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San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

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Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#21

Post by uoaei »

boredumb wrote: post #16
belfalas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great history professor I had at university was very interested in California politics. His take after years of research was that the thing holding California back is Prop 13, which has to do with taxation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 Dear HNers, please note: I understand Prop 13 is hugely controversial and the "third rail" of California politics. I don't have a dog in this fight, I…

So the thing holding back California is that they don't get enough taxes? There must be something more nuanced i'm missing, but it almost feels like a comedy sketch thinking of a California college professor explaining to people that California not taxing it's citizens enough is the thing holding it back.

Hi, welcome to the conversation, I can tell this is the first time you've engaged with this topic, so I'd love to introduce you to the economic dynamics at play.

When property taxes don't rise, people are disincentivized from selling their home because if they buy a new home they must pay property taxes at the new rate, not the grandfathered one. This creates a bottlenecked supply of housing because no one sells. Growth stagnates and then you get these wild fights about who's allowed to build where, how much they're allowed to build, and what kinds of undesirables might move in and "change the community". It's really a clever ploy to use people's conservative instincts to juice the real estate market since scarcity brings about insanely high costs. Now those with Prop 13 homes are even less incentivized to move because their house's worth just keeps rising. They can use that and borrow against it to play financial games and make their money make money. All because they happened to have bought a home before this law passed: entirely luck, nothing to do with merit or skill.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#22

Post by Dig1t »

belfalas wrote: post #4
maerF0x0 wrote: post #2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_California Despite California's current reputation, check out 1952-1988 . IMO that was a golden era of California, and the fertile grounds under which many of the boomers generation got their start

A great history professor I had at university was very interested in California politics. His take after years of research was that the thing holding California back is Prop 13, which has to do with taxation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 Dear HNers, please note: I understand Prop 13 is hugely controversial and the "third rail" of California politics. I don't have a dog in this fight, I…

Is the argument basically just "arg if only we could collect even more taxes we could use the money to fix all our problems"?

California already has super high taxes that are skewed towards taxing the rich more.

Seems like a joke at this point saying that they need even higher taxes.

Also California's system of propositions is one of the closest forms of direct democracy available anywhere, if you like democracy then you should like this system. It is sort of inconvenient that the system was used to stop tax increases for home owners, but these are exactly the reasons why the system was created in the first place, to give people power over their own lives.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#24

Post by marsten »

belfalas wrote: post #4
maerF0x0 wrote: post #2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_California Despite California's current reputation, check out 1952-1988 . IMO that was a golden era of California, and the fertile grounds under which many of the boomers generation got their start

A great history professor I had at university was very interested in California politics. His take after years of research was that the thing holding California back is Prop 13, which has to do with taxation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 Dear HNers, please note: I understand Prop 13 is hugely controversial and the "third rail" of California politics. I don't have a dog in this fight, I…

If you're a new California homeowner, I recommend you never look up what others on your street pay in property tax.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#26

Post by badrequest »

This article doesn't make much sense to me. How are people who respond to your anecdote about being robbed with powerless indifference "ignoring" the problem? Are they supposed to suit up and go out on a caper to find your stolen item? They literally acknowledge that it happened to you and it's chalked up to ignorance, how?

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#27

Post by msla »

fundad wrote: post #9
rootusrootus wrote: post #3

> And yet, San Francisco, like other great cities worldwide, has its unique charm and a sense of elitist smugness, a conviction that living here is a coveted opportunity. As a fellow lover of big cities, I respect this attitude. That's quite introspective, and might explain a lot of the commentary on hacker news when urban/suburban/rural discussions come up.

People are in denial about aging out of city living.

Hard to imagine aging into living in a place with less access to healthcare and amenities accessible to people who don't drive.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#28

Post by f1yght »

fundad wrote: post #9
rootusrootus wrote: post #3

> And yet, San Francisco, like other great cities worldwide, has its unique charm and a sense of elitist smugness, a conviction that living here is a coveted opportunity. As a fellow lover of big cities, I respect this attitude. That's quite introspective, and might explain a lot of the commentary on hacker news when urban/suburban/rural discussions come up.

People are in denial about aging out of city living.

Why would you age out of having amenities closer to you? If anything, as you get older things should be even closer.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#29

Post by sylens »

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing and charging criminals.

If the only risk for stealing the author's scooter will be I get briefly detained and released the next day to await my trial, what's stopping me from stealing a different scooter every night? Even if I get caught 50% of the time, I'm making money the other 50% of the nights.

A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. Otherwise, you're going to drive every law abiding, tax paying citizen out of these cities.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#30

Post by wallwariyan »

this is an overreaction from suburban midwestern types. the people that have lived in the bay area and been priced out of sf will keep the region going. the rest will either fit in or move out of the area after publishing an out of touch medium blog post about their experiences
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