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Goodbye, San Francisco

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Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#191

Post by fmajid »

cmh89 wrote: post #87
rossdavidh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. In most previous decades, the city government (no matter the party) would have been able to take whatever action (probably more $$ for police and more enforcement) seemed appropriate to the problem, and that would be a non-partisan issue. Now even admitting that there is an actual issue seems to be a partisan stance.

If enforcement and police were an actual solutions, the United States would be the cleanest, safest country on Earth. But we aren't because it isn't. The real crux of the issue is that the major west coast cities are being tasked with dealing with a nationwide drug and mental health crisis and there just isn't the money to humanely handle the problem. So you end up with people who correctly say that locking people up…

The US is actually under-policed compared to Europe, probably because police officers are so handsomely paid cities can't afford many of them.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#192

Post by orangepurple »

test098 wrote: post #185
orangepurple wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I lived in Warsaw for 20 years. Warsaw has zero dangerous neighborhoods and has a population of 1.86 million. My recommendation for you to stay safe as a minority in America who feels threatened is to obtain a concealed carry permit, a Glock 43 with holster, and a cell phone you can use to call 911. When shit hits the fan try to run away and call 911 but if you can't run away you can leave the phone off the hook…

the people who were doing the harassing and assaulting included law enforcement. Philando Castile was famously killed when he revealed to the officer that he had a (legally) concealed weapon. do you have any other suggestions? my point here is that there are places in the US that are not safe for various subgroups. in major cities, this is (unfortunately) a common issue but that doesn't mean that it's magically going…

I completely believe you. There are many cases of utterly unwarranted terrible atrocities committed against non-whites. I assume that is what you mean. Are whites a minority in America yet? Here is one example that immediately comes to mind: Bodycam Footage Of Virginia Cops Drawing Guns And Spraying Army Lieutenant During Traffic Stop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5KZSADDhg

If we use detailed violent crime information from Chicago sourced from https://heyjackass.com/ it is clear that the greatest threat to non-whites is other non-whites. 96% of victims and assailants are non-white and 92% of the time injury and death occurs from being shot. I find it hard to believe that city police are killing non-whites at a similar rate and manner. According the same website mentioned above there were 3 people killed by police in 2023 and 3 people were wounded by police in 2023. If we speculatively assume all six victims of police involved shootings were black only and we consider the other 237 black victims of violent crime (93% of which are shootings, so 220 blacks shot, then this gives us the ratio of 6/(220+6) or about 3% of black victims were victims of police involved shootings in Chicago. You have a 97% chance of being shot by non-cop if you are black when a violent/deadly encounter is in the cards.

If you are non-white and live in a city you should absolutely conceal carry to protect yourself. Use 911 to your advantage as a recording system too. I still recommend a good pair of running shoes first and foremost. Sometimes 911 puts people on hold. If you live in a city where this happens (it happened to me before in the US nation's capital) maybe its for the best to wear a body cam when going out and about.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#194

Post by dmix »

subsubzero wrote: post #110
whimsicalism wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah he picked probably among the worst neighborhoods to live in. I have noticed this is a recurring pattern among single male tech friends I have to move to Soma due to office proximity and then end up hating the city.

Alot of this is due to the policy decisions of Ed Lee(ex SF mayor). He authorized tax breaks for a bevy of tech companies to operate in the tenderloin tax free(for a few years). The reason for this was to revitalize a blighted neighborhood with an infusion of highly paid tech workers. This is turn lead to a huge amount of tech employees moving to one of the worst areas in SF. Sf for sure is falling apart but I did sp…

Zoning laws basically make this the reality in every major city's downtown area. They aren't allowing offices or building new multistory buildings in the safe NIMBY areas of cities.

It might sound like an overt policy but in reality it's just the easiest one without doing any real reform or dealing with any of the problems. Like all municipal housing/development policy in the last two decades.

Zoning rarely changes, what's does always change a) the natural expansion of economically productive downtown areas and b) the degree to how bad it is in those very high traffic areas while everyone pretends you can just easily not visit those areas and be fine (despite there being few options to work or build elsewhere).

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#195

Post by dmix »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #54
rossdavidh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. In most previous decades, the city government (no matter the party) would have been able to take whatever action (probably more $$ for police and more enforcement) seemed appropriate to the problem, and that would be a non-partisan issue. Now even admitting that there is an actual issue seems to be a partisan stance.

On a non federal level, imprisoning people and hence goading them elsewhere is the only solution. No city/county/state has the resources to be able to offer healthcare or housing. Freedom of movement across the country means net benefit recipients would move in, and net payers into the system would move out.

> No city/county/state has the resources to be able to offer healthcare or housing.

This is the lie told everywhere that the only real solution to affordable housing is gov spending billions on a small set of tenement buildings, that take a decade to build, and are 3x over budget. Instead of reforming municipal policies to reduce rampant NIMBYist roadblocks, rethinking zoning from the ground up, streamlining regulations to make it easier to follow and enforce the rules safely, etc etc.

None of those things require billions of dollars to be committed. Just heart, communication skills, and charisma. There's a mountain of capital and regular people ready to build new housing, lack of capital, or will, or lack of demand to build has never been the problem. To discover the root problem requires asking why it's so rare/expensive despite that reality and why it's so harder today than it was 100yrs ago.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#196

Post by lotsofpulp »

dmix wrote: post #195
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a non federal level, imprisoning people and hence goading them elsewhere is the only solution. No city/county/state has the resources to be able to offer healthcare or housing. Freedom of movement across the country means net benefit recipients would move in, and net payers into the system would move out.

> No city/county/state has the resources to be able to offer healthcare or housing. This is the lie told everywhere that the only real solution to affordable housing is gov spending billions on a small set of tenement buildings, that take a decade to build, and are 3x over budget. Instead of reforming municipal policies to reduce rampant NIMBYist roadblocks, rethinking zoning from the ground up, streamlining regulati…

I was addressing free housing (and/or mental healthcare/drug addiction treatment), not affordable housing.

Increasing supply of housing and bringing prices down is also a needed solution to prevent some people from getting to the destitute stage, and yes, that is under local control.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#197

Post by dmix »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #196
dmix wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No city/county/state has the resources to be able to offer healthcare or housing. This is the lie told everywhere that the only real solution to affordable housing is gov spending billions on a small set of tenement buildings, that take a decade to build, and are 3x over budget. Instead of reforming municipal policies to reduce rampant NIMBYist roadblocks, rethinking zoning from the ground up, streamlining regulati…

I was addressing free housing (and/or mental healthcare/drug addiction treatment), not affordable housing. Increasing supply of housing and bringing prices down is also a needed solution to prevent some people from getting to the destitute stage, and yes, that is under local control.

I personally don't see a distinction. It's infintiely more complicated to build public housing when people making $200k+ struggle to find a proper apartment to rent, let alone buy an actual house/condo.

Homelessness doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not the homeless in one bucket then everyone else living in the real world, where the only dichotomy we have to accept when living in a city is public housing vs paying $3k/month for rent.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#198

Post by simondotau »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #91
yohannparis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a city where you need to be careful about which neighbourhood to live in.

Don’t all big cities have bad neighborhoods?

Absolutely not. All cities have rougher areas, because cities need workers that are only paid enough to live in affordable hosing and affordable housing inevitably clumps together.

But it doesn't automatically follow that a rough area is "bad" in the way it is in San Francisco. Plenty of cities in Australia, for example, have their share of upmarket and downmarket suburbs. But the lesser suburbs are rarely dangerous and their poor reputation is largely socio-economic, relativistic and/or historical prejudice.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#199

Post by jwestbury »

dmix wrote: post #194
subsubzero wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alot of this is due to the policy decisions of Ed Lee(ex SF mayor). He authorized tax breaks for a bevy of tech companies to operate in the tenderloin tax free(for a few years). The reason for this was to revitalize a blighted neighborhood with an infusion of highly paid tech workers. This is turn lead to a huge amount of tech employees moving to one of the worst areas in SF. Sf for sure is falling apart but I did sp…

Zoning laws basically make this the reality in every major city's downtown area. They aren't allowing offices or building new multistory buildings in the safe NIMBY areas of cities. It might sound like an overt policy but in reality it's just the easiest one without doing any real reform or dealing with any of the problems. Like all municipal housing/development policy in the last two decades. Zoning rarely changes,…

Bad zoning policy is probably the largest driver of most things that are killing cities -- it encourages wealth disparity, bad land use, increased emissions, and concentration of crime. Unfortunately, wealth is a driver of bad zoning policy, so it's a bit hard to get out from under it -- and some of the examples of "fixing" zoning are equally terrible, e.g. Houston's complete lack of zoning and incredible sprawl.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#200

Post by _blz2 »

RickJWagner wrote: post #193

If you listen carefully, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland are whispering messages to you about local politics and policies.

Those who caused this (voters) will simply leave and blame everyone else but their own political views.
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