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by arpyzo 1134 days ago
San Francisco's problems are the predictable result of inequality that's completely out of control. All US cities suffer the same problems as SF, and the only difference between them is a matter of degree.

The wealthy and powerful that created this problem would like to solve it while simultaneously continuing to exasperate it. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this will never work. At best, a temporary, politically palatable status quo can be achieved which is basically what US cities which are considered functional have.

San Francisco may recover or it might become the next Detroit. To some extent it doesn’t matter because without fundamental systemic changes it’s only a matter of time before the next city suffers the same fate.

1 comments

Rampant NIMBYism and being absurdly soft on crime aren’t helping either.
I still haven't seen or heard anything that would lead me to believe there's anyone choosing to be soft on crime, I know there's tons of back and forth on this but it just rings as people idly speculating to me. Only useful info I've found is people on both sides of the divide decrying police won't take reports for car breakins/thefts[^1^], and response times are high

[^1^] the latest set piece I saw with this was fascinating, two people victim of same crime, drawing two opposite conclusions from lack of interest in taking a report, both only from injecting ideology

Go read about the echo park protests from a few years ago.

Not only are a very vocal progressive lot of people in socal being soft on crime, they're protecting the unhoused rights to commit crime. Ostensibly this is human rights in action, but I believe it's helping the well off feel better about nimbyism by telling others how dare they kick homeless out of their neighborhoods (because dear God they may come here)

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#:~:....

Take a look, those are some terrible crime stats.

I looked there and I looked at my city. My city has worse statistics than SF, but it doesn't have as many liberals so it doesn't work as well in a scare narrative. I wouldn't consider my city anywhere close to a dystopian hellscape as some depict SF, and they certainly aren't soft on crime here.
What is your city?
I can't think of an acronym I dislike more than NIMBYism. By its own nature, it posits the alternative as being outright for anything is a better option.