We call it "culture".
Public restrooms don't help, people do it despite those, and often near them. We've had people come in during a change window late at night, and go right outside our office door. The custodian said he passed the person on their way out, and had to clean it up. Then there is that moment you realized someone tracked some into your office after walking to get lunch. It's very offsetting.
Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
181–190 of 257 posts
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some cities that seem to have better salary/cost of living ratios. I'm thinking of places like Boulder, CO or Provo, UT.
One might ask why increasing productivity in a region leads to higher cost of living (rent). Well, that one is pretty obvious. Landlords will charge the highest prices they can get away with. The more interesting question is why landlords are supposedly entitled to all of the new wealth. After all they had no role in creating any of it.
Unless we remove the concept of land ownership, there aren’t many viable alternatives that don’t also have unwanted consequences.
At the root of the problem in your question is how does society determine who has a right to live where. Obviously, given the opportunity, most of the world would want to live with on the California coast or similar places.
Obviously, the most basic answer to the question I posed above is “might makes right”. But we have moved past a situation where fight someone to take their land, and instead have to buy it.
Yes, the current system is unfair for most people. Most people will never get a chance to live where they want, and most people are born without the chance in the first place. So why should society let those born to wealthy moms get the spoils?
There isn’t a good answer, other than a better alternative hasn’t been invented yet. But at least in the current scenario, a small percentage of people can move into the places they want, giving enough hope that people aren’t resorting to war. Or they are unable to.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't keep humans in place, who don't want to stay in place. If you paid some benighted town in the Great Plains $500/head to accept your homeless, that town would just buy each transplanted San Francisco resident a sandwich and a bus ticket, pocketing the rest. It would soon become a joke on SF streets, "yeah I just got back from Nebraska!"
The ideal is to solve the problem with carrot and stick. Give them free housing of a sort, so that it’s an improvement over living on the street, but not so that currently-housed people would feel tempted to downgrade their status to homeless in order to get the free house. The ideal free housing camp is (a) away from major population centres, (b) fairly basic, and (c) compulsory for those who wind up homeless in maj…
Carrot and stick doesn’t work with someone who is mentally ill.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
One might ask why increasing productivity in a region leads to higher cost of living (rent). Well, that one is pretty obvious. Landlords will charge the highest prices they can get away with. The more interesting question is why landlords are supposedly entitled to all of the new wealth. After all they had no role in creating any of it.
Unless we remove the concept of land ownership, there aren’t many viable alternatives that don’t also have unwanted consequences. At the root of the problem in your question is how does society determine who has a right to live where. Obviously, given the opportunity, most of the world would want to live with on the California coast or similar places. Obviously, the most basic answer to the question I posed above is…
> Unless we remove the concept of land ownership, there aren’t many viable alternatives that don’t also have unwanted consequences.
You can assess land rent (there are methods to do this that are quite reliable) and tax away, say, 80% of it, thus leaving in place enough of a market in land that its ordinary function in facilitating exchanges is not impaired. It's quite easy in fact, the main problem is really getting there from here.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#185A huge problem is the lack of public toilets. When I first lived there, I got locked out of my apartment and could not find anywhere to go to the bathroom. I had to wait until my roommate got back. If I did not have a place to go back to, what could have I done except poop on the street?
Wouldn't a restaurant or fast food outlet let you use their bathroom? I think if you make it clear that your options are to take a dump either on their toilet or right where you're standing, they would show you the toilet immediately.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh -- do you mean to ask how state/national politics play into San Francisco's housing crisis? California state law is a big part of the problem: it gives individual cities way too much power to decide what gets built and what doesn't, severely restricting supply. For example, neighborhood associations can filibuster new development into nothingness, even for contradictory reasons like not having enough parking but a…
More than that, Prop 13 incentivizes cities to have commercial real estate instead of residential. Thereby forcing housing to be ever farther from workplaces.
But before Prop 13, people on fixed incomes were getting taxed out of their paid-off homes they'd lived in for decades.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
One might ask why increasing productivity in a region leads to higher cost of living (rent). Well, that one is pretty obvious. Landlords will charge the highest prices they can get away with. The more interesting question is why landlords are supposedly entitled to all of the new wealth. After all they had no role in creating any of it.
Unless we remove the concept of land ownership, there aren’t many viable alternatives that don’t also have unwanted consequences. At the root of the problem in your question is how does society determine who has a right to live where. Obviously, given the opportunity, most of the world would want to live with on the California coast or similar places. Obviously, the most basic answer to the question I posed above is…
Well, this is what free market capitalism is for. If it weren't for the loads of regulation whole neighborhoods in SF would have been replaced with high-density housing a decade ago.
However, California has decided that "housing as investment" supersedes all else. It's not that there's no viable alternatives: this is by design.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
More than that, Prop 13 incentivizes cities to have commercial real estate instead of residential. Thereby forcing housing to be ever farther from workplaces.
But before Prop 13, people on fixed incomes were getting taxed out of their paid-off homes they'd lived in for decades.
Which is in itself a symptom of the housing crisis. Instead of fixing the root problem they accelerated it.
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#189I echo the point that this is merely a symptom of SF's inability to be a little bit more hardnosed and solve its problems. As an example: I called 311/911 to report a trio of homeless guys, operating a bike chop shop in broad daylight on a Saturday in downtown (and blocking the sidewalk, and creating piles of junk). The operator said that she would report this to the "neighborhood outreach / management team" or somet…
Just wait until every restaurant is Taco Bell.
Not sure if this reference is for Idiocracy or Demolition Man...
Re: Trends in the San Francisco (mostly dog?) poop crisis
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, there are plenty of safe injection cities all over Canada. They save lives, not promote homelessness. https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/ha... edit: > "oh gee they sure are nice not to arrest me for dealing drugs and smashing car windows. To thank them I will not poop in the street." This is terribly reductionist, and apathy is not at all the same as actually providing help.
With all of that homeless business going, would that toilet would be acceptable enough to use for a normal person? I certainly wouldn't go into one where I can find someone tripping, shooting, dealing, assaulting or smelling worse than the toilet itself.
I'm talking about a safe injection facility, not a toilet.