20 ms·

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. What are these quality of life

by rtlfe 6y ago

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?

CoolGuySteve 6y ago
They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. With unemployment rising and poor benefits, civil unrest, and shitty containment policies; I’m thinking about riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted. Better come home quick. Canada is getting more than a little afraid of how badly the US is handling the covid thing. Politeness only goes so far. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 "While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut."
  - lovecg 6y ago
    That’s for tourists. No one is talking about closing the border to Canadian citizens coming home. Pandemic or not this seems completely unimaginable.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      The "atlantic bubble" limiting movements of canadians within canada was thought unlikely, and is probably illegal, but it is a thing. Remember when trump spoke of closing off new york state? Canada has actually done something similar. https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/travel-advice-2/ https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/tr... >>When entering Newfoundland and Labrador, visitors will be required to produce two pieces of government issued identification to verify that they are a permanent resident in one of the Atlantic Provinces. One piece of identification must include a home address.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    The Right of Return is an international law that allows citizens to return to their country of citizenship, and while some may have doubts about the willingness of the USA to follow the Geneva Convention, I'm pretty sure Canada still adheres to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
- zeveb 6y ago
  > They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. Not as much as it was. De Blasio has been an unmitigated disaster, and NYC is rapidly approaching 90s-level (if not 70s-level) squalor. Only time will tell if the voters will throw him out and elect someone who can effectively manage the city government, or double down on failure.
simonw 6y ago
At a guess: everything is shut down because of the pandemic. That's true in other cities too. But if you can't take advantage of the facilities a city has to offer, why pay $4,000/month rent to live there during the pandemic when you could pay less than half of that somewhere else?
jurassic 6y ago
Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated prices. COVID added some new ones: - Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly. - Bars and restaurants that made the city attractive for many are now closed - Public transit in crisis and may no longer meet your needs
- brian_cunnie 6y ago
  > Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. I believe the problem is more nuanced. I spoke with a retired police officer, and he said, "we can only give them a citation, and they [the vandals] know that, that they're gonna be out the same day." In other words, the law is the problem, not the police.
  - csomar 6y ago
    No one is blaming the police officers. The police workforce is just a bunch of employees working for the government or the city.
  - sneak 6y ago
    If the same people were smashing the windows at Starbucks or Walgreens each day, the police response would suddenly be totally different. The police prioritize protecting the property rights of large landowners, first and always. Don’t buy their excuses.
    - cellis 6y ago
      Wrong. A law was passed specifically making crimes of less than $1000 a misdemeanor.
reaperducer 6y ago
What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them? They haven't. But other cities have handled some quality of life issues differently, or better, or in some cases worse. It's all cyclical. New York was a great place to be in the 60's, largely due to quality of life. New York in the 70's was a hellhole, largely due to quality of life. These things ebb and flow in every city. It's just SFO's turn to be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It'll come back.
- presentation 6y ago
  Uhh, maybe US cities haven’t, but here in Tokyo I never smell feces, step on needles, nor are there hordes of homeless people in every major part of the neighborhood, in a city that has affordable housing, a truly phenomenal public transit network, streets that pretty much never have potholes, and endless cultural and culinary amenities, in a place with GDP per capita far lower than SF. And it similarly was the case for pretty much every city I’ve been to in East Asia, so it’s not even just a Tokyo thing. I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”. They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years). Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    Not all of us have the opportunity to just up and leave the US, unfortunately.
colechristensen 6y ago
SF has an extreme homelessness problem, there are places where you can walk two blocks from posh shops to tent lined streets and open air drug markets. Working at a previous gig had me looking at the ground carefully to avoid stepping on needles, feces, and humans, all of which were nearly daily obstacles. Because of the mild weather and culture, SF is somewhat of a destination for the homeless which is less of an issue, but it wasn’t clear that the city was doing nearly enough to address the filth and human tragedy plaguing the streets. It is also so expensive that bars and restaurants (before covid) had a hard time hiring because working at an SF restaurant meant either living in squalor packed in somewhere or living extremely far away and commuting. Thus everything opened late and closed early. The food scene was overrated, most of the artists left for the east bay or LA, and the charming things about the city seemed like they were only still there because of fantasy or stubborn inertia. Other cities have room and willingness to build or the courage to restrict business growth if not willing to expand residential growth. People and businesses are much more willing to leave other cities, and that supply/demand elasticity makes problems fix themselves, but other cities don’t have the romanticism/reality disconnect in nearly the same way.
- WWLink 6y ago
  That you have an affluent area on one block and a poor area on the next is not new at all. it was like that back in the 80s. And it's probably a good thing, in terms of making it easy to climb the ladder. If you live in a wasteland of poor people you'll never be able to sell any services at all, or make any money, or climb the ladder.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    I agree, but it seems like "poor area" means something different in SF. Most cities don't have any areas where the sidewalks are littered with needles and human feces.

by rtlfe 6y ago

CoolGuySteve 6y ago

They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. With unemployment rising and poor benefits, civil unrest, and shitty containment policies; I’m thinking about riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.

sandworm101 6y ago
>> riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted. Better come home quick. Canada is getting more than a little afraid of how badly the US is handling the covid thing. Politeness only goes so far. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 "While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut."
- lovecg 6y ago
  That’s for tourists. No one is talking about closing the border to Canadian citizens coming home. Pandemic or not this seems completely unimaginable.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    The "atlantic bubble" limiting movements of canadians within canada was thought unlikely, and is probably illegal, but it is a thing. Remember when trump spoke of closing off new york state? Canada has actually done something similar. https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/travel-advice-2/ https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/tr... >>When entering Newfoundland and Labrador, visitors will be required to produce two pieces of government issued identification to verify that they are a permanent resident in one of the Atlantic Provinces. One piece of identification must include a home address.
- fragmede 6y ago
  The Right of Return is an international law that allows citizens to return to their country of citizenship, and while some may have doubts about the willingness of the USA to follow the Geneva Convention, I'm pretty sure Canada still adheres to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
zeveb 6y ago
> They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. Not as much as it was. De Blasio has been an unmitigated disaster, and NYC is rapidly approaching 90s-level (if not 70s-level) squalor. Only time will tell if the voters will throw him out and elect someone who can effectively manage the city government, or double down on failure.

simonw 6y ago

At a guess: everything is shut down because of the pandemic. That's true in other cities too. But if you can't take advantage of the facilities a city has to offer, why pay $4,000/month rent to live there during the pandemic when you could pay less than half of that somewhere else?

jurassic 6y ago

Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated prices. COVID added some new ones: - Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly. - Bars and restaurants that made the city attractive for many are now closed - Public transit in crisis and may no longer meet your needs

brian_cunnie 6y ago
> Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. I believe the problem is more nuanced. I spoke with a retired police officer, and he said, "we can only give them a citation, and they [the vandals] know that, that they're gonna be out the same day." In other words, the law is the problem, not the police.
- csomar 6y ago
  No one is blaming the police officers. The police workforce is just a bunch of employees working for the government or the city.
- sneak 6y ago
  If the same people were smashing the windows at Starbucks or Walgreens each day, the police response would suddenly be totally different. The police prioritize protecting the property rights of large landowners, first and always. Don’t buy their excuses.
  - cellis 6y ago
    Wrong. A law was passed specifically making crimes of less than $1000 a misdemeanor.

reaperducer 6y ago

What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them? They haven't. But other cities have handled some quality of life issues differently, or better, or in some cases worse. It's all cyclical. New York was a great place to be in the 60's, largely due to quality of life. New York in the 70's was a hellhole, largely due to quality of life. These things ebb and flow in every city. It's just SFO's turn to be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It'll come back.

presentation 6y ago
Uhh, maybe US cities haven’t, but here in Tokyo I never smell feces, step on needles, nor are there hordes of homeless people in every major part of the neighborhood, in a city that has affordable housing, a truly phenomenal public transit network, streets that pretty much never have potholes, and endless cultural and culinary amenities, in a place with GDP per capita far lower than SF. And it similarly was the case for pretty much every city I’ve been to in East Asia, so it’s not even just a Tokyo thing. I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”. They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years). Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Not all of us have the opportunity to just up and leave the US, unfortunately.

colechristensen 6y ago

SF has an extreme homelessness problem, there are places where you can walk two blocks from posh shops to tent lined streets and open air drug markets. Working at a previous gig had me looking at the ground carefully to avoid stepping on needles, feces, and humans, all of which were nearly daily obstacles. Because of the mild weather and culture, SF is somewhat of a destination for the homeless which is less of an issue, but it wasn’t clear that the city was doing nearly enough to address the filth and human tragedy plaguing the streets. It is also so expensive that bars and restaurants (before covid) had a hard time hiring because working at an SF restaurant meant either living in squalor packed in somewhere or living extremely far away and commuting. Thus everything opened late and closed early. The food scene was overrated, most of the artists left for the east bay or LA, and the charming things about the city seemed like they were only still there because of fantasy or stubborn inertia. Other cities have room and willingness to build or the courage to restrict business growth if not willing to expand residential growth. People and businesses are much more willing to leave other cities, and that supply/demand elasticity makes problems fix themselves, but other cities don’t have the romanticism/reality disconnect in nearly the same way.

WWLink 6y ago
That you have an affluent area on one block and a poor area on the next is not new at all. it was like that back in the 80s. And it's probably a good thing, in terms of making it easy to climb the ladder. If you live in a wasteland of poor people you'll never be able to sell any services at all, or make any money, or climb the ladder.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  I agree, but it seems like "poor area" means something different in SF. Most cities don't have any areas where the sidewalks are littered with needles and human feces.