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I moved to SF from New York a couple years ago. A huge difference in the homeless populations for me has been the aggressiveness of the SF homeless. I can't rec

I moved to SF from New York a couple years ago. A huge difference in the homeless populations for me has been the aggressiveness of the SF homeless. I can't recall a single time in New York where a homeless person got in my face or yelled at me or anything of the like. Since being here I've had a full cup of (hopefully) soda thrown on me and been yelled at from a 3ft range multiple times. It's a surreal experience. I'm not sure what led to cultural difference.

istorical 9y ago
Bad politics, bad public policy, bad policing. https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became-safe-full-story-13197.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became-safe-f... NYC used to be worse than SF is now. "Bryant Park, in the heart of midtown and adjacent to the New York Public Library, was an open-air drug market; Grand Central Terminal, a gigantic flophouse; the Port Authority Bus Terminal, “a grim gauntlet for bus passengers dodging beggars, drunks, thieves, and destitute drug addicts,” as the New York Times put it in 1992." NYC's "solution": "In sum, a diverse set of organizations in the city—pursuing their own interests and using various tactics and programs—all began trying to restore order to their domains. Further, in contrast with early sporadic efforts like Operation Crossroads, these attempts were implemented aggressively and persistently. Biederman, for example, worked on Bryant Park for 12 years. When Kiley was struggling to restore order in the subway, he had to withstand pressure from powerful opponents: the New York Civil Liberties Union, the mayor’s office (which had suggested bringing portable kitchens and showers into the subway for the homeless), the police commissioner, and the transit police. In fact, it was after the transit cops resisted Operation Enforcement, Kiley’s first effort to restore order, that he hired Bratton. By the early 1990s, these highly visible successes, especially in the subway, had begun to express themselves politically. Better than any other politician, Rudy Giuliani understood the pent-up demand for public order and built his successful 1993 run for mayor on quality-of-life themes. Once in office, he appointed Bratton, who had orchestrated the subway success and understood the importance of order maintenance, as New York’s police commissioner. Under Bratton, the NYPD brought enormous capacities to bear on the city’s crime problem—particularly Compstat, its tactical planning and accountability system, which identified where crimes were occurring and held local commanders responsible for their areas. Giuliani and Bratton also gave the force’s members a clear vision of the “business” of the NYPD and how their activities contributed to it. In short, a theory previously advocated largely by elites filtered down to—and inspired—line police officers, who had constituted a largely ignored and underused capacity."
- tptacek 9y ago
  History has not been especially kind to Bratton, Compstat, and broken-windows policing.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    Any references for further reading on that? From what I've seen, there are a lot of confounding factors in the studies that both back up and refute broken-windows policing. It can be hard to tell what actually works.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Objections aren't so much suggesting that it doesn't work, but that it was unjust, and New York should have been kept as it was in the 80s because the human cost of the cleanup was so high.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        Objections, in particular to Compstat but also to broken windows, are that they don't work.
  - super_id 9y ago
    By what definition?
- noer 9y ago
  The PABT hasn't really changed that much, at least on the lower levels.
  - somecontext 9y ago
    It was somewhat challenging to find good information online on crime at the PABT, but I found a few things that give some indication of how it has changed over time. Between extrapolations from https://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/pdf/10-board-meeting-pabt-crime-stats-final-062514.pdf https://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/pdf/10-board-me... and this New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/11/nyregion/as-port-authority-bus-terminal-has-expanded-so-has-problem-of-crime.html http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/11/nyregion/as-port-authority... it seems that crime at the Port Authority Bus Terminal has decreased by a factor of ten from 1983 to 2013/2014. This seems to be consistent with everything else I have found on the subject, eg statistics in http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/06/nyregion/bus-terminal-adding-police-as-crime-rises.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/06/nyregion/bus-terminal-addi... which suggest an even greater reduction in robberies specifically. I would appreciate it if anyone can find better data or spot-check these numbers against other reports, because of course an order of magnitude is very large.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
What would happen if you threw a cup of soda on someone in NYC or Boston, Trenton or Baltimore? I think you'd learn very quickly not to do that. Cultivating a culture where that sort of response by the person on which soda is thrown is frowned upon certainly doesn't help.
- ShellGh0st 9y ago
  In many southern tech cities corning someone and yelling at/assaulting them with unknown fluids is a great way to get shot. We recently hired a CA transplant to the dev team and he was shocked how many of us carried.
  - placeybordeaux 9y ago
    Do you feel like your life is threatened when someone throws a cup of liquid at you?
    - milesokeefe 9y ago
      Not relevant to the parent comment but in places like the UK where acid attacks aren't uncommon, that can be a concern.
      - Balero 9y ago
        Acid attacks are incredibly uncommon in the UK
        somecontext 9y ago
        For anyone curious about the rate, these articles https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/27/acid-attacks-rise-united-kingdom/100739780/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/27/acid-at... https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/z4dy43/why-acid-attacks-have-doubled-in-the-uk https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/z4dy43/why-acid-attacks-h... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4462016/Two-acid-attacks-Britain-DAY-figures-show.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4462016/Two-acid-att... suggest that (on average) there is more than one attack per day in London alone.

istorical 9y ago

Bad politics, bad public policy, bad policing. https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became-safe-full-story-13197.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became-safe-f... NYC used to be worse than SF is now. "Bryant Park, in the heart of midtown and adjacent to the New York Public Library, was an open-air drug market; Grand Central Terminal, a gigantic flophouse; the Port Authority Bus Terminal, “a grim gauntlet for bus passengers dodging beggars, drunks, thieves, and destitute drug addicts,” as the New York Times put it in 1992." NYC's "solution": "In sum, a diverse set of organizations in the city—pursuing their own interests and using various tactics and programs—all began trying to restore order to their domains. Further, in contrast with early sporadic efforts like Operation Crossroads, these attempts were implemented aggressively and persistently. Biederman, for example, worked on Bryant Park for 12 years. When Kiley was struggling to restore order in the subway, he had to withstand pressure from powerful opponents: the New York Civil Liberties Union, the mayor’s office (which had suggested bringing portable kitchens and showers into the subway for the homeless), the police commissioner, and the transit police. In fact, it was after the transit cops resisted Operation Enforcement, Kiley’s first effort to restore order, that he hired Bratton. By the early 1990s, these highly visible successes, especially in the subway, had begun to express themselves politically. Better than any other politician, Rudy Giuliani understood the pent-up demand for public order and built his successful 1993 run for mayor on quality-of-life themes. Once in office, he appointed Bratton, who had orchestrated the subway success and understood the importance of order maintenance, as New York’s police commissioner. Under Bratton, the NYPD brought enormous capacities to bear on the city’s crime problem—particularly Compstat, its tactical planning and accountability system, which identified where crimes were occurring and held local commanders responsible for their areas. Giuliani and Bratton also gave the force’s members a clear vision of the “business” of the NYPD and how their activities contributed to it. In short, a theory previously advocated largely by elites filtered down to—and inspired—line police officers, who had constituted a largely ignored and underused capacity."

tptacek 9y ago
History has not been especially kind to Bratton, Compstat, and broken-windows policing.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Any references for further reading on that? From what I've seen, there are a lot of confounding factors in the studies that both back up and refute broken-windows policing. It can be hard to tell what actually works.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Objections aren't so much suggesting that it doesn't work, but that it was unjust, and New York should have been kept as it was in the 80s because the human cost of the cleanup was so high.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      Objections, in particular to Compstat but also to broken windows, are that they don't work.
- super_id 9y ago
  By what definition?
noer 9y ago
The PABT hasn't really changed that much, at least on the lower levels.
- somecontext 9y ago
  It was somewhat challenging to find good information online on crime at the PABT, but I found a few things that give some indication of how it has changed over time. Between extrapolations from https://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/pdf/10-board-meeting-pabt-crime-stats-final-062514.pdf https://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/pdf/10-board-me... and this New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/11/nyregion/as-port-authority-bus-terminal-has-expanded-so-has-problem-of-crime.html http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/11/nyregion/as-port-authority... it seems that crime at the Port Authority Bus Terminal has decreased by a factor of ten from 1983 to 2013/2014. This seems to be consistent with everything else I have found on the subject, eg statistics in http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/06/nyregion/bus-terminal-adding-police-as-crime-rises.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/06/nyregion/bus-terminal-addi... which suggest an even greater reduction in robberies specifically. I would appreciate it if anyone can find better data or spot-check these numbers against other reports, because of course an order of magnitude is very large.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

What would happen if you threw a cup of soda on someone in NYC or Boston, Trenton or Baltimore? I think you'd learn very quickly not to do that. Cultivating a culture where that sort of response by the person on which soda is thrown is frowned upon certainly doesn't help.

ShellGh0st 9y ago
In many southern tech cities corning someone and yelling at/assaulting them with unknown fluids is a great way to get shot. We recently hired a CA transplant to the dev team and he was shocked how many of us carried.
- placeybordeaux 9y ago
  Do you feel like your life is threatened when someone throws a cup of liquid at you?
  - milesokeefe 9y ago
    Not relevant to the parent comment but in places like the UK where acid attacks aren't uncommon, that can be a concern.
    - Balero 9y ago
      Acid attacks are incredibly uncommon in the UK
      - somecontext 9y ago
        For anyone curious about the rate, these articles https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/27/acid-attacks-rise-united-kingdom/100739780/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/27/acid-at... https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/z4dy43/why-acid-attacks-have-doubled-in-the-uk https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/z4dy43/why-acid-attacks-h... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4462016/Two-acid-attacks-Britain-DAY-figures-show.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4462016/Two-acid-att... suggest that (on average) there is more than one attack per day in London alone.