning, to reduce crime we have to make breaking the rules more punishing than abiding by them.

If you go far enough down that path, you get a world where people break them anyway and get better at covering up and more people look the other way. Prohibition did not put a stop to people drinking. It just helped make organized crime rich and powerful as ordinary people continued to drink, didn't want to die from bathtub gin being poisonous and crime lords were the only reliable source of safe alcohol.

Buying alcohol illegally didn't cause your neighbor hundreds of dollars in property damage, unless you count drunk driving.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go far enough down that path, you get a world where people break them anyway and get better at covering up and more people look the other way. Prohibition did not put a stop to people drinking. It just helped make organized crime rich and powerful as ordinary people continued to drink, didn't want to die from bathtub gin being poisonous and crime lords were the only reliable source of safe alcohol.

Buying alcohol illegally didn't cause your neighbor hundreds of dollars in property damage, unless you count drunk driving.

They prohibited alcohol on the theory that men would stop beating their wives.

Furthermore, giving enormous amounts of money and power to organized crime had knock-on effects, none of which were good.

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

#194
post #168
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

We're talking about people looking at $1,500+/month rent with multiple roommates... if they're lucky, for the rest of their lives. That is not offering people a future. There is no viable path to prosperity. There is no path for lower-class folks to achieve a private residence with a spouse. When these people increase productivity, rents will capture that wealth. Why should people play by these rules? A tiny condo in…

I don't disagree that SF has a major problem with housing affordability. I also think that problem was self-imposed by the use of restrictive zoning and ordinances that made it nearly impossible to construct high-density housing of any kind. (Look at Bob Tillman's struggle as one example.) I also think this conduct by state and local governments are hypocritical, odious, and disgusting.

That said, I also don't see how these things can justify one's decisions to steal from others in the same place. At the very least, you're still free to go to another location where the rent isn't $1,500+/month with multiple roommates. There are honest ways to exercise your disgust and unwillingness to stay within the confines of a system that's stacked against you. Within a few hundred miles of SF are tons of options.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those amenities are not as relevant when you're older. Easy access to bars, restaurants, and clubs is not as important as a larger home and good school districts when you're a parent, for example. Access to things like healthcare, grocery stores, and target are not any more difficult and often easier to access in suburbs. Basically, people's priorities change and the optimal living situation changes according…

"good school districts" This point seems to be mostly American and a result of how schools get financed in the US and not inherent to cities. Schools being financed by very small areas they are located in is exacerbating the divide between poor and wealthy neighborhoods for no real reason. In contrast, when I grew up in Germany, kids had to commute from the suburbs and villages to the city to attend a really good sch…

Parent engagement has a huge impact on how good a school district is. It isn't the funding. Poorly performing schools often get more funding.

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

#196
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's both speculative and illogical. Police don't prevent crime. They can only arrest after the fact. And that's only if they catch them. And police did not withdraw from anywhere. No city defunded police. The defund movement was predicated on the fact that police are ineffective at preventing crime. That economics plays a much bigger role. Employment in places like NYC took much longer to recover because so many jobs depended on offices being full. And the homicide rate has, in fact, been dropping the last two years. The pandemic peak was less than 1/4 the 1990s peak.

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

#197
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

27% of Californians are over 55. That means the majority do not get to have the benefit of keeping their tax bill when they move. To compound that, the most dynamic economic growth probably comes from under-55s moving, not over-55s -- new jobs, new opportunities, start a family, etc. Obviously it's good if it's easy for old people to move, but the economic value of a young family being able to move closer to a high p…

Why don't you let him defend his own statements, which have little to no foundation at all? The only thing that would happen if Prop 13 were repealed is: all other taxes would stay the same, but that one would rise, and so would spending. That's why your arguments get no traction at all in CA.

Hi Bob, you'd rather argue with a username you recognize rather than get to the truth? Here we are, closer to the truth than before, and you're maligning others for cutting you off from a witty gotcha on a person whom you seem to hold some grudge against.

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

#198
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, welcome to the conversation, I can tell this is the first time you've engaged with this topic, so I'd love to introduce you to the economic dynamics at play. When property taxes don't rise, people are disincentivized from selling their home because if they buy a new home they must pay property taxes at the new rate, not the grandfathered one. This creates a bottlenecked supply of housing because no one sells. Gro…

Do a little research. If you move in CA and you're over 55, you can now keep your property tax bill. Previously it was only certain counties that honored that; now it's all of them. https://www.financialplannerla.com/transfer-california-prope... > All because they happened to have bought a home before this law passed. Again, do some research. Prop 13 passed in 1978, 45 years ago. The number of current homeowners who…

I'm confused why you would request data that explains that if people have assets they will borrow against them and invest to make more money. I'm not sure what data would satisfy your request because this just seems blindingly obvious to anyone who can reason about personal finance.

> all kinds of reasons why there's too little building

And you think that providing incentives for people to move houses has no effect on any of the other components? Come on.

The other commenter laid out the other reasons well enough so I won't repeat them.

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

#199
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, welcome to the conversation, I can tell this is the first time you've engaged with this topic, so I'd love to introduce you to the economic dynamics at play. When property taxes don't rise, people are disincentivized from selling their home because if they buy a new home they must pay property taxes at the new rate, not the grandfathered one. This creates a bottlenecked supply of housing because no one sells. Gro…

Do you have data to support this claim? It doesn't appear to play out like this in practice. Compare CA vs a state like NJ and home sales seem on par per capita. https://journal.firsttuesday.us/home-sales-volume-and-price-... https://njar-public.stats.10kresearch.com/docs/lmu/x/EntireS...

Why do all these sites only consider from 2010 onward? Prop 13 was passed in 1978.

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

#200
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about people looking at $1,500+/month rent with multiple roommates... if they're lucky, for the rest of their lives. That is not offering people a future. There is no viable path to prosperity. There is no path for lower-class folks to achieve a private residence with a spouse. When these people increase productivity, rents will capture that wealth. Why should people play by these rules? A tiny condo in…

I don't disagree that SF has a major problem with housing affordability. I also think that problem was self-imposed by the use of restrictive zoning and ordinances that made it nearly impossible to construct high-density housing of any kind. (Look at Bob Tillman's struggle as one example.) I also think this conduct by state and local governments are hypocritical, odious, and disgusting. That said, I also don't see ho…

There are honest ways to exercise your disgust and unwillingness to stay within the confines of a system that's stacked against you. Within a few hundred miles of SF are tons of options.

If you are homeless and completely destitute, the big cities are where you can find enough soup kitchens to survive.

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