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The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

city-journal.org

41–50 of 123 posts

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#41
post #39
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you support the proposition that San Francisco is not failing, or is even flourishing?

By counting the number of millionaires who live in it. By that metric, it's one of the greatest cities in the world. Or by counting the value of it's real estate. Or the value of the companies it has created.

I wholeheartedly support the concept of eating billionaires.

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#42

In SF, there is major organized crime. It’s very obvious. I remember that during my first year in SF, a travel bag was found with a man mutilated inside. I live in a cheap studio in the Mission to save on rent. The things I see remind me of my childhood in South America. I just wonder when the kidnappings will start. Also, even professionals have lost all respect for the city. People with a six figure salary urinatin…

There are basically zero public restrooms there. If you need to pee, what exactly else are you supposed to do? Tough it out for the 1.5 hours it takes to ride a bus 5 miles back to your apartment?

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#43
post #34

I've wondered if what San Francisco needs is a Rudy Giuliani type mayor. Someone to come in a shake up the status quo with valid right leaning polices when it comes to crime.

Crime started to drop precipitously 2 years before Giuliani was elected, during Dinkins' tenure.

Everyone’s favourite article on the topic seems the lead-crime hypothesis by Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. It’s very interesting and there have been updates too. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#44

In SF, there is major organized crime. It’s very obvious. I remember that during my first year in SF, a travel bag was found with a man mutilated inside. I live in a cheap studio in the Mission to save on rent. The things I see remind me of my childhood in South America. I just wonder when the kidnappings will start. Also, even professionals have lost all respect for the city. People with a six figure salary urinatin…

There are basically zero public restrooms there. If you need to pee, what exactly else are you supposed to do? Tough it out for the 1.5 hours it takes to ride a bus 5 miles back to your apartment?

Go into a McDonald’s or another restaurant.

Are you honestly excusing drunken wealthy people coming out of bars and treating the streets of the Mission like it’s a public urinal?

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#45

In SF, there is major organized crime. It’s very obvious. I remember that during my first year in SF, a travel bag was found with a man mutilated inside. I live in a cheap studio in the Mission to save on rent. The things I see remind me of my childhood in South America. I just wonder when the kidnappings will start. Also, even professionals have lost all respect for the city. People with a six figure salary urinatin…

It’s really the wild dogs that drove the point home to me. I used to jog on Folsom early in the morning, but after a near run-in with a pack of a half dozen hungry, aggressive dogs (a few chihuahuas, some terrifying pit bulls, and a very angry shiba inu)I have switched to running on a treadmill. SF has gone down hill fast.

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#46
post #22

Crime's definitely a problem here, but parts of this strike me as exaggerated. I live in the Mission, and have for almost 20 years. I don't think crime is noticeably worse. This is also the first time I've heard a claim that crime is a significant reason for stores closing. When I talk with actual business owners, the big reasons are 1) massive rent increases, and b) difficulty finding staff at $15/hr. As an example,…

It's a politically conservative publication funded by the Manhattan Institute think tank https://www.manhattan-institute.org/

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#47
post #21
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why they chose to lead with her Because it's super important for political reasons that San Francisco be seen as failing. It's the same phenomenon as perception of the national economy: if you don't like who's in power, you think the economy is poor.

How would you support the proposition that San Francisco is not failing, or is even flourishing?

Simple. Demand for housing. Supply issues aside, a huge number of people want to live in the SFBA, and the rents reflect that.

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#48

Going to be there next week. Lived there twenty years ago. Haven't spent much time in the city since. All I hear is horror stories. I hope everything is ok? I was going to try to break in my new hiking boots after work each day. Any suggestion on safe places to walk with my pack on? I'm camping in Montana the following week.

I walked around SF a lot as a visitor and didn't feel in danger. It was a shocking experience to the abject poverty and the homeless shooting heroin right there on a main street. I was only out and about during daylight though.

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#49

I had an interesting experience the other week, as I went to Montreal in Canada. It was still super cold up there, barely getting above freezing this late into the year. Holy hell, the sheer amount of homeless people I saw on the streets, the crazy amount of drug dealers trying to sell me shit, it was next level. Now, I'm not trying to suggest it's any better or worse than San Francisco. It's bad for the simple reaso…

Homeless people actually sleep outside in Montreal even in the winter. It is a problem as many die from hypothermia during particularly cold periods.

Some refuse to go to homeless shelters. Cops will sometimes try to find some bullshit reason to arrest them so they don’t freeze to death.

Re: The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco

#50
post #24

>“We could be keeping them and be giving services while they’re in jail,” says Fabbri. “It could really be effective. >we’re not solving our problems when we pretend low-level crimes aren’t important. Those two facts are the crux of the issue. Prisons do not rehabilitate criminals; they just restrain them. Couple that with the fact it costs, on nationwide average, $84 per day to incarcerate someone and the average pe…

A daily theft of $84 per day has much more than $84/day of cost in terms of corrosion of social trust. A government payout cannot fix that - heck it makes it worse.

Doesn’t that strengthen causality1’s argument? You could give the their their $84 and it would be a straight win if they stopped thieving.
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