Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks • Hacker News Board

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#141

Post by piperswe » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #45

starik36 wrote: post #16

A large article and not a single mention of crime.

I started to think that, but actually the last section of the article, is about crime. I think it’s quite weak however, crime is in my humble opinion the very central reason for the decline of downtown San Francisco.

Why do you say that? May 2022 had 14.9% less crime than May 2021 according to SFPD: https://public.tableau.com/shared/HP3P97STJ?:display_count=n...

Source for that Tableau dash: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim...

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#142

Post by SilasX » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

hazyc wrote: post #84

systemvoltage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

Do you even live here? Walk around the Marina, Pac Heights, Presidio, Noe Valley, etc etc and tell me with a straight face that it's an "unmitigated disaster". If you can afford to live here (i.e. you can afford to avoid 'downtown') then you would realize that it's one of the nicest cities in the world.

Rio de Janeiro is great too, if you avoid the favelas.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#143

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

foogazi wrote: post #134

refurb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Seems reasonable no? Not sure where this bizarre idea came about that people whose houses dramatically increase in value should:1) be able to avoid paying taxes on that value and 2) pass the house down, in whole, to their heirs without paying increased taxes.

If someone buys my neighbor’s house for 2X what I paid for mine, why should I pay more in taxes ?

because property tax is based on the value of the property, and your property is worth more too?

a different way of phrasing the question: is it fair that your new neighbor pays twice as much as you to support city services, just because they bought their place more recently?

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#144

Post by a9h74j » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

julianeon wrote: post #24

I live in SF & read these articles, which all have a tone of “What is to be done?” They seem reluctant to draw unpopular conclusions, even if those conclusions are inevitable. So here, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. You can wait 50 years if you want and see if it comes back, but it never will; there’s no going back. Yo…

Forget retrofitting. Go SCO. Single Cubicle Occupancy.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#145

Post by mertd » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #128

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: How much of this caused Prop 13? We bought a home in the Bay Area a few years ago. We considered the pros/cons of moving out of state and one pro of staying here was Prop 13 in California. We plan to retire in this home and figured Prop 13 will help make our post-retirement living expenses negligible. I only recently had the realization that Prop 13 could cause some serious problems like cities bein…

Prop 13 ensures that once you’ve bought in you feel no more pain from the housing crisis, and thus most Californian voters would have to vote against their own individual self-interest to do anything positive on housing, which just won’t happen. By contrast, in Texas there is no income tax but high property tax, and as prices have shot up recently most homeowners have reason to be worried about it and to vote to take…

I stand to benefit from Prop 13; yet I would vote against Prop 13 without a second thought. It is causing enormous and unjust human suffering. People vote against their self interest all the time, if you convince them that it is for the greater good.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#146

Post by zdragnar » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

mgsouth wrote: post #92

greggman3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't know what it would take to retrofit but don't NYC and LA have lots of old office buildings turned into tready lofts? The Financial District and especiallyunion square area could be amazing if it was zoned for residential with commercial on the first floor. Parts of it could easily rival some of the nicer neighborhoods in Europe. For the larger buildings, make every 6th floor a shared space, put a res…

The site seems to have a very odd sprinkling of English headings and words. Not enough for a non-Japanese reader, and no visible option to switch to an English version of the pages, so clearly targeted Japanese-only. Is this common?

I've been watching a number of the Taskmaster spinoffs in other countries- Norway, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium, etc- and one thing they all share in common is a tendency to randomly blurt out English words or phrases- most frequently in an exclamatory manner even though the show isn't targeted at an english audience and the people aren't native english speakers.

I haven't watched much Korean TV, but iirc it's not exactly uncommon in Korean music either.

I assume it's "cool" given the prevalence of English media, probably varies quite a bit by region.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#147

Post by epicureanideal » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

eszaq wrote: post #47

mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people want to live in relative expensive housing if there are no jobs in the city for them? Converted apartments are not going to be "affordable" (by say the likes of students, and people just out of college not in finance or tech. Once the white collar workers leave, there is less demand for service workers to live there. Sure maybe some salaried workers like in emergency services and policing might choos…

With more housing, the relative expense decreases, and some people will move in just because they like the bustle of living in a city. Those are also the kind of people who will patronize local establishments. Years ago, the center of the action in "Silicon Valley" was actually in the geographical valley, in the south bay. The south bay is way different from SF - safe and sterile. Some people would move up to SF and…

> and the center of the action gradually moved to SF

Is this true? Are there some numbers available for comparison?

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#148

Post by Bud » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #114

hindsightbias wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death Tax! There isn’t a red state that doesn’t wish they had Prop 13.

All of the extremely wealthy people I know are in favor of maaaive death taxes, of pretty much all wealth. However, none of these people inherited their money, and came from humble backgrounds, so my anecdata may not represent many of the wealthy.

Not to accuse them of being dishonest, but it also costs them nothing to say that, loudly and often, in a political environment where they know it's not going to happen.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#149

Post by olliej » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

I live in Oakland, so have awareness but obviously not direct exposure to SF's current D.A. problems - it seems like SF voted in a person they thought would be a DA that would reduce excessive prison, juvenile->adult conversion, better diversion to mental health support, etc.

It turned out what they actually got was a DA that literally did not do his job, and just had literally everyone arrested put back on the street. Apparently also trying to get his father out of criminal charges as well?

That goes a long way to explain the overwhelming recall in last? weeks election.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#150

Post by zdragnar » Sun, Jun 12, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

blagie wrote: post #101

refurb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction is remote work won’t last. Maybe for specific workers and tech must be the last, but other office jobs? They’ll be a slow but growing expectation to be in the office and the folks that show up will be the ones getting the desirable projects, the promotions and raises. It might take a few years until we get there, but we will.

My prediction would have been different 2 years ago. Pre-COVID, I worked on a few 100% remote teams, and it worked great. COVID didn't do what I expected. Instead of online learning moving into the mainstream, we got emergency crappy online learning, and the world burned out on online learning. Everyone now believes it can't be done. All the businesses I worked with switched to WFH, equally poorly. In my current job,…

I don't really know anyone who (openly) believed that online learning was going to be successful.

Online learning is fine for adults who have developed sufficient mental discipline and focus, especially college style where you're in classes only a few hours a day.

Expecting 7 year old kids and teenagers to sit in front of a computer screen and suffer through what effectively amounts to 7 hours of meetings is asinine- they can barely do that in person, where the number of distractions is far fewer.

OTOH, I will never go back to an office, full stop. The commute isn't worth it, and being in person more than a handful of times a year (tops) isn't worth it. I'm a fairly introverted person by nature, though, and my dogs and wife are home during the day, so I don't really get any sense of isolation.