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"This homelessness seems just dandy!"
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San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
11–20 of 312 posts
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#12“Up and down the city’s disorienting hills, you notice homeless men and women — junkies, winos, the dispossessed...“ Did the author ever actually walk in SF? The homeless mostly stay in the flats, the hills are fine (and higher rent of course).
I don't think you would hold that opinion if you walked in the hilly are near Union Square.
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#13San Francisco is a bonsai kitten. It wants to grow into a major world city like NYC, LA, or Tokyo, but its older residents are steadfastly opposed and want to keep it in a jar so it stays cute. The result is a painful deformed mess.
I don't really think city planning boards can control how cities grow. A city is a living thing. If it "wants" to grow, let it grow. If it doesn't, I don't think it can be forced.
Detroit learned the opposite lesson and is recovering in part by realizing that the Detroit of today is destined to be a much smaller city population wise than it once was and they are adjusting and "right-sizing" the city accordingly. They are concentrating on the living areas and demolishing and transforming the dead ones into parks, public gardens, urban farming, or natural land. The result will be a smaller city with a ton of really cool history and a cool "post-industrial" vernacular.
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#14“Up and down the city’s disorienting hills, you notice homeless men and women — junkies, winos, the dispossessed...“ Did the author ever actually walk in SF? The homeless mostly stay in the flats, the hills are fine (and higher rent of course).
According to the latest SF homeless census[1], nearly 50% of SF's homeless population are in District 6 -- Tenderloin, Civic Center, and SOMA. These are also areas where there are high concentrations of tourists and visitors. Someone just visiting San Francisco vs actually living here is likely to come away with a grim impression.
[1]http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisc...
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#15“Up and down the city’s disorienting hills, you notice homeless men and women — junkies, winos, the dispossessed...“ Did the author ever actually walk in SF? The homeless mostly stay in the flats, the hills are fine (and higher rent of course).
I don’t even want to visit San Francisco anymore. Why would the writers want to? I’m making a point about how bad it’s become in San Francisco relative to the rest of the US
My partner and I visited SF last summer and were fairly shocked with all the homelessness, drug use on the streets and human feces scattered about. We won’t be back.
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#16Having lived in SF for a number of years now, I 100% agree that SF is just dystopian as hell. Trash everywhere downtown, human feces/needles/smell of urine all over downtown & SOMA, depressing mix of aggressive and zombie-like homeless, very few kids/families, very few minorities (especially African-Americans), barely functioning public transportation system, high rents forcing six-figure earners to live with 2 roomm…
Seattle too!
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#17Having lived in SF for a number of years now, I 100% agree that SF is just dystopian as hell. Trash everywhere downtown, human feces/needles/smell of urine all over downtown & SOMA, depressing mix of aggressive and zombie-like homeless, very few kids/families, very few minorities (especially African-Americans), barely functioning public transportation system, high rents forcing six-figure earners to live with 2 roomm…
Seattle too!
Seattle is at least marginally cheaper
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#18For those who are wondering, given the publisher, no, the essay is not simply a rant against rent-control: > True revolution would involve curbing the authority of the San Francisco Planning Commission. If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment (density is green), they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy to align the interests of the city…
Is there anything in the world quite as dumb as this form of argument?
If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment
Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#19Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide
#20For those who are wondering, given the publisher, no, the essay is not simply a rant against rent-control: > True revolution would involve curbing the authority of the San Francisco Planning Commission. If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment (density is green), they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy to align the interests of the city…
> they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy They can't bring themselves to mention Proposition 13, somehow.
Prop 13 isn't really in the control of SF city residents.
But damn, California ... time to put that wealth-transfer tax for the old, rich, landed elite to bed already.