51–60 of 72 posts
A lot of people are homeless. Every year I visit it’s increasing. Maybe I am using the wrong streets. I am surprised there’s no startup to fix this.
indicated a whole new level of bubble-induced cluelessness. If we take him at his word, that he really is 'surprised' by this, his incapacity for any thoughtful awareness undermines the whole piece.
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So your advice is - to enjoy SF, stay in the expensive areas, and get a taxi if you need to go through the poor areas, or the parts where there might be homeless people?
Do people ever go to poor areas to enjoy themselves? Wouldn't that be some form of poverty tourism? I don't see any reason to lash out at the comment you're replying to. Saying "these are fun areas in SF (or any city)" is not a political comment. For all you know the commenter you replied to volunteers in shelters, and donates to charities that aid the homeless.
Absolutely! There are many poor areas in London (Whitechapel, Brixton or Dalston, for example) but the idea that you would have to avoid them is crazy. In fact there are great reasons to visit them - the best Indian or Pakistani food in the city is in Whitechapel, the music scene in Brixton is amazing, there are great clubs in Dalston if you don't mind the hipsters.
How has SF let things get so bad that there is a major area of the city that people are told to actively avoid because of all the homeless people?
My first impressions of San Francisco were quite opposite of yours -- it was ugly, dirty, smelly and scary. I went for a conference and was in a nice hotel downtown. I went out to grab some dinner at night and couldn't wait to get back, lots of weirdos out on the street. I've been to cities all over the world and never felt as uncomfortable as I did in SF. Maybe I just got unlucky that night...
I don't have a particularly good explanation for this. However, most of what defines SF as a city isn't really along Market St, or even downtown for that matter. It's a city of neighborhoods, and without venturing out from downtown you haven't really experienced what the city has to offer. I moved away last year, and still think of SF as one of the world's most interesting cities.
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What the others said. I had similar experiences for basically the first 10 years of my visits to SF - I never really got beyond the Moscone Center / The W Hotel / 3rd Street and that 10-square-block area was my impression of SF. But having lived here now for almost 2 years, that impression is just so wrong. It's a TINY fraction of SF, and that is not what SF is about. Next time you're here, find a boutique hotel in t…
So your advice is - to enjoy SF, stay in the expensive areas, and get a taxi if you need to go through the poor areas, or the parts where there might be homeless people?
I might disagree slightly in that it's easy to hop on metro or BART from the Mission, but if you're in the marina I think taking Uber downtown is totally defensible. Hell, if you're new to the city and don't feel like mucking around with public transit taking a cab is a pretty routine thing to do.
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Union Square is one of the most touristy parts yet with a couple wrong turns you're in some very sketchy areas.
I remember once being a hotel ~15 years ago that was 5 or 6 blocks along (I think) Geary from Union Square - when I told the taxi driver where I wanted to go he said "Do you really want to go there?". The direction I got from the chap on reception were interesting - basically walk up the hill two blocks and along and back down to Union Square - he was very clear on not walking directly to Union Square. Of course, I d…
My first impressions of San Francisco were quite opposite of yours -- it was ugly, dirty, smelly and scary. I went for a conference and was in a nice hotel downtown. I went out to grab some dinner at night and couldn't wait to get back, lots of weirdos out on the street. I've been to cities all over the world and never felt as uncomfortable as I did in SF. Maybe I just got unlucky that night...
I have lived and traveled to dozens of major cities around the world. I am an above average sized former linebacker and I felt genuinely unsafe almost every time I went out at night in SF and was walking around. It almost as bad as Tijuana.
SF has tons of potential as a city, but the homeless just ruin it. If SF is so great to it's homeless, then why are they everywhere and making everyone uncomfortable?
I don't know if the problem is wealth inequality or a culture in SF that sees homelessness as a viable lifestyle, but it's just sad.
I am not saying get rid of them by kicking them out. I am saying give them a place to live and sleep so they aren't living on the streets, it's just inhumane.
What was most off putting on my last trip to SF was the juxtaposition of the yuppie and homeless worlds. It wasn't uncommon to see long lines for local chic coffee shops full of young, well-to-do individuals while the homeless begged, urinated and defacated on the same stretch of sidewalk to often no acknowledgement by the former group. I live in NYC so I see homeless people every day, but here you don't see such an…
That seems to be largest complaint I hear from tourists. SF takes care of their homeless. Matter of fact, SF programs are so good we have a problem with other states sending their homeless specifically to SF[1]. I'm from Chicago where the homeless don't have nearly the same advantages as they do here in SF(particularly the weather). There were encampments in Grant Park in Chicago and they were forcibly removed by the…
I feel like San Francisco (and some of the other nearby municipalities like Berkeley) have this lassez faire mentality when it comes to their homeless population where they think that interfering would be a bad thing. That this acceptance is a healthy thing. That some guy in a tent in Golden Gate Park who yells things at passers-by and chases dogs is somehow a charming slice of life in the city and contributes to its uniqueness and not that this poor guy might benefit from antipsychotics.
But again, that's just a feeling I get that I can't really back up with anything but anecdotal evidence.
Chicago is certainly no better in terms of taking care of its homeless, as you point out: the city and state have been deprioritizing spending for years. Homeless shelters, community health organizations, addiction centers have been losing state funding and having to get federal and private grants to get by (when they can get by; certainly the number of beds available are shrinking.)
But Chicago isn't proud of the status quo and I'm surprised that San Francisco, well, seems to be.
The big Silicon Valley companies apparently haven't gotten the message yet. The Wikipedia article on Silicon Valley [1] has a list of 32 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Silicon Valley. Only one of them is headquartered in San Francisco.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silicon_Valley&old...
What was most off putting on my last trip to SF was the juxtaposition of the yuppie and homeless worlds. It wasn't uncommon to see long lines for local chic coffee shops full of young, well-to-do individuals while the homeless begged, urinated and defacated on the same stretch of sidewalk to often no acknowledgement by the former group. I live in NYC so I see homeless people every day, but here you don't see such an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do people ever go to poor areas to enjoy themselves? Wouldn't that be some form of poverty tourism? I don't see any reason to lash out at the comment you're replying to. Saying "these are fun areas in SF (or any city)" is not a political comment. For all you know the commenter you replied to volunteers in shelters, and donates to charities that aid the homeless.
> Do people ever go to poor areas to enjoy themselves? Absolutely! There are many poor areas in London (Whitechapel, Brixton or Dalston, for example) but the idea that you would have to avoid them is crazy. In fact there are great reasons to visit them - the best Indian or Pakistani food in the city is in Whitechapel, the music scene in Brixton is amazing, there are great clubs in Dalston if you don't mind the hipste…