[1270018080]

I think this is a blessing. Cities have been designed for commuters instead of the people living in them since white flight in the 20th century. Just look at all of the metrics in the article. It's all about commuters and the city's dependence on them. Now, macroeconomic factors are forcing cities across the country to actually serve the people living in them. And it's great. Yeah there will be growing pains and this decade could get ugly, but the cities that come out of it healthy might be great places to live.

[systemvoltage]

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

[littlexsparkee]

850,000 living there against their will, I presume? What is it about the city that makes people froth at the mouth? The ridiculous characterizations I read don't match what I see day-to-day at all

[systemvoltage]

CBS News. San Francisco Luxury Condo Overlooks City's Worst Squalor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GbcWOGyuq0

CBS News. KPIX Special Report: San Francisco's Tenderloin – A State of Emergency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuWeMl2lCMM

ABC News. Here's why one of San Francisco's top officers says crime is here to stay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4112HGOCTQ

KRON 4. 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0UcFBeWrgU

Christopher Rufo. Chaos by the Bay: The Truth About Homelessness in San Francisco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8MACDZ3RI

NBC News. Saving San Francisco: Ep. 5 'Why Should I Live in Fear?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGNGJ-bIL4

There are probably hundreds of these clips. I am sure you can also dig up reasons why the DA was recalled.

850k people are unhappy. 40% of the residents want to leave: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/40-percent-san-franc...

When close to half of the population of a city wants to leave, probably a good idea to accept what's wrong with the city and try to look inward.

[littlexsparkee]

If the poll routinely says 40% will leave and only 6.7% do when a pandemic makes the benefits of being here moot for 2 years, you should throw the poll out the window. What's more, labor force data shows most of those have returned. What is your agenda? Why do you people care so much? I'm well aware of the city's problems but there's no nuance in these discussions and it's tiring.

I'm happy we'll have a new DA and hopefully the city will also make folks get mental health help when needed and get serious about building housing (i.e. get out of the way).

[inamberclad]

There's no _actual_ mental health help in this system. We just have prisons and quasi-prisons that drug their inmates and bill their insurance. Short of that, the healthiest thing we can do for people is to connect them with support, only move them from situations they want to be removed from, and otherwise let them continue to live their current lives.

[littlexsparkee]

The hands-off approach is how we've gotten where we are though. We can't expect people to make sound decisions about their own treatment during a psychotic break. What good is this liberty they're afforded if that means they don't get better and are a risk to themselves or others (wandering into the street to get hit by cars, etc)?

[teaearlgraycold]

There are some very nice neighborhoods in SF. I live in the 'burbs for a reason, but it's not an "unmitigated disaster".

[hazyc]

Do you even live here? Walk around the Marina, Pac Heights, Presidio, Noe Valley, etc etc and tell me with a straight face that it's an "unmitigated disaster". If you can afford to live here (i.e. you can afford to avoid 'downtown') then you would realize that it's one of the nicest cities in the world.

[systemvoltage]

I wrote about my most recent visit here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356169

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532901

I live in Oakland which is fucked up in its own ways.

You can't be taken seriously when you consider SF to be the nicest cities in the world. Try visiting Singapore or Tokyo or Melbourne.

[SilasX]

Rio de Janeiro is great too, if you avoid the favelas.

[danielscrubs]

I have the best corn flakes in the world, you just have to avoid the green moldy bits in it.

[1270018080]

Yes it sucks right now, because it was built for commuters and there aren't any. It may continue to suck for awhile, but the outcome of this bad period could be a place that's actually nice.

[systemvoltage]

Hard disagree. It is fucked up because we've allowed too many woke policies and gone soft on crime. It is simple as that. There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF.

I feel like this stance does a tremendous amount of disservice in identifying issues and making SF better. It is always scapegoated and never confronted head on. Scapegoats come in the form of: We're kind out here in SF, we are pro-homeless, homelessness is caused by inbound people from other states, etc. None of which are remotely true, but peddled repeatedly ad-nauseum.

[sammalloy]

> There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF.

Except, the correlation is real and well known.

> At least 550,476 people commute to jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

When I lived in the city, I would often work downtown. When I would stay late, you would see up close and personal how the downtown area became a ghost town as the majority of people left the city for home. That’s both a brain, talent, and tax drain on the city, and represents a lost constituency that has no connection to local issues.

This crazy idea that "woke" politics are somehow responsible for the rise in crime and the deterioration of living conditions is a talking point invented by Fox News. There is literally zero evidence for it. Boudin failed because the police admitted they refused to work with him. End of story.