[pcarolan]

I grew up in Michigan during the rust belt era. Nice cities don't always get better, they can get far worse. What turns them around is 1) a commitment from the community to do something about it 2) artists and grass roots efforts transforming blighted assets 3) Financial resources 4) Frankly, the incumbents who put strangleholds on development moving out or dying and 5) visionary business leaders following the artists and seeing opportunity where others see blight. SF has all of the right ingredients, but as someone who visits often, I think the missing piece is community "roots". The people walking through the tenderloin and shaking their heads in disgust just leave. They don't live and work in these communities and so it becomes a constant gripe rather than a problem. SF will get better when people who don't want to invest in it anymore move out and people who are building for generations to come move in. I'd look to immigrants as a class of people who would kill to have a place in the tenderloin they can develop and build wealth on top of. The mental health piece is a big part of it, the "housing first" approach makes the most sense to me but is not without significant challenges. For a city that is filled with people good at building systems, it feels like inward focus and community involvement from our brightest minds outside of government would be a big step in the right direction.

[steveBK123]

My observation from NY is that a lot of people who only lived in rich coastal cities on the long upward trajectory from the 70s~90s bottom think it's an automatic force of nature.

There is also an attitude from people who moved in at the early end of this trend saying "well it was worse when I moved here". Sure, but you got to buy your condo at 1/10th to 1/4th todays prices, and everything around you got better for the last ~25 years, which is probably why you've stayed.

No one deserves to be a victim of a crime. When the value proposition you offer to new residents is "your apartment will cost you $3M, but you still won't feel comfortable in your own neighborhood" then those people with money will make other choices.

My observation is that only now are we starting to see some the loud "theres no problem" voices die down so maybe we are on the way to rationally tackling some of the challenges. Ironically 2023 was the year that the 2020->2022 crime wave at least in NY started to die down, so sentiment really is lagging.