[patrickyeon]

And it's a good model I think, to take some responsibility for public property. Not just "your sidewalk", as in the sidewalk that touches your private yard, but also "your street", "your town center", and "your local parks". I'm not interested in hearing about if it's "your job" or "your trash", if there's a situation you are unhappy about, and you can directly impact it, why not do so?

I live in Oakland, CA, just off a major street. When I moved into this place I got annoyed at the litter on the street, until I eventually just started picking it up. The first day, I filled a trash bag travelling just 100ft along the sidewalk. A week later I would fill a trash bag every two or three laps of the entire street. Now I think I fill one trash bag per week. And I just feel better looking at, walking, or biking down my street, and I've gotten good conversations with neighbours to boot.

Culturally, right now, people will keep on littering on American city streets, and you and I aren't equipped to change that. It takes surprisingly little effort to carve out a considerably improved space though, and I find that when I consider it a gift to my neighbourhood and a constant task fighting against entropy (rather than something that can be "finished"), it's easier.

("you" in this context is a general "you", and not meant to be singling another_story out, of course)

[yostrovs]

I pick up litter when out in nature, because I don't think anyone but me will pick it up. In a city like San Francisco there's a multi-billion dollar budget and a sanitation department that tax payers pay for so that they won't have to do it themselves. It's ridiculous to pay taxes and then be told to clean street trash if you don't like it.

[LorenPechtel]

Yup. There are doggie bags on my pack despite the fact I've never owned a dog. There's also a larger trash bag in the pack in case I encounter larger stuff and am in a position to bring it out. (I only pick up larger stuff if I'm not going to be making much more use of my poles. Otherwise it's just too much of a pain handling a trash bag and my poles.)

[m0llusk]

This idea that a lot of money is involved therefore every imaginable need must be fully covered is extremely dangerous and unreasonable. Just one example of how this goes is residents have pushed the City to take responsibility for trimming of all street trees which used to be the responsibility of property owners. The result is a lot of trees either ignored or hacked to death by untrained workers in a hurry. Large amounts of money are not infinite amounts of money and still have to be carefully managed in order to get good results and make reasonable trade offs.

[nbardy]

Hes not asking that “every imaginable need be fully covered”.

He’s asking for the well funded sanitation department to do their job.

[m0llusk]

And yet that is completely unrealistic. The City currently funds weekly teams clearing out all the most troubled areas and that costs a fantastic amount up front as well as competing for increasingly precious landfill space. Defining the job of public works to be picking up all the trash that veritable armies of homeless generate does not make that job possible. You are absolutely and undeniably using your imagination to balance a spreadsheet that is a complete mess and that is not working and will never work.

[spoonjim]

Well the “armies of homeless” are also a public policy failure. If the homeless policy across the 50 largest American cities was identical, there would not be so many homeless in SF.

[pharmakom]

Don’t think so. There are cultural differences, weather differences, etc.