As expected, all of the comments here are very critical of this without proposing something new. What are some alternate proposals to solve these problems?
I'm don't really have much to criticize here, aside from my usual cynicism (justified, IMO, based on Breed's general lackluster performance) that it's just words until we see actual results. But I'm cautiously optimistic that this could be the start of some change, assuming the political will is there among everyone required, and corruption, bureaucracy, and back-stabbing doesn't destroy the initiative.
I'm uncomfortable about loosening the surveillance statutes, though. Accessing random private business surveillance feeds should require a warrant. And I don't want government CCTV everywhere, period.
You think they'd remote work in their rented million dollar shed in SF? Or shell out a debilitating mortgage for 20 years just to stick around bay area?
I think you’re misunderstanding the transient nature.
There are always people coming in and out, and while that growth rate of new people has slowed down bit (it’s still positive) and the rate of people leaving temporarily went up, it will pick back up as companies return to the office.
I don’t think it’s for the reasons you suggest. A lot of the influx is young people, and there isn’t a compelling reason to move somewhere if you’re not going to make friends or establish social groups due to WFH, or are hesitant because of crime or safety or hygiene.
Our new grad offers, for example, have SF relocation in Q2 2022.
If the mortgages are perpetually ultra expensive, then it’s not a bad place to park your money.
I don’t know of any tech workers living in shacks in SF. I know people paying an extra 1-1.5k to live in 1bdrms vs. outside of SF/NY. If you keep a lower budget, you’ll probably end up in interesting situations in shared housing, which can get pretty shitty.
Lots of anecdotes, but when you look at the people who stay in SF you see people working at big companies and people doing the serial startup think. Survivor bias considered, these peoples’ resources have trended toward compounding over time and growing faster than other places.
SF is hot for startups, and even if those companies move out once they’re large, new companies are filling the gaps continuously. The high equity culture associated with that sees folks without a lot of cash, but that’s been changing the last several years, too as competition for hiring has gone way up.
2 million dollars for a shitty house is ridiculous. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re making 5 million every 10 years. Local banks will even get creative and lend against illiquid stock options now, sometimes non-recourse.
Most major cities are going the way of the UK and using CCTV's for facial recognition and crime alerts. Detroit for example has a MASSIVE center for crime monitoring with camera's of the entire city. It's like the bat lair. It's a proven strategy that works.
IMO, we should try for it. If we succeed, we get a world in which woman feel safe in their own cities, which to me is an absolutely massive advantage. My friend goes to Peking (Beijing) and feels perfectly safe walking around at 3am. I love that.
Create a safe supply of prescribed drugs for drug users, build housing and increase the minimum income assistance so that people that cannot work aren't living a miserable and traumatic life and are able to focus on ending drug addictions and improving their life situation.
No one is putting any thought into the root causes of why petty theft is occurring. When you're addicted to drugs you need to use every day which costs money. You need even more money if you find yourself in debt, say to someone who gave you some drugs when you couldn't pay. No surprise that someone that needs a few bucks badly might rifle through a globe box for something to sell or steal from a store.
Creating a safe supply of prescribed drugs breaks up the entire cycle. No dealers to get indebted to, and accordingly no one to have to steal for. With affordable housing and supports, the driving reasons to commit survival petty thefts disappear. Sure there will probably be some people that continue to steal for extra cash, but at this point you've shrunk the problem down which gives police more of an ability to deal with the real trouble makers, the people that aren't stealing merely to survive.
It's wild that people are pointing the lack of prosecutions of theft under $1000 as the problem. Throwing the book at people committing these trivial thefts is the most costly and least effective approach. I suppose jailing people for petty theft makes the problem "disappear" but only until that person is released. Who wants to pay the enormous expense to lock up everyone? Not me.
Socialized medicine and mental health care. Social safety nets. Meaningful jobs programs. Less policing and more community resources. Reforms on how prescription drugs that lead to addiction problems are prescribed. Free care, at the expense of pharmaceutical companies, for human beings who have had their lives ruined due to inadequate care from the medical community who have been misled by the pharma industry. Accountability for our leadership that has been bought and sold by corporate interests.
The list goes on. There's a lot that can be done. Increasing policing and cracking down on drugs have both proven to be damaging, but it's the only thing the uncompassionate and out-of-touch know how to do in response to problems they refuse to address.
Regardless of the difficulty, an attempt should be made towards all or at least some of these ideas. Just speculating that it's too difficult and not even trying shouldn't be acceptable.
That said, I think plenty of this is realistic and achievable - just not with the voters we currently have. Maybe the next generation will be more compassionate and in my old age I can see the beginning of progress.
Cities can do more than you might think. IIRC some cities plan to cover universal community college, and I know some have universal pre-K. Large cities have health systems.
SF already has free community College. It also has free public Healthcare for the poor (or at least did). Last time I was aware, they changed it so that only illegal immigrants were eligible for coverage.
Like most US community colleges, it was already extremely cheap, ~$2,500/year for a full time student, but this can still be a barrier for some people.
I'm uncomfortable about loosening the surveillance statutes, though. Accessing random private business surveillance feeds should require a warrant. And I don't want government CCTV everywhere, period.