Downtown SF (and especially OP's neighborhood of 7th/8th Mission Street) is not the place to be. It's a bit like complaining about LA and living right near downtown.
Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations.
I've lived near Dolores Park for the past 15 months now and have had a great experience. I've found community, made new friends, and have never felt unsafe whilst walking around at night.
We don't have highrise buildings or a thriving "downtown" like other urban cities, but we do have plenty of lively, energetic neighborhoods around the city and the best food & weather in the country.
I agree with the author that changes need to be made and that the homelessness problem is bad. But I think you can still have an overwhelmingly positive experience in the city if you pick one of the neighborhoods I mentioned above to live in.
Yeah he picked probably among the worst neighborhoods to live in. I have noticed this is a recurring pattern among single male tech friends I have to move to Soma due to office proximity and then end up hating the city.
Yeah it's way nicer to live up the hill a little, basically anywhere up a hill. The low-lying areas have "gravity" that attract bad things.
I made the same mistake moving to SF in 2002, until 2004. It was bad then -- and surprise, surprise, the places with the most availability are the least desirable.
The meme is that tech people are taking over SF. But it's also true that the city is crowded with old money, and new housing / new people starting in 2010 took some of the least desirable spots, including that part of 7th-8th and Mission.
I also biked, and a related thing I learned is you just have to get used to biking up and down hills. It helped my fitness a lot. If you bike in the low-lying areas, it's kind of a shitty experience too.
> Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations.
This is like 2 sq miles of the city, maybe... If you add in Golden Gate Park and Presidio - you're still only at 1/8th of the city being nice. That's not a great ratio.
Especially when the nice parts aren't all connected and you can't venture more than a few blocks until you're out of a nice area (unless you're in one of 2 parks).
It used to be the place of low-innovation. But Covid destroyed the South Park soma tech scene, with this moving remote. However the high-tech work remains vibrant in Silicon Valley, because well moving a r&d lab isn’t trivial or work easily doable which can be done at home.
I wonder what the net productivity loss is due to the dysfunction of SF? You've got companies paying huge money to smart employees who then have to worry about problems that are generally reserved for developing nations on a daily basis. That stress has to impact work performance
I work remote and it's wild how SF people don't realize how insane they sound to others when they talk about what they deal with and try to downplay it as normal or not that bad.
There's just something wrong to me about the entire population of a city having to adjust what they do to cater to the small criminal population, like not being able to leave stuff in your car or your windows will be smashed and your stuff stolen.
I lived at the 7th and 8th / Mission block before OP did and it was pretty bad then. What's weird is that there's been a lot of development and modernization in that area (completion of Trinity Place and a nice Whole Foods) yet in 2023 it's still extremely unsafe around there. And the Whole Foods is now leaving.
I think it's a lot better than it used to be. From 2001-2005 I walked from work at 2nd St to home at Guerrero and there were only a few blocks on that walk when I wasn't braced for action. With all the new buildings and the BRT on Van Ness and other changes it seems way better now.
My personal (European) view of what places are of the USA are considered "cool" has completely changed in the last 10 years or so. Before this year I had only been once to the USA, which was as a teenager in Detroit's suburbs many years ago. This year I decided to travel the USA with my wife and kids, but places like San Francisco and New York, which I would have sacrificed a leg to visit not too many years ago, were quite at the bottom on our ranking of places to see. We instead decided to go to Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, which friends of us described as "boring", which we decided may actually be what we want in these turbulent times. So we went there, had a great time, met wonderful people, and certainly did not regret not going to the "progressive" parts of the USA.
I lived in San Fran back in 2012 for 6 months. I personally didn't feel unsafe; I'm a big guy and have a physical presence so I understand why others may feel unsafe.
So why did I leave?
There were a few events that really upset me. 1) I almost stepped on a shit snake some human left outside my building. 2) A homeless person stopped in front of a mother and child to urinate. 3) The weather sucked; cold and hot.
I went there for the tech scene, but it was just too dirty for me to want to live there.
They moved to Mission between 7th and 8th and realized that it was full of people with substance and mental issues. It's kinda like moving into a block with a lot of bars or nightclubs and then complaining about the noise at night. Just because some real estate developers have built some nice-ish condos on that block does not mean that the zombies which hang out in the neighborhood are going to go away. UN Plaza in civic center and the first block of 7th have been a bit of a hell hole for many years.
The only way buildings like Mission at Trinity or Soma Grande make any sense is if you drive in and out of your garage for the most part. For me the walk score of those places is close to zero since you are guaranteed to deal with shit (human feces and/or altercations) if you walk a block or two in any direction from those locations.
I've lived in SF for 29+ years all in lower Nob Hill. When I moved into my place the neighborhood was a little rougher. Over that time it's gotten more and more gentrified, but the Tenderloin/Civic Center area has been getting worse. From 2012 to 2021 I worked in Potrero Hill and commuted back and forth. It was a little too far to walk so I almost never did, but it was also a completely shitty walk since there was no good path that didn't go through the Tenderloin/Civic Center. There's no way I would consider living in that area.
The area thrives on misery. Many of the city's SROs and other services for the homeless are concentrated in the area. All the "non"-profits which benefit from homeless clients are based there. And Civic Center BART seems to be a great place to score drugs and for drug dealers to commute into the city for work.
SF either needs to go all in on a universal basic income, building housing, mental health services and decriminalization of drugs, OR they need to make it clear that shooting up, breaking into cars and shitting on the streets is not ok. Instead we have this half-assed in between approach where we give $1.6 Billion to over 700 different "community based organizations" to try to make the situation better, but instead it's just a big uncoordinated mess.
From a European perspective (from Spain) it is so weird to read this kind of texts...
Quite often here, the US and silicon valley are presented as the paradise for tech people, but now it seems to me that it is a paradise only if you can afford a really wealthy area.
Here in Spain salaries can be terrible compared to the US, but even the more "dangerous" cities (like Barcelona or Madrid) are way safer than the SF described by the OP.
And the experience of the OP is actually mild at that. I lived 2 blocks from Union Square, on Geary st, back in 2011/2012. I witnessed Sin City. Dead bodies, naked and drugged prostitute offering services, homeless woman blowing a homeless man for hit of his crack pipe, pimps beating a prostitute. Gangs shooting at each others a killing a tourist...
At the time I couldn't afford to live in the nice neighborhood. But even then, it's insane that all of that happens 400m away from Macy's, jewelery stores, expensive and fancy restaurants etc.
Mission between 7th and 8th is one of the worst parts of town, and no one lives there for the community.
I’m guessing this person moved there for professional reasons if they didn’t even consider moving to any of the other dense parts of San Francisco.
The neighborhoods of San Francisco are: 1. Much more alive than downtown, 2. Safer, 3. Even more “dense” in certain areas given the decline in downtown foot traffic.
Drugs and Homelessness are political problems now. It's been a while since they are treated as health issues, that's why nobody can do anything, it's because like anything in politics it has become a pissing contest between people that are far too removed from the actual problem.
Spot on. In most previous decades, the city government (no matter the party) would have been able to take whatever action (probably more $$ for police and more enforcement) seemed appropriate to the problem, and that would be a non-partisan issue. Now even admitting that there is an actual issue seems to be a partisan stance.
Funds to combat in one local area just encourages the homeless and drug users from other areas to migrate over. The only move is hostility to shift the homeless elsewhere. Which only worsens the situation.
Unbelievable how embedded this meme is in our community. The article has to call it out explicitly right at the top, admit it's a fallacy, and then just... plows ahead anyway:
> My biggest problem with SF was simply not feeling physically safe [...] SF has a pretty low violent crime rate [...] Instead, the problem was that SF [has] thousands of people wandering around who are suffering from untreated substance abuse and/or severe mental illness
So... I guess the idea is that this is leaning extremely hard on "feeling". Author admits they're not unsafe. Author admits that their real issue is that they don't like being near people with drug habits or mental illness. But they still express it in the lede as "physical safety" anyway! Because that's how they "feel"?
Come on folks. Aren't techies like us supposed to be rationalists? Why are we lying to ourselves (and, in this blog post, others) about what we really want?
Sure, the author admits that violent crime rate is under control. But, implicit in his post, is the fact that this is only the case because residents adopt behavioral patterns that remove them from violent crime scenes.
Imagine you live in a neighborhood where walking on the right side of the street results in immediate decapitation. While it's true that you can simply always walk on the left side of the street and be 100% safe, most people would not call that a safe neighborhood.
Also, in my learning 'street smarts' as an adult , one lesson tougher people including my wife have taught me , is to trust your gut instincts if you are in a neighborhood or situation and you feel unsafe.
Hook up a heart rate monitor to someone walking down the street on University Ave. in Palo Alto, then hook it up walking down Market Street. Those feelings are real.
It's remarkably close by car, and though it was common for me when I lived in SF, I do not know many people who enjoy 2.25ish hour (round trip) walks. And doing $25 a day in ubers adds up fast too.
> Thankfully, I escaped with only scrapes and bruises, but that was really upsetting for me, and I felt that it was only a matter of time before something worse happened.
Lately, with my observation that much of American life is getting much much worse. I often think about leaving America entirely, attempting to hold my breath a little longer to get what America most has to offer these days -- superior compensation/salary.
That being said I also have had a very minimal slice of living in America, for all I know there is some amazing pocket somewhere that I can have it all. But I have yet to find it in California or Texas.
> for all I know there is some amazing pocket somewhere that I can have it all
IME there is a pretty large middle band between the extremes of urban and the boondocks where you can come really close to having it all. It's easiest to find if instead of shooting for "all" you make the concession of having to own and use a car a lot - it's an unfortunate tradeoff, but once you accept it, it becomes relatively easy to find places that check the other boxes: decent cost of living, lots of culture/arts opportunities, great food, lots of outdoor activities, good weather, good schools, good safety, good job market, real feeling of community, etc.
The following won't guarantee success and isn't the only method, but it yields lots of good results: take a list of the 50 largest U.S. cities. Cross off the top 15. Cross off any in FL or CA. Randomly pick a remaining city. On a map, find neighboring cities/towns that are 35-45 miles away from that city. For each that looks interesting, go look at their city website. How big is their public library? How many parks do they have? Do they have any sort of annual city history celebration or other big community event? What community service organizations seem most active? (the idea here is to eliminate any that are a soulless suburban sprawl) If you're able, go visit one and even get an airbnb for a couple of weeks and just live there to try it out.
Germany's new citizenship law looks extremely compelling. Moreover, they have a relatively easy visa system to navigate with straightforward immigration rules. There's a very useful subreddit with a very dedicated moderator. [1]
> First, the city is incredibly wealthy and has a massive budget ...
This is true at a surface level, but looking deeper at City services and obligations the situation is more complex than simply declaring numbers large. San Francisco also has a much larger population of immigrants from all over including other states.
> Second, and even worse, the people in charge including the mayor, the police leadership, and a majority of the Board of Supervisors (the legislative body for SF), really just don’t seem to care one bit about what’s happening. Sure, they will occasionally rant in public and promise to fix things ...
Don't seem to care apart from occasionally promising to fix things. This is classic San Francisco attitude. Difficult longstanding problems are clearly incompetence, disinterest, a conspiracy of corruption, or perhaps all of these. Records and meetings are typically fully public, but actually attending any of that is too much for a member of the public to bear. Maybe so, but then you also are skipping out on your responsibilities and potential to contribute to some kind of positive solution.
I wish there was a single source of truth website that was like a status page for this whole issue.
A dashboard of the stats and what is being done about it.
From the outside it seems blatantly obvious that it's simply a lack of policing.
I really don't get the animosity of the left-wingers about police, and the way everyone has to pussy-foot around these issues. No one is having issues with police if they aren't breaking the law. This view of the police is so distorted.
The unwavering KPI of every city should be: citizen safety. This is the basic human need, and it should override every other concern.
Here is the solution:
1. You are not allowed to setup a tent on the street. You must stay in housing provided by the government outside of the city in a cheap area. You will be given free transporation there.
2. If you are a repeat offender found to be sleeping on the street, then you will be arrested, and imprisoned.
3. A mental health disorder is not an excuse. If necessary, build a jail that is a mental health treatment center.
I don't get what is so hard about this.
Just make it clear: it's illegal to sleep on the street, loiter, do drugs on the street.
What is the worst thing that happens from this policy implemented fully?
I’ve lived in SF since 2007. OP is likely factually accurate about where he lives, which is one of the worst blocks in SF. I’ll add that this was the case in 2007 as well, I wouldn’t say that 7th and Mission has gotten significantly better or worse over the years. It was likely slightly nicer when OP moved in, but that was the exception, not the historical norm.
The main thing is that OP then uses that to generalize about the state of the entire city. This makes it difficult to actually have a reasonable conversation about what is working and what isn’t in SF because everything reverts to the binary “sf is/isn’t a shithole” argument. In OPs case, it actually exposes the reality behind a lot of these “random tech blogger leaving SF” stories where they don’t actually know much about the city or appear to have much of a social life outside of tech that would expose them to other parts of the city. In SF there are tons of places to live that aren’t “single family homes 4 miles from downtown” - the city is 7x7 square miles.
The way it frames things is weird, though. Not to say SoMa and downtown aren't shitholes that will make you feel unsafe multiple times per day; they are. But most other neighborhoods have a much safer vibe, and many of them are literally a 10 minute bus ride to downtown. His pooh-poohing the idea of moving to a different neighborhood is just weird. (If he were complaining about the school system or something being disfunctional or cost of living being too high, then his critique of SF as a whole would make a lot more sense.)
He can't really take his experiences living a block from 6th Street and apply them to the whole of SF, and he must be aware of that, or be particularly clueless.
I've never lived in SF, but I've worked and spent a lot of time in the area around the OP's home; it sounds like a pretty accurate description of one of the worst neighborhoods in the entire city.
He could walk four blocks in any direction and have a dramatically safer and more enjoyable experience.
It is somewhat true for the few blocks around where the author lived. But it's confusing to me when people say it's worse now than it was in 2016/2017, say. The pandemic made everything worse for a couple years, but I think we're just back to the same level of misery that had me avoiding many blocks in that area back in 2016. That part of the city was clearly already gone and neglected then.
[+] [-] shsachdev|2 years ago|reply
Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations.
I've lived near Dolores Park for the past 15 months now and have had a great experience. I've found community, made new friends, and have never felt unsafe whilst walking around at night.
We don't have highrise buildings or a thriving "downtown" like other urban cities, but we do have plenty of lively, energetic neighborhoods around the city and the best food & weather in the country.
I agree with the author that changes need to be made and that the homelessness problem is bad. But I think you can still have an overwhelmingly positive experience in the city if you pick one of the neighborhoods I mentioned above to live in.
[+] [-] whimsicalism|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pengaru|2 years ago|reply
Imagine believing SF proper has the best weather in the country
Your year-round weather isn't even as good as neighboring counties.
- someone who lived on the SF peninsula for years, and often regretted trading idyllic weather for a cold, damp dinner night in SF.
[+] [-] chubot|2 years ago|reply
I made the same mistake moving to SF in 2002, until 2004. It was bad then -- and surprise, surprise, the places with the most availability are the least desirable.
The meme is that tech people are taking over SF. But it's also true that the city is crowded with old money, and new housing / new people starting in 2010 took some of the least desirable spots, including that part of 7th-8th and Mission.
I also biked, and a related thing I learned is you just have to get used to biking up and down hills. It helped my fitness a lot. If you bike in the low-lying areas, it's kind of a shitty experience too.
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|2 years ago|reply
This is like 2 sq miles of the city, maybe... If you add in Golden Gate Park and Presidio - you're still only at 1/8th of the city being nice. That's not a great ratio.
Especially when the nice parts aren't all connected and you can't venture more than a few blocks until you're out of a nice area (unless you're in one of 2 parks).
[+] [-] adfm|2 years ago|reply
If you show up to the city during a boom, you’re probably too focused on living your best life to see the reality of it.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bushbaba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnea|2 years ago|reply
Now, if only 10 or 20 million more people would get out of California, then maybe the population would be back to a reasonable level...
Everyone who can't tell the difference between CA and TX should really just move to TX...
[+] [-] yohannparis|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ren_engineer|2 years ago|reply
I work remote and it's wild how SF people don't realize how insane they sound to others when they talk about what they deal with and try to downplay it as normal or not that bad.
There's just something wrong to me about the entire population of a city having to adjust what they do to cater to the small criminal population, like not being able to leave stuff in your car or your windows will be smashed and your stuff stolen.
[+] [-] minimaxir|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jansan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codemonkeysh|2 years ago|reply
So why did I leave?
There were a few events that really upset me. 1) I almost stepped on a shit snake some human left outside my building. 2) A homeless person stopped in front of a mother and child to urinate. 3) The weather sucked; cold and hot.
I went there for the tech scene, but it was just too dirty for me to want to live there.
[+] [-] casion|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s1mon|2 years ago|reply
The only way buildings like Mission at Trinity or Soma Grande make any sense is if you drive in and out of your garage for the most part. For me the walk score of those places is close to zero since you are guaranteed to deal with shit (human feces and/or altercations) if you walk a block or two in any direction from those locations.
I've lived in SF for 29+ years all in lower Nob Hill. When I moved into my place the neighborhood was a little rougher. Over that time it's gotten more and more gentrified, but the Tenderloin/Civic Center area has been getting worse. From 2012 to 2021 I worked in Potrero Hill and commuted back and forth. It was a little too far to walk so I almost never did, but it was also a completely shitty walk since there was no good path that didn't go through the Tenderloin/Civic Center. There's no way I would consider living in that area.
The area thrives on misery. Many of the city's SROs and other services for the homeless are concentrated in the area. All the "non"-profits which benefit from homeless clients are based there. And Civic Center BART seems to be a great place to score drugs and for drug dealers to commute into the city for work.
SF either needs to go all in on a universal basic income, building housing, mental health services and decriminalization of drugs, OR they need to make it clear that shooting up, breaking into cars and shitting on the streets is not ok. Instead we have this half-assed in between approach where we give $1.6 Billion to over 700 different "community based organizations" to try to make the situation better, but instead it's just a big uncoordinated mess.
https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11635453&GUID=55...
[+] [-] electroagenda|2 years ago|reply
Quite often here, the US and silicon valley are presented as the paradise for tech people, but now it seems to me that it is a paradise only if you can afford a really wealthy area.
Here in Spain salaries can be terrible compared to the US, but even the more "dangerous" cities (like Barcelona or Madrid) are way safer than the SF described by the OP.
[+] [-] bombela|2 years ago|reply
At the time I couldn't afford to live in the nice neighborhood. But even then, it's insane that all of that happens 400m away from Macy's, jewelery stores, expensive and fancy restaurants etc.
[+] [-] foogazi|2 years ago|reply
The value comes from colocation - there is a LOT of tech value here - and that makes the location expensive
it’s a bet that doesn’t pay off for everyone
Also, the conflicted areas of SF are not the whole Bay Area by a long shot
[+] [-] goaaron|2 years ago|reply
I’m guessing this person moved there for professional reasons if they didn’t even consider moving to any of the other dense parts of San Francisco.
The neighborhoods of San Francisco are: 1. Much more alive than downtown, 2. Safer, 3. Even more “dense” in certain areas given the decline in downtown foot traffic.
[+] [-] pelagicAustral|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bushbaba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajross|2 years ago|reply
> My biggest problem with SF was simply not feeling physically safe [...] SF has a pretty low violent crime rate [...] Instead, the problem was that SF [has] thousands of people wandering around who are suffering from untreated substance abuse and/or severe mental illness
So... I guess the idea is that this is leaning extremely hard on "feeling". Author admits they're not unsafe. Author admits that their real issue is that they don't like being near people with drug habits or mental illness. But they still express it in the lede as "physical safety" anyway! Because that's how they "feel"?
Come on folks. Aren't techies like us supposed to be rationalists? Why are we lying to ourselves (and, in this blog post, others) about what we really want?
[+] [-] fairity|2 years ago|reply
Sure, the author admits that violent crime rate is under control. But, implicit in his post, is the fact that this is only the case because residents adopt behavioral patterns that remove them from violent crime scenes.
Imagine you live in a neighborhood where walking on the right side of the street results in immediate decapitation. While it's true that you can simply always walk on the left side of the street and be 100% safe, most people would not call that a safe neighborhood.
[+] [-] jmccaf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nuzzerino|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuliyp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldstrangers|2 years ago|reply
This is kind of funny to me considering I'd guess for the majority of America, 4 miles is remarkably close.
[+] [-] maerF0x0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maerF0x0|2 years ago|reply
Lately, with my observation that much of American life is getting much much worse. I often think about leaving America entirely, attempting to hold my breath a little longer to get what America most has to offer these days -- superior compensation/salary.
That being said I also have had a very minimal slice of living in America, for all I know there is some amazing pocket somewhere that I can have it all. But I have yet to find it in California or Texas.
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|2 years ago|reply
Also, Philadelphia has some quite nice areas that are pretty affordable. And it's an easy train ride away from NYC.
[+] [-] dbrueck|2 years ago|reply
IME there is a pretty large middle band between the extremes of urban and the boondocks where you can come really close to having it all. It's easiest to find if instead of shooting for "all" you make the concession of having to own and use a car a lot - it's an unfortunate tradeoff, but once you accept it, it becomes relatively easy to find places that check the other boxes: decent cost of living, lots of culture/arts opportunities, great food, lots of outdoor activities, good weather, good schools, good safety, good job market, real feeling of community, etc.
The following won't guarantee success and isn't the only method, but it yields lots of good results: take a list of the 50 largest U.S. cities. Cross off the top 15. Cross off any in FL or CA. Randomly pick a remaining city. On a map, find neighboring cities/towns that are 35-45 miles away from that city. For each that looks interesting, go look at their city website. How big is their public library? How many parks do they have? Do they have any sort of annual city history celebration or other big community event? What community service organizations seem most active? (the idea here is to eliminate any that are a soulless suburban sprawl) If you're able, go visit one and even get an airbnb for a couple of weeks and just live there to try it out.
[+] [-] atyppo|2 years ago|reply
[1]: reddit.com/r/germancitizenship
[+] [-] fumar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|2 years ago|reply
This is true at a surface level, but looking deeper at City services and obligations the situation is more complex than simply declaring numbers large. San Francisco also has a much larger population of immigrants from all over including other states.
> Second, and even worse, the people in charge including the mayor, the police leadership, and a majority of the Board of Supervisors (the legislative body for SF), really just don’t seem to care one bit about what’s happening. Sure, they will occasionally rant in public and promise to fix things ...
Don't seem to care apart from occasionally promising to fix things. This is classic San Francisco attitude. Difficult longstanding problems are clearly incompetence, disinterest, a conspiracy of corruption, or perhaps all of these. Records and meetings are typically fully public, but actually attending any of that is too much for a member of the public to bear. Maybe so, but then you also are skipping out on your responsibilities and potential to contribute to some kind of positive solution.
[+] [-] whimsicalism|2 years ago|reply
SF also has way fewer drug murders than cities I have lived in on the east coast
[+] [-] RickJWagner|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _blz2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbscpa|2 years ago|reply
Where is the OP moving to? What criteria will be (was) used to make the selection?
[+] [-] 238947687066782|2 years ago|reply
A dashboard of the stats and what is being done about it.
From the outside it seems blatantly obvious that it's simply a lack of policing.
I really don't get the animosity of the left-wingers about police, and the way everyone has to pussy-foot around these issues. No one is having issues with police if they aren't breaking the law. This view of the police is so distorted.
The unwavering KPI of every city should be: citizen safety. This is the basic human need, and it should override every other concern.
Here is the solution:
1. You are not allowed to setup a tent on the street. You must stay in housing provided by the government outside of the city in a cheap area. You will be given free transporation there.
2. If you are a repeat offender found to be sleeping on the street, then you will be arrested, and imprisoned.
3. A mental health disorder is not an excuse. If necessary, build a jail that is a mental health treatment center.
I don't get what is so hard about this.
Just make it clear: it's illegal to sleep on the street, loiter, do drugs on the street.
What is the worst thing that happens from this policy implemented fully?
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rossdavidh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zer0-c00l|2 years ago|reply
The main thing is that OP then uses that to generalize about the state of the entire city. This makes it difficult to actually have a reasonable conversation about what is working and what isn’t in SF because everything reverts to the binary “sf is/isn’t a shithole” argument. In OPs case, it actually exposes the reality behind a lot of these “random tech blogger leaving SF” stories where they don’t actually know much about the city or appear to have much of a social life outside of tech that would expose them to other parts of the city. In SF there are tons of places to live that aren’t “single family homes 4 miles from downtown” - the city is 7x7 square miles.
[+] [-] scarmig|2 years ago|reply
The way it frames things is weird, though. Not to say SoMa and downtown aren't shitholes that will make you feel unsafe multiple times per day; they are. But most other neighborhoods have a much safer vibe, and many of them are literally a 10 minute bus ride to downtown. His pooh-poohing the idea of moving to a different neighborhood is just weird. (If he were complaining about the school system or something being disfunctional or cost of living being too high, then his critique of SF as a whole would make a lot more sense.)
He can't really take his experiences living a block from 6th Street and apply them to the whole of SF, and he must be aware of that, or be particularly clueless.
[+] [-] jkubicek|2 years ago|reply
He could walk four blocks in any direction and have a dramatically safer and more enjoyable experience.
[+] [-] xvedejas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnea|2 years ago|reply
Now, if only 10 or 20 million more people would get out of California, then maybe the population would be back to a reasonable level...
Everyone who can't tell the difference between CA and TX should really just move to TX...