| Commonsense dictates that you would have more people on foot rather than in their cars ( especially single-occupant driving cases ) if cities actually paid attention to the plight of persons on foot, on sidewalks. It has to be said that I am uniquely referring to cities like SF known for their less than splendid sidewalk conditions. I am discounting the fact that SF is quite hilly and thus not very conducive for walking, unlike other flatter cities. SF is notorious for its grubby, thrash-discharged, excrement-laden and generally deplorable sidewalks. Just this week : http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Jay/poop-map.jpg [1] Anyone familiar with SF knows that whether you are on the sidewalks abutting the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society and right next to an upscale mall or in seedier parts of Inner/Outer Mission, you can never take a pleasant walk for granted. Prominent sidewalks are openly defecated on. Casual violence of vagrants and the professionally-homeless is quite common. Entire sections of neighborhoods are poorly-lit, with dodgy surfaces to boot. All this not even accounting for the unenthusiastically enforced sit-lie ordinances [2], a thriving homeless industrial complex supported by the city's SROs and rising crime in parts of the city [3] This irks even otherwise civic minded, forward-thinking residents who have all but given up on the city's frowziness and its celebration of the unhygienic and unsanitary. I think there is a strong Well that is SF for you. If you don't like it, go live in Marin ethos prevalent here (and in other cities like SF). And that is not one bit helpful. [1]
http://sfist.com/2014/09/03/photo_du_jour_poop_map.php [2]
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Sit-lie-law-primarily-enf... [3]
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Duboce-Triangle-neighb... edit:rewording |
The real issue with SF sidewalks is that they are made with those cement slabs and thus have giant cracks that make it extremely unpleasant to longboard.