9 ms·

This article is a rehash of existing information and an insult to tech workers that were forced out (such as myself). If the day to day living conditions were

by vecinu 6y ago

This article is a rehash of existing information and an insult to tech workers that were forced out (such as myself). If the day to day living conditions were actually acceptable, many people would have stayed during the pandemic. The real problem is the sky high cost of housing with a low quality of life. I put up with increasing crime, dangerous grime (such as needles in bike lanes) and tent cities on sidewalks all over the place for a decade until my brain couldn't take it anymore. I have no problem paying Zurich level prices to live in SF due to its surrounding beauty, great opportunities and people but the mismanagement of the city has proven the high costs do not come with high quality of life. I would share more but I'm typing on my phone, I'm just disappointed to see "techies" still being blamed and called money hungry just because people are looking the other way at other problems.

adkadskhj 6y ago
I was in SF a couple times for work and i was absolutely shocked at how disgusting it was. Granted, i'm not a city person.. insanely so - i hate cities.. but this was a new level for me. The amount of raw sewage alone that i smelt blew my mind. I'm shocked how much people put up with there.
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  I spent nearly every other week in SF from 2011 until COVID hit in February. Went to NY for a conference last year and immediately thought 'holy shit this city is CLEAN'.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    >Went to NY for a conference last year and immediately thought 'holy shit this city is CLEAN' Heh, and here I am in Chicago thinking "holy shit this city is filthy!" when I go to New York. I haven't been to San Francisco in awhile, it must have deteriorated.
    - pengaru 6y ago
      The harsh winters alone send Chicago's homeless places like SF. The city's municipal workers used to wash down the surviving homeless encampments hiding from the cold on Lower Wacker with bleach and a fire hose without notice. You could differentiate Chicago's genuine homeless from the career panhandlers downtown by the bleach-stained clothes. Not sure if they still use this practice, but it wouldn't surprise me. It's easy to criticize SF for its negligence, but the homeless challenges are real and the affordable solutions tend to be severely lacking empathy. And SF lacks a rude force of nature doing most of the work every winter. Damp and chilly, sure, but still relatively comfortable. Chicago has it easy in this department, and its occupants aren't exactly the most empathetic towards the homeless either.
      - x87678r 6y ago
        No its politics. NYC if anyone sets up a tent you can report and it'll get dumped the same day. https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02253 https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02253
        pengaru 6y ago
        > NYC if anyone sets up a tent you can report and it'll get dumped the same day. Are you implying that's the right thing to do to someone living on the streets with nothing more than a tent for shelter?
        x87678r 6y ago
        Yes its better for the rest of the people who live there and probably better for the homeless guy too.
      - adkadskhj 6y ago
        > its occupants aren't exactly the most empathetic towards the homeless either. It's .. interesting, since i generally have no clue what to do here. I'm a super .. socialist _(or w/e)_ in that i believe in tons of government programs, but homelessness is something i almost don't believe in. It feels either a problem of: 1. Social safety nets to support working individuals experiencing tough times (i support tons of safety programs). 2. Or.. more controversially, mental health issues that shouldn't be allowed to exist in this state. Ie, if we had #1 then "no one" would be homeless - and those that are despite that, are too mentally unwell to be allowed the freedom to make such a decision. Though, i know nothing on the subject - and advertise as much. Nevertheless, i feel far less supportive of the homeless as a result - i split it mentally as either people i want to support via social nets - or mentally unwell people needing of hospitalization. A bit off topic perhaps, but i'm always interested in peoples opinion on the subject.
- hangonhn 6y ago
  It depends heavily on where in the city you are. There are parts of SF that definitely makes me very uncomfortable (I've lived in Hong Kong and know my way around NYC) but SF is kind of interesting in it almost feels like a collection of small cities. Union Square is very, very different from Sea Cliff and because SF is relatively small physically, it doesn't take long to go from one part to another. I think people who live here tend to get used to seeing these things and also know to avoid spending too much time in some parts of the city.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Nobody is questioning that there are good neighborhoods. Every city has good neighborhoods. What has people scratching their heads is that the worst parts of lot of cities are still a lot better than the bad parts of SF. When the comparison is between Bangalore or Sao Paulo and Zurich it's easy to write off the difference as simply wealth. But when the American "shithole cities" like Detroit, Buffalo, Gary, Reno, etc that the people of SF like to sneer at are in fact better in their worst parts than the crown jewel of "muh fifth largest economy" it really makes people wonder what the heck went so wrong.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      I really don't know anyone in SF who thinks Detroit, Buffalo, etc in that way. They just tended to think of employment, amenities and available services lacking in those other cities. If work is remote (unsure if this will remain after vaccine allows us to work in offices again) then it opens up a lot of doors.
    - claydavisss 6y ago
      For 98% of Californians, "muh fifth largest economy" has actually been a profound net-negative. I'm amazed people who pay $3k/month to rent to one-bedroom apt still trot this out as a brag point. "Fifth largest economy" has worked out well for the 1%, people who bought homes forever ago, and really no one else.
      - throwaway201103 6y ago
SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> I put up with increasing crime, dangerous grime (such as needles in bike lanes) and tent cities on sidewalks all over the place for a decade until my brain couldn't take it anymore. But this is exactly a consequence of catering to wealthy tech: infrastructure is left to collapse while development focuses on the wealthy. Rather than addressing transportation issues, tech just built their own exclusive network. Rather than addressing cost-of-living inequity, tech just drove up real-estate prices. It sounds to me what you really want is for someone to alleviate your discomfort by shoveling off the riff-raff so that you can enjoy your bike ride, rather than having to address the systemic issues, which might impact your net worth.
- KittenInABox 6y ago
  Another issue I suggest is also that systemic issues are harder to solve- I don't live in SF but I understand there is corruption, NIMBYism, and waste that takes the considerable budget SF has and doesn't actually improve lives for the neediest who live there. Tech people haven't in general been highly politically involved, but political involvement- real political involvement, the kind that go to town halls as well as protests, the kind that build communities, etc. has been dying nationwide. The whole infrastructure of holding politicians accountable is rotting out from the country.
- cynicalkane 6y ago
  It's your claim that it's "tech"'s job to solve these issues, rather than the city government, the people whose actual job it is to solve these issues? Flush with extra cash from the taxes paid by "tech", to boot. Like, what do you want here? Should "tech" appropriate a significant part of the government's job in addressing these issues? I'm sure you don't actually want that.
  - bird_monster 6y ago
    I agree with you, but I am also a person that just wants someone to do it. Anyone at all, really. City governments are failing fantastically in major tech hubs, I kind of just think fuck it. Let some chowderhead tech goon take a shot at solving housing/homelessness/whatever. Nobody else is going to.
vmchale 6y ago
> I'm just disappointed to see "techies" still being blamed and called money hungry just because people are looking the other way at other problems. If anything the problem is renters and their zoning laws...
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  How is the problem tenants?
nsgi 6y ago
> dangerous grime (such as needles in bike lanes) Is where you moved to safer to cycle in overall?
- vecinu 6y ago
  Great question, I have yet to discover the safety of the bike lanes spread around here but local cyclists I've talked to feel comfortable cycling on the semi-protected bike lanes on main roads here because they're so wide. I admit, the fully protected bike lanes that have recently come up on Embarcadero with concrete barriers had me excited for my safety, until I had to deal with the grime and odd person jumping in the bike lane randomly (Generally mentally ill folks). As far as biking infrastructure, if you ignore the other problems, SF has really stepped up its game, mostly due to the effort by the SF Cycling coalitions, I believe (And a number of cycling related deaths).
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Cycling is inherently more dangerous than either walking or driving, no matter what.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    Cycling is more dangerous in America because of bad cycling infrastructure. Put another way, cycling is only more dangerous than driving if you consider an SUV running over a bike to be an example of cycling being the more dangerous form of transport.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      No, riding around on two wheels with no protection besides a foam helmet is just obviously more risky (to the rider) than riding in a steel frame, 4-wheeled vehicle with crumple zones, air bags, and safety restraints. Even given an isolated bike infrastructure with no interaction between bikes and cars, if you hit a rock or a pedestrian or another cyclist and fall, you are going to sustain some type of injury. It takes a pretty major collision to sustain an injury in a modern automobile. There don't appear to be great statistics on bicycle deaths per mile and by cause but what I found is in line with my contention. "Cyclists are either 3.4x or 11.5x as likely to die as motorists, per passenger mile." And that's only fatalities, not injuries. And over 80% of cycling crashes are falls, running into fixed objects, or running into another cyclist. Collision with a moving motor vehicle is only about 11%. https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/ https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/
majormajor 6y ago
The high cost of the city comes from people having money; which recently has been primarily because of the influx of us in tech. The high cost exacerbates all those other problems! People are pushed out and have fewer opportunities. So why not blame the money and the people who brought it? How do you suggest the city "fix it"? What are your policy suggestions? How will you get the residents of the city on board with all of them?
- hisnameisjimmy 6y ago
  The high cost comes from a city that basically makes it impossible to build housing. The bureaucracy drives out developers, leaving only those who are willing to deal with nightmarish levels of legal hurdles. The legal headaches make the housing insanely expensive to build.
  - BobbyJo 6y ago
    Exactly. Econ 101. Lots of demand and no supply means prices rise. SF and other bay area cities are more than happy to build tons of office space for tens of thousands of office jobs, but when it comes to building the housing those new workers need to live... Nope. Office jobs mean revenue, houses mean costs. When you have to be a home owner to be on a city council, your incentives get a little perverse.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    It's not some abstract "bureaucracy". It's the fact that "build nothing and make the undesirables leave SF" is the popular position on housing in San Fran. The only thing different political factions disagree about is whom to deport.
    - neilparikh 6y ago
      Exactly, even many "progressive" groups are okay with a situation where many people who want to live in SF won't be able to. The difference from the status quo is that they don't think it should be the price mechanism that decides who gets to stay and who has to leave.
hackeraccount 6y ago
I visited SF late last year and it seemed pretty nice to me. Note that I live in Baltimore.

by vecinu 6y ago

adkadskhj 6y ago

I was in SF a couple times for work and i was absolutely shocked at how disgusting it was. Granted, i'm not a city person.. insanely so - i hate cities.. but this was a new level for me. The amount of raw sewage alone that i smelt blew my mind. I'm shocked how much people put up with there.

kyleblarson 6y ago
I spent nearly every other week in SF from 2011 until COVID hit in February. Went to NY for a conference last year and immediately thought 'holy shit this city is CLEAN'.
- selectodude 6y ago
  >Went to NY for a conference last year and immediately thought 'holy shit this city is CLEAN' Heh, and here I am in Chicago thinking "holy shit this city is filthy!" when I go to New York. I haven't been to San Francisco in awhile, it must have deteriorated.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    The harsh winters alone send Chicago's homeless places like SF. The city's municipal workers used to wash down the surviving homeless encampments hiding from the cold on Lower Wacker with bleach and a fire hose without notice. You could differentiate Chicago's genuine homeless from the career panhandlers downtown by the bleach-stained clothes. Not sure if they still use this practice, but it wouldn't surprise me. It's easy to criticize SF for its negligence, but the homeless challenges are real and the affordable solutions tend to be severely lacking empathy. And SF lacks a rude force of nature doing most of the work every winter. Damp and chilly, sure, but still relatively comfortable. Chicago has it easy in this department, and its occupants aren't exactly the most empathetic towards the homeless either.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      No its politics. NYC if anyone sets up a tent you can report and it'll get dumped the same day. https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02253 https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02253
      - pengaru 6y ago
        > NYC if anyone sets up a tent you can report and it'll get dumped the same day. Are you implying that's the right thing to do to someone living on the streets with nothing more than a tent for shelter?
        x87678r 6y ago
        Yes its better for the rest of the people who live there and probably better for the homeless guy too.
    - adkadskhj 6y ago
      > its occupants aren't exactly the most empathetic towards the homeless either. It's .. interesting, since i generally have no clue what to do here. I'm a super .. socialist _(or w/e)_ in that i believe in tons of government programs, but homelessness is something i almost don't believe in. It feels either a problem of: 1. Social safety nets to support working individuals experiencing tough times (i support tons of safety programs). 2. Or.. more controversially, mental health issues that shouldn't be allowed to exist in this state. Ie, if we had #1 then "no one" would be homeless - and those that are despite that, are too mentally unwell to be allowed the freedom to make such a decision. Though, i know nothing on the subject - and advertise as much. Nevertheless, i feel far less supportive of the homeless as a result - i split it mentally as either people i want to support via social nets - or mentally unwell people needing of hospitalization. A bit off topic perhaps, but i'm always interested in peoples opinion on the subject.
hangonhn 6y ago
It depends heavily on where in the city you are. There are parts of SF that definitely makes me very uncomfortable (I've lived in Hong Kong and know my way around NYC) but SF is kind of interesting in it almost feels like a collection of small cities. Union Square is very, very different from Sea Cliff and because SF is relatively small physically, it doesn't take long to go from one part to another. I think people who live here tend to get used to seeing these things and also know to avoid spending too much time in some parts of the city.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Nobody is questioning that there are good neighborhoods. Every city has good neighborhoods. What has people scratching their heads is that the worst parts of lot of cities are still a lot better than the bad parts of SF. When the comparison is between Bangalore or Sao Paulo and Zurich it's easy to write off the difference as simply wealth. But when the American "shithole cities" like Detroit, Buffalo, Gary, Reno, etc that the people of SF like to sneer at are in fact better in their worst parts than the crown jewel of "muh fifth largest economy" it really makes people wonder what the heck went so wrong.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    I really don't know anyone in SF who thinks Detroit, Buffalo, etc in that way. They just tended to think of employment, amenities and available services lacking in those other cities. If work is remote (unsure if this will remain after vaccine allows us to work in offices again) then it opens up a lot of doors.
  - claydavisss 6y ago
    For 98% of Californians, "muh fifth largest economy" has actually been a profound net-negative. I'm amazed people who pay $3k/month to rent to one-bedroom apt still trot this out as a brag point. "Fifth largest economy" has worked out well for the 1%, people who bought homes forever ago, and really no one else.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago

> I put up with increasing crime, dangerous grime (such as needles in bike lanes) and tent cities on sidewalks all over the place for a decade until my brain couldn't take it anymore. But this is exactly a consequence of catering to wealthy tech: infrastructure is left to collapse while development focuses on the wealthy. Rather than addressing transportation issues, tech just built their own exclusive network. Rather than addressing cost-of-living inequity, tech just drove up real-estate prices. It sounds to me what you really want is for someone to alleviate your discomfort by shoveling off the riff-raff so that you can enjoy your bike ride, rather than having to address the systemic issues, which might impact your net worth.

KittenInABox 6y ago
Another issue I suggest is also that systemic issues are harder to solve- I don't live in SF but I understand there is corruption, NIMBYism, and waste that takes the considerable budget SF has and doesn't actually improve lives for the neediest who live there. Tech people haven't in general been highly politically involved, but political involvement- real political involvement, the kind that go to town halls as well as protests, the kind that build communities, etc. has been dying nationwide. The whole infrastructure of holding politicians accountable is rotting out from the country.
cynicalkane 6y ago
It's your claim that it's "tech"'s job to solve these issues, rather than the city government, the people whose actual job it is to solve these issues? Flush with extra cash from the taxes paid by "tech", to boot. Like, what do you want here? Should "tech" appropriate a significant part of the government's job in addressing these issues? I'm sure you don't actually want that.
- bird_monster 6y ago
  I agree with you, but I am also a person that just wants someone to do it. Anyone at all, really. City governments are failing fantastically in major tech hubs, I kind of just think fuck it. Let some chowderhead tech goon take a shot at solving housing/homelessness/whatever. Nobody else is going to.

vmchale 6y ago

> I'm just disappointed to see "techies" still being blamed and called money hungry just because people are looking the other way at other problems. If anything the problem is renters and their zoning laws...

whimsicalism 6y ago
How is the problem tenants?

nsgi 6y ago

> dangerous grime (such as needles in bike lanes) Is where you moved to safer to cycle in overall?

vecinu 6y ago
Great question, I have yet to discover the safety of the bike lanes spread around here but local cyclists I've talked to feel comfortable cycling on the semi-protected bike lanes on main roads here because they're so wide. I admit, the fully protected bike lanes that have recently come up on Embarcadero with concrete barriers had me excited for my safety, until I had to deal with the grime and odd person jumping in the bike lane randomly (Generally mentally ill folks). As far as biking infrastructure, if you ignore the other problems, SF has really stepped up its game, mostly due to the effort by the SF Cycling coalitions, I believe (And a number of cycling related deaths).
throwaway201103 6y ago
Cycling is inherently more dangerous than either walking or driving, no matter what.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Cycling is more dangerous in America because of bad cycling infrastructure. Put another way, cycling is only more dangerous than driving if you consider an SUV running over a bike to be an example of cycling being the more dangerous form of transport.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    No, riding around on two wheels with no protection besides a foam helmet is just obviously more risky (to the rider) than riding in a steel frame, 4-wheeled vehicle with crumple zones, air bags, and safety restraints. Even given an isolated bike infrastructure with no interaction between bikes and cars, if you hit a rock or a pedestrian or another cyclist and fall, you are going to sustain some type of injury. It takes a pretty major collision to sustain an injury in a modern automobile. There don't appear to be great statistics on bicycle deaths per mile and by cause but what I found is in line with my contention. "Cyclists are either 3.4x or 11.5x as likely to die as motorists, per passenger mile." And that's only fatalities, not injuries. And over 80% of cycling crashes are falls, running into fixed objects, or running into another cyclist. Collision with a moving motor vehicle is only about 11%. https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/ https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/

majormajor 6y ago

The high cost of the city comes from people having money; which recently has been primarily because of the influx of us in tech. The high cost exacerbates all those other problems! People are pushed out and have fewer opportunities. So why not blame the money and the people who brought it? How do you suggest the city "fix it"? What are your policy suggestions? How will you get the residents of the city on board with all of them?

hisnameisjimmy 6y ago
The high cost comes from a city that basically makes it impossible to build housing. The bureaucracy drives out developers, leaving only those who are willing to deal with nightmarish levels of legal hurdles. The legal headaches make the housing insanely expensive to build.
- BobbyJo 6y ago
  Exactly. Econ 101. Lots of demand and no supply means prices rise. SF and other bay area cities are more than happy to build tons of office space for tens of thousands of office jobs, but when it comes to building the housing those new workers need to live... Nope. Office jobs mean revenue, houses mean costs. When you have to be a home owner to be on a city council, your incentives get a little perverse.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  It's not some abstract "bureaucracy". It's the fact that "build nothing and make the undesirables leave SF" is the popular position on housing in San Fran. The only thing different political factions disagree about is whom to deport.
  - neilparikh 6y ago
    Exactly, even many "progressive" groups are okay with a situation where many people who want to live in SF won't be able to. The difference from the status quo is that they don't think it should be the price mechanism that decides who gets to stay and who has to leave.

hackeraccount 6y ago

I visited SF late last year and it seemed pretty nice to me. Note that I live in Baltimore.