[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.