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San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

nationalreview.com

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Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#121

Post by perpetualpatzer »

_jal wrote: post #59
perpetualpatzer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, not familiar with CA politics ... is the subtext here that a land-value tax would be impossible without a constitutional amendment? Or that California already enacted a 1% ad valorem tax in the 70s? From what I can tell, Prop 13 seems generally popular[0], but could see an argument that it exacerbates the housing shortage in the Bay Area, so not sure which way you're pointing. [0] https://www.ppic.org/wp-conte…

That is my point, yes. And doing so is essentially impossible. It is popular among property owners, who have a huge interest in defeating any attack on it. (It was also slightly amusing to see a history-free call for more taxation in that particular rag, given tribal affiliations.) It does drive up housing costs. It also distorts commercial transactions weakens, local control, and generally casts a large shadow over,…

gotcha. Thanks for the reply.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#122

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

tntn wrote: post #107
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #78

The author lost me at > Cities are nearly immortal; though they decline, they rarely die. Cities great and small die all the time. Ur died, Babylon died. SF will die. Cities die when their purpose no longer justifies their expense. And the purpose of most cities is concentrating people to facilitate trade. But increasingly there’s nothing to do in SF, especially for the masses. If people don’t figure out something fo…

> die all the time > ur died, Babylon died. Your two examples are from 2-3 millennia ago. I would think if cities "die all the time," you would have more recent examples. Maybe it proves the author correct that the first cities that came to mind are from 2500 years ago?

Good criticism of my post. Here's a more extensive list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_city. So when the author writes "they rarely die" it seems to me like the author has a serious historical blind spot. But why do we need to only talk about "great cities?" Why aren't all the "ghost towns" of the wild west a good enough example?

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#123

Post by justin66 »

veryworried wrote: post #105
justin66 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The argument that Democrats are all the best people who always have a genuine interest for others and the environment has it beat.

I'm sure that matters to you, but I was talking about the form of the argument. It'd be equally stupid if it were something starting with If Republicans cared about free markets or low taxes...

It's a completely useless way to preface any statement, signalling useless text to follow.

See what I mean?

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#124

Post by sidlls »

rayiner wrote: post #110
kerkeslager wrote: post #67

The elites of SF and many people on HN are caught in this loop: 1. Companies don't take personal responsibility when they do antisocial things, claiming they can't be blamed, since they are just following incentives in order to compete. 2. Companies follow incentives, and lobby government to incentivize the behaviors that make them the most money (even if those behaviors are antisocial). 3. Government, influenced by…

Companies are not the problem, San Franciscans are the problem. By all accounts, Texas regulates companies less than California. But Texas is at the national average in cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate, despite being a majority-minority state, while California tops the charts in poverty: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevor... . As compared to California, Texas also has much higher rates o…

You must have visited a relatively "blue" urban area. What you describe doesn't match the reality in most of the rest of the state. And while there are pockets of segregation and racism in Northern California by and large there are very few places as diverse as the Bay Area on Earth, much less the rest of America and particularly the south.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#125

Post by rglullis »

kerkeslager wrote: post #67

The elites of SF and many people on HN are caught in this loop: 1. Companies don't take personal responsibility when they do antisocial things, claiming they can't be blamed, since they are just following incentives in order to compete. 2. Companies follow incentives, and lobby government to incentivize the behaviors that make them the most money (even if those behaviors are antisocial). 3. Government, influenced by…

Until SF becomes more willing to regulate companies...

Alternatively, SF (and the rest of the world) could stop accepting lobbying as an acceptable practice, and your loop breaks. ;)

Lobbying is the problem. Asking for more regulations when there are still opportunities for the big companies to get what they want through lobbying will never solve the problem.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#126

Post by orangecat »

Finnucane wrote: post #39
api wrote: post #13

San 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…

I've lived in New York. Why would anyone want San Francisco to become like that? Is NYC cheap, clean, free of homeless people? No, it is crowded, smelly, expensive, and only livable for the extremely wealthy.

I've lived in New York.

So have I.

Why would anyone want San Francisco to become like that?

It would be a significant improvement. NYC is far from perfect, but it has semi-affordable rents (outside of Manhattan), semi-functional transit, and much less excrement.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#127

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

freehunter wrote: post #120
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #78

The author lost me at > Cities are nearly immortal; though they decline, they rarely die. Cities great and small die all the time. Ur died, Babylon died. SF will die. Cities die when their purpose no longer justifies their expense. And the purpose of most cities is concentrating people to facilitate trade. But increasingly there’s nothing to do in SF, especially for the masses. If people don’t figure out something fo…

Those cities were more like nations and the city fell when the civilization did. If we're using Ur and Babylon in reference to the complete abandonment of SF, we would need the entire American nation to collapse and be abandoned as well. Without that, SF will "die" the way Rome did or the way Detroit did. Not the way Ur or Babylon did.

I'm sorry, I should have provided more context. Here's a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_city that includes the kinds of cities I'm thinking of. Many of these cities declined and depopulated due to climate change, economic factors, etc. Ie the same kinds of factors that are affecting SF and Detroit right now. Cities don't just die because their nation falls.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#128

Post by et2o »

redm wrote: post #45

Although a bit overdramatic at times, there is so much truth on this article. I wish i could do more than upvote it. “Crowded thoroughfares such as Market Street, even in the light of midday, stage a carnival of indecipherable outbursts and drug-induced thrashings about which the police seem to do nothing.” This really touched me because the police in SF, if you ever see one, look disinterested at best.

Homelessness and mental health issues leading to homelessness aren't really an issue the police can address alone. Housing is indeed a big part of the problem; other cities (New Orleans for example) have had excellent results relocating formerly homeless people into inexpensive apartments.

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#129

Post by freehunter »

asdf21 wrote: post #109
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #78

The author lost me at > Cities are nearly immortal; though they decline, they rarely die. Cities great and small die all the time. Ur died, Babylon died. SF will die. Cities die when their purpose no longer justifies their expense. And the purpose of most cities is concentrating people to facilitate trade. But increasingly there’s nothing to do in SF, especially for the masses. If people don’t figure out something fo…

Exactly. Are Detroit and Baltimore dead? May as well be, for most intents and purposes.

Yeah, the 20th and 23rd most populous cities in the US are "dead". The millions of people that live in Detroit and Baltimore, the tens of millions who rely on those cities for their livelihood, all the people who live there and the children being born there, all dead.

I feel like sometimes people don't read their own comments before they click "reply".

Re: San Francisco’s Slow-Motion Suicide

#130

Post by kerkeslager »

mushufasa wrote: post #77
kerkeslager wrote: post #67

The elites of SF and many people on HN are caught in this loop: 1. Companies don't take personal responsibility when they do antisocial things, claiming they can't be blamed, since they are just following incentives in order to compete. 2. Companies follow incentives, and lobby government to incentivize the behaviors that make them the most money (even if those behaviors are antisocial). 3. Government, influenced by…

Absolutely. One thing most people don't realize is that citizens own corporations. Retail investors (anyone with retirement accounts) own or are beneficial owners of the majority of public company common stock. And as shareowners, you have rights. So, you can change this loop if as a shareowner, you change what happens between steps 1 and 2 by engaging with those companies. I built this site to try and make that proc…

While I applaud your intentions and effort, you're basically hoping that we can start trusting companies to self-regulate if we ask them to do so nicely.

I suspect any change in spending habits you might see from companies would fall under what I mentioned:

> "Companies might choose one or two social issues to do good on for marketing purposes, while creating equal or greater harm in other areas."

So in this case you'd see companies saying, "Look how transparent we are about our lobbying! Look how we're only lobbying for carbon emissions regulation!" Meanwhile they've bought up a massive campus and put spikes on the sidewalks to prevent the homeless from sleeping there, and pay 75% of their workers minimum wage.

And that's even if the disclosure of their political spending gives an accurate impression. It's quite easy to publicly spend to support an anti-carbon-emissions bill that will make a councilman's career, in order to buy that councilman's vote against the housing bill that would hurt your business. In the disclosure, it looks like your political spending was anti-carbon-emissions, when in reality it was anti-homeless.

It's not plausible for average citizens to become educated and do enough research to catch companies doing this in every case: there are too many companies and it's too complex. It's the job of politicians to do that research and regulate accordingly, and we need to empower them to do that, and elect politicians who will use that power effectively.

The only way out of this that I can see is to not allow companies to spend on politics at all--voters have the sole right to determine our politics, and that right needs to be protected from corporate spending.

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