23 ms·

What San Francisco Says About America

291 points by imartin2k 10y ago

raldi 10y ago
There at a lot of places in the world that have a smaller inequality gap than San Francisco not for any noble reason, but simply because they drove out all their poor people. Show me a city with massive inequality, and I'll show you a city that has found a way to allow its least-fortunate citizens to make a way of life there.
- wtvanhest 10y ago
  Yes, this is the true answer. Like many KPIs, Inequality is not a good measure of anything on its on.
  - adevine 10y ago
    I disagree. I was just reading an article by Jeremy Grantham that cited data showing how inequality is correlated with basically every measure of health and social problems. See https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level, especially the PowerPoint slides linked from that page. To quote: It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.
    - raldi 10y ago
      I don't think you can compare cities and countries this way. A city can drive out its poor in a way that a country generally cannot.
    - vlehto 10y ago
      So we have bunch of things that correlate together. Now tell me which one is causing it and which ones are effects. It's also possible that all of these are caused by some hidden thing.
      - adevine 10y ago
        The site and the related book go into great detail as to why a casual relationship from inequality to these social ills is the most reasonable hypothesis.
      - jomamaxx 10y ago
        I don't think it's 'one hidden thing'. It's a 'million little things' in the system, and most of it is cultural values, some of it is social policy, some of it is not evident, for example, 'inequality' in SF is driven simply by the fact that some people are creating so much value, making so much money it skews the numbers. When some people in a community make a lot of money - it makes it's way into the housing system and really screws things up. Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having 'equality' should not be a social objective in and of itself.
        adevine 10y ago
        > Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having 'equality' should not be a social objective in and of itself This is false. Most countries with low Gini coefficients are places like Japan and Scandinavia, while high Gini countries are places like Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. There are outliers, but the trend is clear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_...
        jomamaxx 10y ago
        The most 'equal' societies were communist - i.e. Eastern Europe before the end, Cuba today. When you have absolute equality it's called 'communism' - it was the most destructive and murderous idea in all of human history. Everybody that I know that is 'poor' is 100% responsible for their level of income. 100%. I have a huge family - many extended cousins. I have relatives that are constantly working, saving - they are wealthy - some who do nothing all day - they are poor. Fortunately, nobody in my family falls into the category of 'poor because of circumstance'. They all had roughly the same opportunity and made very different choices - every day in fact. But the variation in wealth is huge. To try to create 'equality' in my family would simply mean those that have worked really hard all their lives would have to hand over money to those who did little. Equality as a social objective is oppressive and unfair - the Silicon Valley could not exist in that context because those who are creating value on a global scale would be the bad guys. Also - Japan is a rich country, but they per-capita income is a little behind most modern nations. As far as Scandinavia - they do a pretty good job - but I don't believe their GDP numbers are representative - this is because 'government spending' is part of the GDP calculation, and in those states you have massive government spending, more than 1/2 the economy. Just because the government spends a dollar on something, doesn't mean that a dollar of value is created. Basically - according to the GDP calculation - a dollar taxed from a private citizen, then 'given' to a public sector worker - is a dollar added to the GDP calculation as though it were 'wealth/value creation' and this is rubbish. Also, students in Stockholm region cannot find places to live and there is a several year waiting list for dorm rooms (!!). Same for subsidized housing which is something like 20% of the housing market. This would be unheard of in North America. Also, in North America, homes and properties are much bigger - and this again is not part of the GDP calculation and yet it is (arguably) a measure of greater wealth. So it's very relative. Though again, they do many things well in Scandinavia. As far as African and less developed nations - there's no point in measuring 'equality'. You have a corrupt elite that consumes 100% of the natural resources money, and then a totally defunct nation otherwise. They don't need to aspire to 'equality' - they need to aspire to 'get rid of corruption' and have an 'intelligently organized' society. More equality will happen as a result of that. The objective should not be 'equality' it should be 'fairness', and then taking care of those who really actually need help.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      "outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries." Causation is not correlation. People who are not healthy, may not be able to be as motivated and productive, and are 'pushed out of the economic system'. America is a highly competitive place, in comparison to most other countries and I think that all of these factors have feedback cycles. Also - America does not have socialized medicine or 'full coverage' and I think that really skews the numbers. Some countries with high inequality also have totally different cultures / groups living side by side, and that also changes the numbers.
cylinder 10y ago
Well, what does it say? The article seems to abruptly end without laying out a thesis or conclusion.
- omegaham 10y ago
  I agree - in fact, I thought that the page had cut off half of the article. It just ends with something about Walmart. I thought he was going somewhere with that.
  - mistersquid 10y ago
    The Walmart bit draws a parallel between factory labor and US consumerism along the lines of: global capitalism inserts laborers into Southeast Asian manufacturing assemblages and similarly corrals consumers into Northern Californian box stores. While I think the comparison is at least interesting if not actually useful (to help think about the effects and consequences of transnational capital), that bit of reportage misrepresents the municipal reality that SF does not have a Walmart. In fact, SF has been a bit of an outlier regarding the corporate giant Walmart, and some of SF's elected officials have vigorously opposed Walmart's setting up shop in SF. [0] Four years later, the Walmart closest to SF (Oakland) closed. [1] Presently, the closest Walmart to SF is 18 miles away (42 mins by car, which is an eternity in the Bay Area) in San Leandro. The homelessness in SF is dispiriting and, yes, a sign of US sociopolitical attitudes about wealth and social welfare. Another sign of US sociopolitical attitudes (SF's in particular) is its continued rejection of Walmart which is notorious among Bay Area liberals (and conservatives, for that matter) for its anti-union and anti-employee policies. [0] https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-politicians-labor-walmart/ https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-po... (bad cert, sorry) [1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-nearly-269-stores-worldwide-6762457.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-nearl... EDIT: readability; rhetorical emphasis on political opinion about Walmart
Implicated 10y ago
Why is it that one city can 'say' anything about America as a whole? People (this author included) seem to forget the vastness of America's size and the depth of it's diversity. People and society in San Francisco are nothing like that of Birmingham Alabama or Fargo North Dakota. Seems to me like stereotypes and generalizations being leveraged for views/clicks.
- jccalhoun 10y ago
  Yes, it is kind of difficult to accurately use SF as representative of the USA as a whole. However, I think there are some things in SF that could happen, as Don King used to say, only in America.
- gragas 10y ago
  I completely agree. I recently moved to San Francisco from Iowa. The city itself is truly shocking. I find myself looking back on life in Iowa quite frequently, and I think of it very similarly to this Nabokov quote: a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside The smells, the noise, the mental deterioration. The shear amount of people that just resign to the world in big cities---and San Francisco in particular---is more than an order of magnitude greater than anything you'll find east of the Rockies and west of Chicago.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  The USA is a lot more homogeneous than it is diverse. The comparisons the author makes are on a scale much larger than the diversity of the USA. If you cannot see this I cannot work out how to tell you, except perhaps to suggest that you and live and work on the other side of the world.
  - withdavidli 10y ago
    if it's more homogeneous than diverse why pick a city which is one of the most diverse in the country as the example? don't understand your last sentence. been in china/hk, there's a lot less diversity there, at least racially. are you using diverse in economic terms? gender? age? consumer habits? religion?
11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
>>It was as if there was a symmetry across the Pacific between the producers and the consumers, between the factory and the cash register. Conceptually, transportation and warehousing are artifices of the distance between producers and consumers. So why not think of the end of the manufacturing line being the cash register?
vonnik 10y ago
Tom Fuller is one of the best reporters at The New York Times. He covered the Arab Spring in North Africa. He covered the military junta in Myanmar, sneaking over the Thai border. His life work deserves a Pulitzer, and now we're lucky to have him in SF. I've worked with him directly, and he's the real deal and also a nice guy. The big questions about San Francisco are: How does it manage to be so rich and so poor at the same time? What does it mean for a city to have one of the highest number of millionaires per capita among its inhabitants, and also a large and growing homeless population? When you think about San Francisco, you think about tech and homelessness. It's a city that's the seat of a global industry trying to grapple with a regional problem. That is, both the tech and the homelessness are part of larger systems over which San Francisco has little control. The city has more to offer the homeless than many other US cities: weather that won't kill you, laws that support free healthcare, a citizenry that, until recently at least, believed the problem should not be swept under the rug or erased like LA took care of Skid Row. But the weird thing about SF is how the city is becoming more and more disjointed. It has become a city that attracts people from around the world with economic opportunity. The tech workers that form the middle and upper middle class here don't have much else in common besides the economic opportunity they sought. They didn't come to solve homelessness in SF, and we can't blame them for that. And the homeless themselves come from many other places in the US. So tech workers and homeless come to a city, but many of them are not from here, and therefore don't identify as belonging to the same community, a community which under other historical conditions might have tried to care for itself and solve its own problems. I'm aware of a few attempts in SF to address homelessness: Handup, LavaMae, etc. And they're great, but they aren't the norm for tech. There's also something strange about tech as an industry, which shapes its impact on SF. Older industries like carmakers employed hundreds of thousands of people, and employed them locally (at least until NAFTA). That is, organizations devoted to the accumulation of capital were also the source of a lot of employment in the cities where they were based. Tech is different. Google employs an order of magnitude less than that. And it is addressing a global market rather than a national or local one. The bits at the base of its business have no ties to SF. It's solving problems and offering services worldwide, and doesn't really have to think much about the state and fate of the local economy. Maybe that's just the weirdness of globalization.
- 10y ago
noahmbarr 10y ago
What does America say about San Francisco?
tn13 10y ago
What San Francisco Says about America is logical equivalent of "What Osama says about muslim people" or what "Donald Trump says about White people." It is stereotyping and we should avoid it.
whybroke 10y ago
I too lived overseas for several years and returned to the Bay Area recently to be astonished in the same ways. Another surprise that the article does not reveal was that in speaking to long standing friends who remained in the Bay Area, I have commonly heard them say homeless people choose to be homeless. These are normal bay area professional class people who read the Atlantic and the NYT. But to hear repeatedly such notions form well education otherwise forward thing people is something I still can not remotely comprehend. And how they would develop such views is even more incomprehensible.
- billions 10y ago
  I know people who have been homeless and got off the street that say many homeless people want to be homeless. Perhaps in a high pressure, individualistic society people seeing themselves at the bottom of the chart express themselves by refusing to conform. A homeless ex-teacher I spoke with said she had no interest in leaving the streets. Perhaps the arrogance is in believing that the way of life we choose should be desired by all others in an individualistic society.
  - yarou 10y ago
    I highly doubt that the majority of homeless people in San Francisco (at least where I lived, Tenth and Market) fit into the category of non-conformist hippies that want to live outside of the System (neoliberal capitalism, really). Many of them suffer from mental illnesses like schizophrenia, so their entire view of reality is distorted, like a broken prism that takes in light and reflects color all over the place. Addiction is also prevalent among the homeless, usually to help them cope with an underlying mental illness, for which they don't have the means nor the will to receive treatment for. I don't think it is arrogant to want to help someone who might be a danger to themselves and/or others.
- room271 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. My experience of San Francisco is that a lot of the homeless people I saw had addiction or other forms of mental illness. In this context, it clearly is not a 'choice' in the meaningful sense of the word. Having experience with an alcoholic who was incapable of escaping her situation alone, I think you make a very valid point.
brianmcconnell 10y ago
I moved to SF in the early 90s. I think you can pin the large homeless population on several things. One is the climate. If you had to pick a place to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. Another is it is relatively safe compared to other cities. But most importantly you can blame Ronald Reagan for dismantling the states mental health infrastructure. Institutionalizing people has its downsides, but its more humane than letting people overdose on a sidewalk. It also doesn't help that other municipalities have a habit of dumping their social services burdens on San Francisco (one way buses from Nevada, etc). I don't see anything changing until we have a national or at least regional mental health system that can actually deal with the scale of the problem.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Implicated 10y ago
  > One is the climate. If you had to pick a place to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. My experience here in Portland OR seems to reflect the same feeling on this. During the spring/summer months the homeless population explodes... then they move down south for the fall/winter seasons.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    When you don't have a home, cold and damp are literal killers.
- kjksf 10y ago
  None of that is specific to San Francisco. All of South California and North California has great weather, including other big cities like LA, San Diego, San Jose. As to crime, I don't have the stats but again I doubt SF has meaningfully lower crime rate than other cities. Generic "crime stats" are pretty meaningless anyway. I doubt anyone keeps stats that would be specific to homeless people (we have stats for "homicide rates" but not "homeless homicide rates"). And even if Reagan is to blame, it was a national thing, so doesn't explain why San Francisco has more homeless.
bsder 10y ago
There is also a tension between "helping" someone and "infringing their rights as a human." Somehow I think that Thailand/Bangkok doesn't worry all that much about the "rights" side of that balance. At what point do you declare someone with mental illness "sick and unfit"? This is not an easy question. Family members, who would know a person best, can't always answer that question well.
- room271 10y ago
  I think this is true, but it can't explain most of the difference by itself as most of the major wealthy cities I have been to do not have anywhere near the scale of homelessness and mental health issues as San Francisco. (I say this as someone who has lived in the UK, France, and San Francisco (albeit briefly). I really think the local people (I don't mean you here) have a kind of blindness to the problem in San Fran, perhaps because after a while you start forgetting how abnormal it is. There is so much wealth in the city but clearly not enough people commited to acting.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  You make it sound as though we're not incarcerating them already... we are, we just use prisons instead of a facility where any kind of treatment could ever occur. If you think being mentally ill in prison is somehow a celebration of humans rights...
  - bsder 10y ago
    > If you think being mentally ill in prison is somehow a celebration of humans rights... I do not. But I also don't claim to have a "solution", either.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      You don't need to, just look at countries that actually take care of their mentally ill instead of warehousing them or tossing them on the streets. You don't need to come up with a solution, you just need to learn about the ones that have existed for years. Are they perfect? No, but as I often see here in relation to new technologies with far less at stake and far less of a proven track record, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Camillo 10y ago
San Francisco spends $241 million a year[1] on the homeless. Perhaps what it says about America is that you can't solve these kinds of problems by throwing more and more money at them, but that won't keep politicians from trying. [1: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...]
- yladiz 10y ago
  I think it's not necessarily that the money is being spent (in general) but rather the money is being spent in the wrong way. For example, we've spent untold billions of dollars on the "war on drugs" since it started with Nixon, but it's been mostly spent on incarceration rather than rehabilitation; if that money had been spent on safe needle spaces, mental health clinics, and easier access to alternatives for drugs such as heroin like methadone, the problem may not be solved but would be in a better place. Homelessness would also be in a better place if the money was spent better. Better shelters, better services similar to those I mentioned above, and better information about each person like the article mentions would substantially make the issue better. But those things aren't as easy to justify as the alternative. In the case of incarceration, because the effects are effectively immediate, it feels easier to put someone away for 10-20-life rather than giving them a better life.
  - usaphp 10y ago
    > safe needle spaces, mental health clinics, and easier access to alternatives for drugs such as heroin like methadone > Better shelters, better services similar to those I mentioned above Every time I hear people say that I just can't understand how do they think that will fix the problem? Most homeless and drug addicts wont go to mental health clinic on their own, most of them enjoy the life they are having and are not willing to change, giving them better shelters, better services will only increase their number. Can you explain me why do you think that giving a drug addict a clean needle or alternative drug will make them want to stop using them?
    - yladiz 10y ago
miraj 10y ago
isn't there a duplicate posting filter in HN? I posted the same article (atleast an hour or two before the current one) earlier (1). this happened few times now! or am I missing something obvious? thought the filter is supposed to prevent dupe posts?! @dang ? @sctb ? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824
pcmaffey 10y ago
Migrants are a global issue. Their numbers have increased drastically everywhere this decade, and will continue to do so at alarming rates. Even potentially epochal rates once the rising seas displace a billion or 2 people.
aminok 10y ago
>It seems a terrible statement about my home country that my children will encounter homelessness and mental illness much more vividly in the wealthiest nation in the world than they did in Thailand, where we previously lived. >During a trip back to Bangkok I spoke about this paradox with Nopphan Phromsri, the secretary general of the Human Settlement Foundation, an organization that assists the homeless there. >Greater Bangkok, a sprawling metropolis with more than 10 million people, has 1,300 homeless people, a survey this year found. * Thailand spends far less on subsidies for the poor. * The government intervention that does take place in Thailand to address homelessness is much more balanced in the authoritarianism it imposes on taxpayer vs tax recipient. Drug addicts can't receive welfare their entire life with zero accountability. Instead they are enrolled into compulsory treatment programs. Western culture considers compulsory treatment a human rights violation, but does not consider throwing someone in prison for refusing to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade, to pay for welfare, similarly a human rights violation. This irrational, ideology based approach to human rights is behind this imbalanced approach to drug abuse and welfare. * Thailand has far less effective enforcement of authoritarian economic prohibitions, like prohibitions on running an unlicensed business. This provides more space for the poor, who have more difficulty meeting licensing requirements, to participate in economically productive activity. That's why Thailand has bustling street markets and an informal economy (derogatorily referred to as a "shadow economy" in some circles) that provides stable sources of income for millions of people.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  The US also has zoning laws which prevent construction of low cost housing (such as dormitories), and minimum wage laws which prevent employment of marginally employable people.
  - Applejinx 10y ago
    …which really puts the damper on an otherwise thriving slave labor demographic.
    - aminok 10y ago
weerd 10y ago
This is a complicated problem and I admit that I don't have a good understanding of law or social studies... so take this with a grain of salt. I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country. Heroine/meth/alcohol mixed with mental issues have demolished the lives of many people. They turn bitter and blue. Life becomes a loop of temporary satisfaction through chemical escape. The ones that end on the streets are often not violent, and I don't believe they belong in prison. But defiling public spaces with needles and shit is not acceptable. Fines and nights in jail don't matter to them, but freedom on the other hand... I imagine a state institution somewhere between jail and trade school. Drug use would be tolerated to some extent. Food, shelter, and hopefully some sense of community are provided, along with opportunities to learn useful skills. I realize this is idealistic and that the monetary cost would probably be immense. I'm just sick of all the biohazards strewn across the city and felt like wondering out loud.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  > I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country. No, you don't. Many of the problems faced by the poor arise specifically from restrictions and limitations on freedom. The number of US persons perpetually disenfranchised by poverty is hard to comprehend. They have fewer rights, not too many. The disparate treatment of poor people by the justice system tops my list. Poor drug users face convictions, and thereafter perpetual unemployment, while the rich are diverted to programs without convictions (see Rush Limbaugh). The rich are also allowed to self-medicate with prescriptions whereas the poor turn to illegal drugs (again, see Rush). To exacerbate this by rounding up the poor into camps only sweeps the problem under the rug.
gavanwoolery 10y ago
"I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets." Well, here is part of the problem. You are asking what your society can do, not what YOU can do. Meanwhile you are busy racking up your credit card on consumer goods you don't really need (yes, he does admit this - read the article). Nothing would prevent people from pooling their money for a cause. And this does indeed exist - it is called a charity. Many charities exist to aid the homeless, and if none of them suit your needs you can start a new one with a new goal. The good thing about charities is that they compete with each other. If a charity is corrupt (like the Red Cross? [1]) you do not have to donate to it. Tax dollars, on the other hand - you realistically have little choice where they are going in spite of whatever guise of democracy you think you are operating under. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Charity is a nice idea, but when people are paying their taxes, and seeing trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq, boondoggles like the F-35 and the LCS, and even to an extent the Zumwalt, they might have a right to speculate that their charity or lack thereof is not the primary issue. Then they might look at the state of healthcare in this country, and how a combination of bought politicians, insurance, and some particularly greedy pharmaceutical companies cough albuterol cough Mylan cough and realize that the problem is bigger than a spirit of pooling resources. We already pool our resources, then those resources are wasted. That's the problem.
  - gavanwoolery 10y ago
    good points :)
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Thanks, I respect the points you're making about charity, and especially about the need to start somewhere (i.e. with ourselves), but we shouldn't lose sight of the enormous and unconscionable waste much of what we already give with that in mind is subject to.
sandworm101 10y ago
Americans are vicious. When it comes to the suffering of fellow citizens they display a unique callousness. Whether it is the death penalty, long sentences in horrific prisons, health care, guns, drugs, militarized policing or basic housing policies, the suffering of others is viewed as not an evil but rather a necessity. Everything is either the carrot or the stick. Other countries expect their governments to do more than dissuade or incentivize behavior. They expect government to actually help.
- apsec112 10y ago
  Please don't attack whole groups of people like that. The American government has certainly done awful things. But that doesn't somehow mean that all Americans are evil, any more than all Germans were Nazis, or all Iraqis were terrorists.
- dang 10y ago
  apsec112 is correct. This crosses into national slur and those are not allowed on HN. Please don't post like this again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12522945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12522945 and marked it off-topic.
nitwit005 10y ago
SF actually attracts homeless people. The last homeless count done showed 29% of homeless people in SF lost their housing outside the city, with 10% of that from out of state: https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran... (search for "place of residence") I rather suspect SF is a nice place to be homeless, as people seem to be "voting with their feet" and going there.
habosa 10y ago
If you live in SF (like me) and want to do something to help, consider donating time or money to a local charity focused on homelessness. My personal recommendation is Larkin Street Youth Services [0]. There are ~2000 homeless youth (age < 25) in San Francisco on any given night. These young people were often the victims of terrible family situations and have no support network. Larkin Street helps to provide shelter, counseling, education, and anything else they may need to get off the streets for good. More than 70% of the people who "graduate" from Larkin Street leave street life forever. I know on Hacker News we like to talk about the political causes and solutions to a problem like this. But tomorrow's laws won't change the fact that there are homeless people sleeping on the street every night who need help. Charitable organizations are there to help meet these immediate needs. [0] - http://larkinstreetyouth.org/ http://larkinstreetyouth.org/
- alanaut 10y ago
  "A society that aims for equality before freedom, will end up with neither equality nor freedom." Laws are not meant to lift people from poverty. PEOPLE must lift themselves so far as to lift each other out of poverty. One of the basic functions of government is to protect people from other people (both land and rights). Now, "rights" is where things tend to become grey. Who should determine what those rights are? The government? People? A majority? San Francisco is an excellent study in what can happen when government plays a role it is not fit to oversee. Now, Larkin Street is an excellent case study on how the private sector fills in that space governments leaves open when they play around with policy. The aim here is to continue to build these networks around support.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- JustUhThought 10y ago
  In my experience donating time or money does not change the systemic causes of the issues. You will forever be donating. For real,sustainable change a different society must be built, whatever that might look like.
  - 10y ago
morgante 10y ago
It's pretty ludicrous to write an article about "What San Francisco Says About America" and then fixate on the things which most distinguish San Francisco from the rest of the US. San Francisco is a huge outlier in many respects. Some of the most notable things which the article talks about are unheard of elsewhere: almost anywhere else in the country you will not see visible homeless and you definitely won't see marijuana advertisements.
- bsimpson 10y ago
  The Wal-Mart bit seemed especially out-of-place. I don't think San Francisco even has a Wal-Mart (and that fact alone distinguishes its culture from most of America).
  - falsedan 10y ago
    Came here to make the same comment.
  - drawkbox 10y ago
    Interesting map on Walmarts and Whole Foods in SF [1] [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foods_vs_walmart_in_the_bay_area.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foo...
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  What I found odd is how the author fixated on bizarre things like marijuana yoga, vegan shoes, bluetooth toothbrushes (missed opportunity for portmanteau), as if Americans or San Franciscans find all of this normal. We're bewildered and laughing too.
- gjolund 10y ago
  It does say something that the city that most embodies American capitalism also boasts its largest homeless population.
debt 10y ago
heroin is a huge problem in san francisco among the homeless. apparently it's cheaper than it's ever been and it seems to be attracting a lot of very bad people. i love it here but i've never seen it this bad.
reid_fatman 10y ago
One other reason there are so many homeless in SF: they are paid to be there.
LargeCompanies 10y ago
In terms of homeless San Fran is the Mecca. It's shocking and sad to experience!
smallnamespace 10y ago
About a decade ago, I spent a few summers volunteering at a soup kitchen (St. Anthony's Foundation) in the Tenderloin, and they had an orientation for new volunteers that explained exactly why lowering the permanent homeless population in SF is so difficult: - Homeless population is bimodal in distribution of time they've been homeless - Most homeless people actually cycle out of homelessness quite quickly; they lost a job or got sick, went bankrupt, family's on the streets, but they're basically motivated and get back on their feet quickly (within months) - The longer you've been homeless, the more likely you are to stay homeless - Among the long-term population, a significant fraction (like half) of the population have mental illnesses (clinically diagnosable e.g. schizophrenia, PTSD); a large fraction were also vets; drug addiction is rampant - The veteran stat was very surprising for me and IMO a particularly shameful part of our country's history: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html '33% of male homeless population are veterans' '47% Vietnam Era' '67% served three or more years' - The closure of mental institutions and sharp reduction in bed counts in the 80s put a lot of mentally ill people directly on the street; since they had been institutionalized, many of their own family support networks were also gone - It's very hard to transition back to normal society once you've been out of work for a decade; to even apply and interview for a job, you need to give a return address and phone number, and applications have moved online; a lot of homeless have no computer skills - Even the very basic logistics of getting a shower, decent clothes, a clean shave, and showing up to an interview is difficult for someone who has lived on the streets for a long time - For those reasons above, to a first approximation, most long term homeless are unemployable - SF is an expensive city; a decade ago, a room in the Tenderloin would run >$1k a month; this makes it even more difficult to transition back to regular society without outside support Basically, to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large investment (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible), and probably a significant fraction of the homeless should be in a state mental institution of some kind (with all its attendant downsides and potential for abuse) rather than out on the streets.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  > to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large investment (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible) The investment here is time, as much as money per se. Someone who is long term homeless and has no support network, no savings, no recent job, no home, no clean clothes to change into, no place to shower, and most importantly no stable schedule and set of habits needs not only a sturdy financial food/shelter/clothing foundation, but also needs someone who cares about them to put in a ton of work every day making sure they stay focused and motivated and on schedule. Devoting that much care and attention to a stranger isn’t something that most people have the bandwidth or motivation to do, and it’s the kind of work that’s not easy to scale.
gbog 10y ago
Uh, the title is ambiguous, is it about America the two continents? North America the continent? Or about the U.S.A., the nameless, official-language-less country? I know of many South Americans who would prefer the ambiguity to be solved so they can have their American identity not hijacked by the biggest and most powerful country on the same longitude.
- a13n 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States "The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America..."
  - gbog 10y ago
    Yes, I know, but still it is a problem, is it not? I feel that in the USA many people are very careful to not hurt the feelings of some minorities inside the country, which is done with good faith even if sometime it becomes very difficult to navigate through a normal conversation with soeone you do not know too much. But then, why not put the same effort in avoiding to hurt the feelings of all non US Americans? It would actually be easier.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
alanaut 10y ago
tl;dr Not sure if you have seen Milton Freidman's talks on Poverty and Equality, but I would highly recommend them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U To summarize: How free are the poor and what is governments role? 1. Governments don't have responsibility, people have responsibility. 2.The free-market is the most effective system towards ending poverty. 3. Bad government failures result in welfare schemes has been machine to produce poor people.
jokoon 10y ago
The most powerful societies are the ones who put high value on citizens conforming to certain values. Homeless people are just individuals who can't conform to social norms, and thus they end up being excluded. Let's be frank: most voters don't want their tax dollars being given to the poorest. Redistribution sounds like some kind of soviet communism, and people considers than everyone has the free will to become successful. The most vivid image I have is a motivational speaker in front of an audience of homeless people.
bogomipz 10y ago
I took issue with many of the points: Firstly San Francisco isn't America though the same way that London isn't the England. They are aberrations and not representative of the majority of the country. I took issue with some of his other points: "Blindingly white teeth. The burrito that was so huge it felt as if it would break my wrist. Police officers covered in tattoos." I don't even understand these. White teeth are not a salient characteristic of San Franciscans, neither is a police force covered in tattoos. I think the burrito he's referring to is Pancho Villas in the Mission and that is no way a normal portion even by America's generally larger portion sizes. "I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets." He could be equally confounded on how to explain how a Buddhists society could refuse to help the Rohingyas drifting off the shore in the southern part of Thailand. Or why Thailand doesn't do more to keep its young girls from being stunted and exploited by the sex industry there. Paradox is not the exclusive domain of either S.F or the US. Then this overwrought closing: "I stood in the checkout line and watched milk-fed Americans unloading their carts onto the conveyor belt. My mind flashed back to the diminutive workers in a factory I visited in Tianjin, China, who for a few hundred dollars a month stitched leather boots and who giggled when they thought about the giant feet that would one day fill them." Milk-fed? Why is that relevant? Dairy isn't as common in Asia because the majority of Asia is lactose-intolerant. Diminutive? What is that a reference to? People in Northern China have the same average height as do people in the US.
djhworld 10y ago
> It almost seems that we have created needs so that we can cater to them. I think this statement sums up the type of consumerism we have today, across the developed world.
- xyzzy4 10y ago
  All people really need is food and some basic shelter. The way economics began is the farmers create the food, and non-agricultural workers trade non-essential goods and services with the farmers. Over time, the percentage of people working in agriculture declined. In less developed places like India, 50% of workers are still in agriculture.
davidf18 10y ago
Much of the homelessness problem in SF (and also NYC, LA, Boston, DC, ....) can be solved by not spending more money, but by simply reversing "economic rents" sought be landlords to create zoning density restrictions. These zoning density restrictions create a politically induced scarcity of housing and other real estate which results in a regressive tax transferring wealth and income from renters to landlords. "Economic rents" are a type of "market failure" of an efficient market. Much of fixing the economy can be stimulated by identifying market failures that are often created by special interest groups (in this case landlords like Donald Trump). Instead of focusing on wealth creation, they use political connections to create artificial scarcity with the resulting higher housing and office costs to benefit them but hurt the overall economy. Interestingly, there was a prominent NYTimes article which demonstrated how Trump received $885 million in tax abatements, etc. but there have never been articles by the NYTimes about the fact that Trump and other wealthy landlords are realizing far more than they would if the "economic rents" were fixed. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-... Renters spend more money on rent and less money on goods and services. Reversing the politically induced housing scarcity by eliminating the "rent seeking" laws would in addition to freeing up money that renters spend making landlords wealthier on goods and services stimulating the economy while at the same time would stimulate a housing boom. See Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser's article about building affordable housing in NYC (which of course applies to SF and other cities as well). Glaeser: Build Big, Bill http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.... In general "market failures" such as this one are a "brake" on economic growth and costs no money to fix, simply take away bad laws that serve the few, well connected, over the many. Before trying stimulus, raising minimum wage, etc. simply reverse laws that create "market failure" benefiting special interests such as landlords and let the economy to its thing when the markets are made more efficient again.
- ftrflyr 10y ago
  You should watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ftrflyr 10y ago
Not sure if you have seen Milton Freidman's talks on Poverty and Equality, but I would highly recommend them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U To summarize: How free are the poor and what is the government's role? [1] Governments don't have responsibility, people have responsibility. [2] The free-market is the most effective system towards ending poverty. [3] Bad government failures result in welfare schemes has been machine to produce poor people.
mmanfrin 10y ago
I think it is unfair to look at the homelessness of SF as an attribute or failing of the city or to extrapolate out as if it were synecdocheic of the country. Homelessness in the whole state gravitates to SF because of the climate: sure, it's cold in SF, but it's never freezing. Sf has (one of if not) the mildest winters of any city in North America; the record cold is 28F. And the record high is 103F. Some of the homelessness moves around the state, but a lot settles in SF because of the climate. Additionally, there are instances of homeless people being bussed to SF (like Nevada did). SF tries very hard to deal with homelessness, but it's dealing with the homelessness of a much larger area and population than the population of SF can afford to help. The US itself needs to step up (like refunding a national mental health institution, to remedy one of the most braindead things Reagan ever did).
norea-armozel 10y ago
All I can say is that San Francisco might as well be another planet. And I'm glad I'm not ever going to live there.

291 points by imartin2k 10y ago

raldi 10y ago

There at a lot of places in the world that have a smaller inequality gap than San Francisco not for any noble reason, but simply because they drove out all their poor people. Show me a city with massive inequality, and I'll show you a city that has found a way to allow its least-fortunate citizens to make a way of life there.

wtvanhest 10y ago
Yes, this is the true answer. Like many KPIs, Inequality is not a good measure of anything on its on.
- adevine 10y ago
  I disagree. I was just reading an article by Jeremy Grantham that cited data showing how inequality is correlated with basically every measure of health and social problems. See https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level, especially the PowerPoint slides linked from that page. To quote: It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.
  - raldi 10y ago
    I don't think you can compare cities and countries this way. A city can drive out its poor in a way that a country generally cannot.
  - vlehto 10y ago
    So we have bunch of things that correlate together. Now tell me which one is causing it and which ones are effects. It's also possible that all of these are caused by some hidden thing.
    - adevine 10y ago
      The site and the related book go into great detail as to why a casual relationship from inequality to these social ills is the most reasonable hypothesis.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      I don't think it's 'one hidden thing'. It's a 'million little things' in the system, and most of it is cultural values, some of it is social policy, some of it is not evident, for example, 'inequality' in SF is driven simply by the fact that some people are creating so much value, making so much money it skews the numbers. When some people in a community make a lot of money - it makes it's way into the housing system and really screws things up. Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having 'equality' should not be a social objective in and of itself.
      - adevine 10y ago
        > Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having 'equality' should not be a social objective in and of itself This is false. Most countries with low Gini coefficients are places like Japan and Scandinavia, while high Gini countries are places like Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. There are outliers, but the trend is clear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_...
        jomamaxx 10y ago
        The most 'equal' societies were communist - i.e. Eastern Europe before the end, Cuba today. When you have absolute equality it's called 'communism' - it was the most destructive and murderous idea in all of human history. Everybody that I know that is 'poor' is 100% responsible for their level of income. 100%. I have a huge family - many extended cousins. I have relatives that are constantly working, saving - they are wealthy - some who do nothing all day - they are poor. Fortunately, nobody in my family falls into the category of 'poor because of circumstance'. They all had roughly the same opportunity and made very different choices - every day in fact. But the variation in wealth is huge. To try to create 'equality' in my family would simply mean those that have worked really hard all their lives would have to hand over money to those who did little. Equality as a social objective is oppressive and unfair - the Silicon Valley could not exist in that context because those who are creating value on a global scale would be the bad guys. Also - Japan is a rich country, but they per-capita income is a little behind most modern nations. As far as Scandinavia - they do a pretty good job - but I don't believe their GDP numbers are representative - this is because 'government spending' is part of the GDP calculation, and in those states you have massive government spending, more than 1/2 the economy. Just because the government spends a dollar on something, doesn't mean that a dollar of value is created. Basically - according to the GDP calculation - a dollar taxed from a private citizen, then 'given' to a public sector worker - is a dollar added to the GDP calculation as though it were 'wealth/value creation' and this is rubbish. Also, students in Stockholm region cannot find places to live and there is a several year waiting list for dorm rooms (!!). Same for subsidized housing which is something like 20% of the housing market. This would be unheard of in North America. Also, in North America, homes and properties are much bigger - and this again is not part of the GDP calculation and yet it is (arguably) a measure of greater wealth. So it's very relative. Though again, they do many things well in Scandinavia. As far as African and less developed nations - there's no point in measuring 'equality'. You have a corrupt elite that consumes 100% of the natural resources money, and then a totally defunct nation otherwise. They don't need to aspire to 'equality' - they need to aspire to 'get rid of corruption' and have an 'intelligently organized' society. More equality will happen as a result of that. The objective should not be 'equality' it should be 'fairness', and then taking care of those who really actually need help.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    "outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries." Causation is not correlation. People who are not healthy, may not be able to be as motivated and productive, and are 'pushed out of the economic system'. America is a highly competitive place, in comparison to most other countries and I think that all of these factors have feedback cycles. Also - America does not have socialized medicine or 'full coverage' and I think that really skews the numbers. Some countries with high inequality also have totally different cultures / groups living side by side, and that also changes the numbers.

cylinder 10y ago

Well, what does it say? The article seems to abruptly end without laying out a thesis or conclusion.

omegaham 10y ago
I agree - in fact, I thought that the page had cut off half of the article. It just ends with something about Walmart. I thought he was going somewhere with that.
- mistersquid 10y ago
  The Walmart bit draws a parallel between factory labor and US consumerism along the lines of: global capitalism inserts laborers into Southeast Asian manufacturing assemblages and similarly corrals consumers into Northern Californian box stores. While I think the comparison is at least interesting if not actually useful (to help think about the effects and consequences of transnational capital), that bit of reportage misrepresents the municipal reality that SF does not have a Walmart. In fact, SF has been a bit of an outlier regarding the corporate giant Walmart, and some of SF's elected officials have vigorously opposed Walmart's setting up shop in SF. [0] Four years later, the Walmart closest to SF (Oakland) closed. [1] Presently, the closest Walmart to SF is 18 miles away (42 mins by car, which is an eternity in the Bay Area) in San Leandro. The homelessness in SF is dispiriting and, yes, a sign of US sociopolitical attitudes about wealth and social welfare. Another sign of US sociopolitical attitudes (SF's in particular) is its continued rejection of Walmart which is notorious among Bay Area liberals (and conservatives, for that matter) for its anti-union and anti-employee policies. [0] https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-politicians-labor-walmart/ https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-po... (bad cert, sorry) [1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-nearly-269-stores-worldwide-6762457.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-nearl... EDIT: readability; rhetorical emphasis on political opinion about Walmart

Implicated 10y ago

Why is it that one city can 'say' anything about America as a whole? People (this author included) seem to forget the vastness of America's size and the depth of it's diversity. People and society in San Francisco are nothing like that of Birmingham Alabama or Fargo North Dakota. Seems to me like stereotypes and generalizations being leveraged for views/clicks.

jccalhoun 10y ago
Yes, it is kind of difficult to accurately use SF as representative of the USA as a whole. However, I think there are some things in SF that could happen, as Don King used to say, only in America.
gragas 10y ago
I completely agree. I recently moved to San Francisco from Iowa. The city itself is truly shocking. I find myself looking back on life in Iowa quite frequently, and I think of it very similarly to this Nabokov quote: a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside The smells, the noise, the mental deterioration. The shear amount of people that just resign to the world in big cities---and San Francisco in particular---is more than an order of magnitude greater than anything you'll find east of the Rockies and west of Chicago.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
The USA is a lot more homogeneous than it is diverse. The comparisons the author makes are on a scale much larger than the diversity of the USA. If you cannot see this I cannot work out how to tell you, except perhaps to suggest that you and live and work on the other side of the world.
- withdavidli 10y ago
  if it's more homogeneous than diverse why pick a city which is one of the most diverse in the country as the example? don't understand your last sentence. been in china/hk, there's a lot less diversity there, at least racially. are you using diverse in economic terms? gender? age? consumer habits? religion?

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago

>>It was as if there was a symmetry across the Pacific between the producers and the consumers, between the factory and the cash register. Conceptually, transportation and warehousing are artifices of the distance between producers and consumers. So why not think of the end of the manufacturing line being the cash register?

vonnik 10y ago

Tom Fuller is one of the best reporters at The New York Times. He covered the Arab Spring in North Africa. He covered the military junta in Myanmar, sneaking over the Thai border. His life work deserves a Pulitzer, and now we're lucky to have him in SF. I've worked with him directly, and he's the real deal and also a nice guy. The big questions about San Francisco are: How does it manage to be so rich and so poor at the same time? What does it mean for a city to have one of the highest number of millionaires per capita among its inhabitants, and also a large and growing homeless population? When you think about San Francisco, you think about tech and homelessness. It's a city that's the seat of a global industry trying to grapple with a regional problem. That is, both the tech and the homelessness are part of larger systems over which San Francisco has little control. The city has more to offer the homeless than many other US cities: weather that won't kill you, laws that support free healthcare, a citizenry that, until recently at least, believed the problem should not be swept under the rug or erased like LA took care of Skid Row. But the weird thing about SF is how the city is becoming more and more disjointed. It has become a city that attracts people from around the world with economic opportunity. The tech workers that form the middle and upper middle class here don't have much else in common besides the economic opportunity they sought. They didn't come to solve homelessness in SF, and we can't blame them for that. And the homeless themselves come from many other places in the US. So tech workers and homeless come to a city, but many of them are not from here, and therefore don't identify as belonging to the same community, a community which under other historical conditions might have tried to care for itself and solve its own problems. I'm aware of a few attempts in SF to address homelessness: Handup, LavaMae, etc. And they're great, but they aren't the norm for tech. There's also something strange about tech as an industry, which shapes its impact on SF. Older industries like carmakers employed hundreds of thousands of people, and employed them locally (at least until NAFTA). That is, organizations devoted to the accumulation of capital were also the source of a lot of employment in the cities where they were based. Tech is different. Google employs an order of magnitude less than that. And it is addressing a global market rather than a national or local one. The bits at the base of its business have no ties to SF. It's solving problems and offering services worldwide, and doesn't really have to think much about the state and fate of the local economy. Maybe that's just the weirdness of globalization.

10y ago

noahmbarr 10y ago

What does America say about San Francisco?

tn13 10y ago

What San Francisco Says about America is logical equivalent of "What Osama says about muslim people" or what "Donald Trump says about White people." It is stereotyping and we should avoid it.

whybroke 10y ago

I too lived overseas for several years and returned to the Bay Area recently to be astonished in the same ways. Another surprise that the article does not reveal was that in speaking to long standing friends who remained in the Bay Area, I have commonly heard them say homeless people choose to be homeless. These are normal bay area professional class people who read the Atlantic and the NYT. But to hear repeatedly such notions form well education otherwise forward thing people is something I still can not remotely comprehend. And how they would develop such views is even more incomprehensible.

billions 10y ago
I know people who have been homeless and got off the street that say many homeless people want to be homeless. Perhaps in a high pressure, individualistic society people seeing themselves at the bottom of the chart express themselves by refusing to conform. A homeless ex-teacher I spoke with said she had no interest in leaving the streets. Perhaps the arrogance is in believing that the way of life we choose should be desired by all others in an individualistic society.
- yarou 10y ago
  I highly doubt that the majority of homeless people in San Francisco (at least where I lived, Tenth and Market) fit into the category of non-conformist hippies that want to live outside of the System (neoliberal capitalism, really). Many of them suffer from mental illnesses like schizophrenia, so their entire view of reality is distorted, like a broken prism that takes in light and reflects color all over the place. Addiction is also prevalent among the homeless, usually to help them cope with an underlying mental illness, for which they don't have the means nor the will to receive treatment for. I don't think it is arrogant to want to help someone who might be a danger to themselves and/or others.
room271 10y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. My experience of San Francisco is that a lot of the homeless people I saw had addiction or other forms of mental illness. In this context, it clearly is not a 'choice' in the meaningful sense of the word. Having experience with an alcoholic who was incapable of escaping her situation alone, I think you make a very valid point.

brianmcconnell 10y ago

I moved to SF in the early 90s. I think you can pin the large homeless population on several things. One is the climate. If you had to pick a place to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. Another is it is relatively safe compared to other cities. But most importantly you can blame Ronald Reagan for dismantling the states mental health infrastructure. Institutionalizing people has its downsides, but its more humane than letting people overdose on a sidewalk. It also doesn't help that other municipalities have a habit of dumping their social services burdens on San Francisco (one way buses from Nevada, etc). I don't see anything changing until we have a national or at least regional mental health system that can actually deal with the scale of the problem.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Implicated 10y ago
> One is the climate. If you had to pick a place to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. My experience here in Portland OR seems to reflect the same feeling on this. During the spring/summer months the homeless population explodes... then they move down south for the fall/winter seasons.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  When you don't have a home, cold and damp are literal killers.
kjksf 10y ago
None of that is specific to San Francisco. All of South California and North California has great weather, including other big cities like LA, San Diego, San Jose. As to crime, I don't have the stats but again I doubt SF has meaningfully lower crime rate than other cities. Generic "crime stats" are pretty meaningless anyway. I doubt anyone keeps stats that would be specific to homeless people (we have stats for "homicide rates" but not "homeless homicide rates"). And even if Reagan is to blame, it was a national thing, so doesn't explain why San Francisco has more homeless.

bsder 10y ago

There is also a tension between "helping" someone and "infringing their rights as a human." Somehow I think that Thailand/Bangkok doesn't worry all that much about the "rights" side of that balance. At what point do you declare someone with mental illness "sick and unfit"? This is not an easy question. Family members, who would know a person best, can't always answer that question well.

room271 10y ago
I think this is true, but it can't explain most of the difference by itself as most of the major wealthy cities I have been to do not have anywhere near the scale of homelessness and mental health issues as San Francisco. (I say this as someone who has lived in the UK, France, and San Francisco (albeit briefly). I really think the local people (I don't mean you here) have a kind of blindness to the problem in San Fran, perhaps because after a while you start forgetting how abnormal it is. There is so much wealth in the city but clearly not enough people commited to acting.
M_Grey 10y ago
You make it sound as though we're not incarcerating them already... we are, we just use prisons instead of a facility where any kind of treatment could ever occur. If you think being mentally ill in prison is somehow a celebration of humans rights...
- bsder 10y ago
  > If you think being mentally ill in prison is somehow a celebration of humans rights... I do not. But I also don't claim to have a "solution", either.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    You don't need to, just look at countries that actually take care of their mentally ill instead of warehousing them or tossing them on the streets. You don't need to come up with a solution, you just need to learn about the ones that have existed for years. Are they perfect? No, but as I often see here in relation to new technologies with far less at stake and far less of a proven track record, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Camillo 10y ago

San Francisco spends $241 million a year[1] on the homeless. Perhaps what it says about America is that you can't solve these kinds of problems by throwing more and more money at them, but that won't keep politicians from trying. [1: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...]

yladiz 10y ago
I think it's not necessarily that the money is being spent (in general) but rather the money is being spent in the wrong way. For example, we've spent untold billions of dollars on the "war on drugs" since it started with Nixon, but it's been mostly spent on incarceration rather than rehabilitation; if that money had been spent on safe needle spaces, mental health clinics, and easier access to alternatives for drugs such as heroin like methadone, the problem may not be solved but would be in a better place. Homelessness would also be in a better place if the money was spent better. Better shelters, better services similar to those I mentioned above, and better information about each person like the article mentions would substantially make the issue better. But those things aren't as easy to justify as the alternative. In the case of incarceration, because the effects are effectively immediate, it feels easier to put someone away for 10-20-life rather than giving them a better life.
- usaphp 10y ago
  > safe needle spaces, mental health clinics, and easier access to alternatives for drugs such as heroin like methadone > Better shelters, better services similar to those I mentioned above Every time I hear people say that I just can't understand how do they think that will fix the problem? Most homeless and drug addicts wont go to mental health clinic on their own, most of them enjoy the life they are having and are not willing to change, giving them better shelters, better services will only increase their number. Can you explain me why do you think that giving a drug addict a clean needle or alternative drug will make them want to stop using them?
  - yladiz 10y ago

miraj 10y ago

isn't there a duplicate posting filter in HN? I posted the same article (atleast an hour or two before the current one) earlier (1). this happened few times now! or am I missing something obvious? thought the filter is supposed to prevent dupe posts?! @dang ? @sctb ? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824

pcmaffey 10y ago

Migrants are a global issue. Their numbers have increased drastically everywhere this decade, and will continue to do so at alarming rates. Even potentially epochal rates once the rising seas displace a billion or 2 people.

aminok 10y ago

>It seems a terrible statement about my home country that my children will encounter homelessness and mental illness much more vividly in the wealthiest nation in the world than they did in Thailand, where we previously lived. >During a trip back to Bangkok I spoke about this paradox with Nopphan Phromsri, the secretary general of the Human Settlement Foundation, an organization that assists the homeless there. >Greater Bangkok, a sprawling metropolis with more than 10 million people, has 1,300 homeless people, a survey this year found. * Thailand spends far less on subsidies for the poor. * The government intervention that does take place in Thailand to address homelessness is much more balanced in the authoritarianism it imposes on taxpayer vs tax recipient. Drug addicts can't receive welfare their entire life with zero accountability. Instead they are enrolled into compulsory treatment programs. Western culture considers compulsory treatment a human rights violation, but does not consider throwing someone in prison for refusing to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade, to pay for welfare, similarly a human rights violation. This irrational, ideology based approach to human rights is behind this imbalanced approach to drug abuse and welfare. * Thailand has far less effective enforcement of authoritarian economic prohibitions, like prohibitions on running an unlicensed business. This provides more space for the poor, who have more difficulty meeting licensing requirements, to participate in economically productive activity. That's why Thailand has bustling street markets and an informal economy (derogatorily referred to as a "shadow economy" in some circles) that provides stable sources of income for millions of people.

WalterBright 10y ago
The US also has zoning laws which prevent construction of low cost housing (such as dormitories), and minimum wage laws which prevent employment of marginally employable people.
- Applejinx 10y ago
  …which really puts the damper on an otherwise thriving slave labor demographic.
  - aminok 10y ago

weerd 10y ago

This is a complicated problem and I admit that I don't have a good understanding of law or social studies... so take this with a grain of salt. I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country. Heroine/meth/alcohol mixed with mental issues have demolished the lives of many people. They turn bitter and blue. Life becomes a loop of temporary satisfaction through chemical escape. The ones that end on the streets are often not violent, and I don't believe they belong in prison. But defiling public spaces with needles and shit is not acceptable. Fines and nights in jail don't matter to them, but freedom on the other hand... I imagine a state institution somewhere between jail and trade school. Drug use would be tolerated to some extent. Food, shelter, and hopefully some sense of community are provided, along with opportunities to learn useful skills. I realize this is idealistic and that the monetary cost would probably be immense. I'm just sick of all the biohazards strewn across the city and felt like wondering out loud.

sandworm101 10y ago
> I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country. No, you don't. Many of the problems faced by the poor arise specifically from restrictions and limitations on freedom. The number of US persons perpetually disenfranchised by poverty is hard to comprehend. They have fewer rights, not too many. The disparate treatment of poor people by the justice system tops my list. Poor drug users face convictions, and thereafter perpetual unemployment, while the rich are diverted to programs without convictions (see Rush Limbaugh). The rich are also allowed to self-medicate with prescriptions whereas the poor turn to illegal drugs (again, see Rush). To exacerbate this by rounding up the poor into camps only sweeps the problem under the rug.

gavanwoolery 10y ago

"I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets." Well, here is part of the problem. You are asking what your society can do, not what YOU can do. Meanwhile you are busy racking up your credit card on consumer goods you don't really need (yes, he does admit this - read the article). Nothing would prevent people from pooling their money for a cause. And this does indeed exist - it is called a charity. Many charities exist to aid the homeless, and if none of them suit your needs you can start a new one with a new goal. The good thing about charities is that they compete with each other. If a charity is corrupt (like the Red Cross? [1]) you do not have to donate to it. Tax dollars, on the other hand - you realistically have little choice where they are going in spite of whatever guise of democracy you think you are operating under. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...

M_Grey 10y ago
Charity is a nice idea, but when people are paying their taxes, and seeing trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq, boondoggles like the F-35 and the LCS, and even to an extent the Zumwalt, they might have a right to speculate that their charity or lack thereof is not the primary issue. Then they might look at the state of healthcare in this country, and how a combination of bought politicians, insurance, and some particularly greedy pharmaceutical companies cough albuterol cough Mylan cough and realize that the problem is bigger than a spirit of pooling resources. We already pool our resources, then those resources are wasted. That's the problem.
- gavanwoolery 10y ago
  good points :)
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Thanks, I respect the points you're making about charity, and especially about the need to start somewhere (i.e. with ourselves), but we shouldn't lose sight of the enormous and unconscionable waste much of what we already give with that in mind is subject to.

sandworm101 10y ago

Americans are vicious. When it comes to the suffering of fellow citizens they display a unique callousness. Whether it is the death penalty, long sentences in horrific prisons, health care, guns, drugs, militarized policing or basic housing policies, the suffering of others is viewed as not an evil but rather a necessity. Everything is either the carrot or the stick. Other countries expect their governments to do more than dissuade or incentivize behavior. They expect government to actually help.

apsec112 10y ago
Please don't attack whole groups of people like that. The American government has certainly done awful things. But that doesn't somehow mean that all Americans are evil, any more than all Germans were Nazis, or all Iraqis were terrorists.
dang 10y ago
apsec112 is correct. This crosses into national slur and those are not allowed on HN. Please don't post like this again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12522945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12522945 and marked it off-topic.

nitwit005 10y ago

SF actually attracts homeless people. The last homeless count done showed 29% of homeless people in SF lost their housing outside the city, with 10% of that from out of state: https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran... (search for "place of residence") I rather suspect SF is a nice place to be homeless, as people seem to be "voting with their feet" and going there.

habosa 10y ago

If you live in SF (like me) and want to do something to help, consider donating time or money to a local charity focused on homelessness. My personal recommendation is Larkin Street Youth Services [0]. There are ~2000 homeless youth (age < 25) in San Francisco on any given night. These young people were often the victims of terrible family situations and have no support network. Larkin Street helps to provide shelter, counseling, education, and anything else they may need to get off the streets for good. More than 70% of the people who "graduate" from Larkin Street leave street life forever. I know on Hacker News we like to talk about the political causes and solutions to a problem like this. But tomorrow's laws won't change the fact that there are homeless people sleeping on the street every night who need help. Charitable organizations are there to help meet these immediate needs. [0] - http://larkinstreetyouth.org/ http://larkinstreetyouth.org/

alanaut 10y ago
"A society that aims for equality before freedom, will end up with neither equality nor freedom." Laws are not meant to lift people from poverty. PEOPLE must lift themselves so far as to lift each other out of poverty. One of the basic functions of government is to protect people from other people (both land and rights). Now, "rights" is where things tend to become grey. Who should determine what those rights are? The government? People? A majority? San Francisco is an excellent study in what can happen when government plays a role it is not fit to oversee. Now, Larkin Street is an excellent case study on how the private sector fills in that space governments leaves open when they play around with policy. The aim here is to continue to build these networks around support.
deleted 10y ago
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JustUhThought 10y ago
In my experience donating time or money does not change the systemic causes of the issues. You will forever be donating. For real,sustainable change a different society must be built, whatever that might look like.
- 10y ago

morgante 10y ago

It's pretty ludicrous to write an article about "What San Francisco Says About America" and then fixate on the things which most distinguish San Francisco from the rest of the US. San Francisco is a huge outlier in many respects. Some of the most notable things which the article talks about are unheard of elsewhere: almost anywhere else in the country you will not see visible homeless and you definitely won't see marijuana advertisements.

bsimpson 10y ago
The Wal-Mart bit seemed especially out-of-place. I don't think San Francisco even has a Wal-Mart (and that fact alone distinguishes its culture from most of America).
- falsedan 10y ago
  Came here to make the same comment.
- drawkbox 10y ago
  Interesting map on Walmarts and Whole Foods in SF [1] [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foods_vs_walmart_in_the_bay_area.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foo...
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
What I found odd is how the author fixated on bizarre things like marijuana yoga, vegan shoes, bluetooth toothbrushes (missed opportunity for portmanteau), as if Americans or San Franciscans find all of this normal. We're bewildered and laughing too.
gjolund 10y ago
It does say something that the city that most embodies American capitalism also boasts its largest homeless population.

debt 10y ago

heroin is a huge problem in san francisco among the homeless. apparently it's cheaper than it's ever been and it seems to be attracting a lot of very bad people. i love it here but i've never seen it this bad.

reid_fatman 10y ago

One other reason there are so many homeless in SF: they are paid to be there.

LargeCompanies 10y ago

In terms of homeless San Fran is the Mecca. It's shocking and sad to experience!

smallnamespace 10y ago

About a decade ago, I spent a few summers volunteering at a soup kitchen (St. Anthony's Foundation) in the Tenderloin, and they had an orientation for new volunteers that explained exactly why lowering the permanent homeless population in SF is so difficult: - Homeless population is bimodal in distribution of time they've been homeless - Most homeless people actually cycle out of homelessness quite quickly; they lost a job or got sick, went bankrupt, family's on the streets, but they're basically motivated and get back on their feet quickly (within months) - The longer you've been homeless, the more likely you are to stay homeless - Among the long-term population, a significant fraction (like half) of the population have mental illnesses (clinically diagnosable e.g. schizophrenia, PTSD); a large fraction were also vets; drug addiction is rampant - The veteran stat was very surprising for me and IMO a particularly shameful part of our country's history: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html '33% of male homeless population are veterans' '47% Vietnam Era' '67% served three or more years' - The closure of mental institutions and sharp reduction in bed counts in the 80s put a lot of mentally ill people directly on the street; since they had been institutionalized, many of their own family support networks were also gone - It's very hard to transition back to normal society once you've been out of work for a decade; to even apply and interview for a job, you need to give a return address and phone number, and applications have moved online; a lot of homeless have no computer skills - Even the very basic logistics of getting a shower, decent clothes, a clean shave, and showing up to an interview is difficult for someone who has lived on the streets for a long time - For those reasons above, to a first approximation, most long term homeless are unemployable - SF is an expensive city; a decade ago, a room in the Tenderloin would run >$1k a month; this makes it even more difficult to transition back to regular society without outside support Basically, to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large investment (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible), and probably a significant fraction of the homeless should be in a state mental institution of some kind (with all its attendant downsides and potential for abuse) rather than out on the streets.

jacobolus 10y ago
> to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large investment (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible) The investment here is time, as much as money per se. Someone who is long term homeless and has no support network, no savings, no recent job, no home, no clean clothes to change into, no place to shower, and most importantly no stable schedule and set of habits needs not only a sturdy financial food/shelter/clothing foundation, but also needs someone who cares about them to put in a ton of work every day making sure they stay focused and motivated and on schedule. Devoting that much care and attention to a stranger isn’t something that most people have the bandwidth or motivation to do, and it’s the kind of work that’s not easy to scale.

gbog 10y ago

Uh, the title is ambiguous, is it about America the two continents? North America the continent? Or about the U.S.A., the nameless, official-language-less country? I know of many South Americans who would prefer the ambiguity to be solved so they can have their American identity not hijacked by the biggest and most powerful country on the same longitude.

a13n 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States "The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America..."
- gbog 10y ago
  Yes, I know, but still it is a problem, is it not? I feel that in the USA many people are very careful to not hurt the feelings of some minorities inside the country, which is done with good faith even if sometime it becomes very difficult to navigate through a normal conversation with soeone you do not know too much. But then, why not put the same effort in avoiding to hurt the feelings of all non US Americans? It would actually be easier.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

alanaut 10y ago

tl;dr Not sure if you have seen Milton Freidman's talks on Poverty and Equality, but I would highly recommend them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U To summarize: How free are the poor and what is governments role? 1. Governments don't have responsibility, people have responsibility. 2.The free-market is the most effective system towards ending poverty. 3. Bad government failures result in welfare schemes has been machine to produce poor people.

jokoon 10y ago

The most powerful societies are the ones who put high value on citizens conforming to certain values. Homeless people are just individuals who can't conform to social norms, and thus they end up being excluded. Let's be frank: most voters don't want their tax dollars being given to the poorest. Redistribution sounds like some kind of soviet communism, and people considers than everyone has the free will to become successful. The most vivid image I have is a motivational speaker in front of an audience of homeless people.

bogomipz 10y ago

I took issue with many of the points: Firstly San Francisco isn't America though the same way that London isn't the England. They are aberrations and not representative of the majority of the country. I took issue with some of his other points: "Blindingly white teeth. The burrito that was so huge it felt as if it would break my wrist. Police officers covered in tattoos." I don't even understand these. White teeth are not a salient characteristic of San Franciscans, neither is a police force covered in tattoos. I think the burrito he's referring to is Pancho Villas in the Mission and that is no way a normal portion even by America's generally larger portion sizes. "I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets." He could be equally confounded on how to explain how a Buddhists society could refuse to help the Rohingyas drifting off the shore in the southern part of Thailand. Or why Thailand doesn't do more to keep its young girls from being stunted and exploited by the sex industry there. Paradox is not the exclusive domain of either S.F or the US. Then this overwrought closing: "I stood in the checkout line and watched milk-fed Americans unloading their carts onto the conveyor belt. My mind flashed back to the diminutive workers in a factory I visited in Tianjin, China, who for a few hundred dollars a month stitched leather boots and who giggled when they thought about the giant feet that would one day fill them." Milk-fed? Why is that relevant? Dairy isn't as common in Asia because the majority of Asia is lactose-intolerant. Diminutive? What is that a reference to? People in Northern China have the same average height as do people in the US.

djhworld 10y ago

> It almost seems that we have created needs so that we can cater to them. I think this statement sums up the type of consumerism we have today, across the developed world.

xyzzy4 10y ago
All people really need is food and some basic shelter. The way economics began is the farmers create the food, and non-agricultural workers trade non-essential goods and services with the farmers. Over time, the percentage of people working in agriculture declined. In less developed places like India, 50% of workers are still in agriculture.

davidf18 10y ago

Much of the homelessness problem in SF (and also NYC, LA, Boston, DC, ....) can be solved by not spending more money, but by simply reversing "economic rents" sought be landlords to create zoning density restrictions. These zoning density restrictions create a politically induced scarcity of housing and other real estate which results in a regressive tax transferring wealth and income from renters to landlords. "Economic rents" are a type of "market failure" of an efficient market. Much of fixing the economy can be stimulated by identifying market failures that are often created by special interest groups (in this case landlords like Donald Trump). Instead of focusing on wealth creation, they use political connections to create artificial scarcity with the resulting higher housing and office costs to benefit them but hurt the overall economy. Interestingly, there was a prominent NYTimes article which demonstrated how Trump received $885 million in tax abatements, etc. but there have never been articles by the NYTimes about the fact that Trump and other wealthy landlords are realizing far more than they would if the "economic rents" were fixed. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-... Renters spend more money on rent and less money on goods and services. Reversing the politically induced housing scarcity by eliminating the "rent seeking" laws would in addition to freeing up money that renters spend making landlords wealthier on goods and services stimulating the economy while at the same time would stimulate a housing boom. See Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser's article about building affordable housing in NYC (which of course applies to SF and other cities as well). Glaeser: Build Big, Bill http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.... In general "market failures" such as this one are a "brake" on economic growth and costs no money to fix, simply take away bad laws that serve the few, well connected, over the many. Before trying stimulus, raising minimum wage, etc. simply reverse laws that create "market failure" benefiting special interests such as landlords and let the economy to its thing when the markets are made more efficient again.

ftrflyr 10y ago
You should watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc

deleted 10y ago

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ftrflyr 10y ago

Not sure if you have seen Milton Freidman's talks on Poverty and Equality, but I would highly recommend them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U To summarize: How free are the poor and what is the government's role? [1] Governments don't have responsibility, people have responsibility. [2] The free-market is the most effective system towards ending poverty. [3] Bad government failures result in welfare schemes has been machine to produce poor people.

mmanfrin 10y ago

I think it is unfair to look at the homelessness of SF as an attribute or failing of the city or to extrapolate out as if it were synecdocheic of the country. Homelessness in the whole state gravitates to SF because of the climate: sure, it's cold in SF, but it's never freezing. Sf has (one of if not) the mildest winters of any city in North America; the record cold is 28F. And the record high is 103F. Some of the homelessness moves around the state, but a lot settles in SF because of the climate. Additionally, there are instances of homeless people being bussed to SF (like Nevada did). SF tries very hard to deal with homelessness, but it's dealing with the homelessness of a much larger area and population than the population of SF can afford to help. The US itself needs to step up (like refunding a national mental health institution, to remedy one of the most braindead things Reagan ever did).

norea-armozel 10y ago

All I can say is that San Francisco might as well be another planet. And I'm glad I'm not ever going to live there.