4 ms·

> SF is not there yet It will not get anywhere near the feel of European cities, I've lived in both. Until they fix their serious housing issues with homeless

by vecinu 6y ago

> SF is not there yet It will not get anywhere near the feel of European cities, I've lived in both. Until they fix their serious housing issues with homeless / mentally-ill people camping on sidewalks and creating a hostile environment around the downtown core, it will never attract people to walk or bike. I lived around SoMa for a decade and I HATE cars with a passion but slowly found myself walking and biking less and less as the years passed. I hated having to constantly scan my surroundings so I don't get mugged / attacked, random ill people screaming or spitting at me and having my locked bike stolen. The best part about living in European cities was how safe it was to walk or bike to critical places.

techsupporter 6y ago
> Until they fix their serious housing issues with homeless / mentally-ill people camping on sidewalks and creating a hostile environment around the downtown core... Which SF (and all other west coast cities) can do by...building more housing. Stop this bullshit of apartments in a small slice of land area and then single-residence detached housing as far as the eye can see. Build gentle density, walkups and row houses and four floors with corner stores. Don’t crowd density near main thoroughfares. Build it and house your residents. Once you’ve done that, the remainder of folks who have genuine mental and substance health issues—as opposed to the people who picked up drugs as a way of coping with the crippling depression of being unhoused—can be cared for properly.
- vecinu 6y ago
  I completely agree with you but this will take decades, at best. I laugh when I look at the length of projects happening in and around SF, like the Caltrain electrification project (2016-2021?), Van Ness Improvement Project (2016-2022?) and the Downtown Rail Extension (2018-2027?) that got delayed over and over again. Corruption, incompetence and greed is such bureaucratic red tape in SF that it reminded me so much of the public infrastructure projects happening in Eastern Europe (Romania) where they siphon so much tax money. Can you imagine how expensive SF would be if it actually got its act together? It boggles my mind to imagine.
  - benrbray 6y ago
    > I completely agree with you but this will take decades, at best. Yup. I lived most recently in Atlanta, where they're on the right track with new projects (and a Microsoft campus to the west), so I expect it to be a much nicer place to live 20-30 years from now. But I'm 25! I don't have time to wait until retirement to enjoy my life! Seattle is streets ahead of Atlanta, with some promising light rail expansions planned in the future. Again, on a 10-20 year timeline. I have grown to despise cars so much that I thought it was time to give Japan a try. If I ever leave Japan, I'd sooner move to Germany or the UK than return to America.
    - vecinu 6y ago
      I know exactly what you mean, I'm in a similar boat. I can't wait for decades to start enjoying the fruition of something I feel should be standard and already exists in many other places. It's so strange to me how much I hate relying on cars now because I grew up in Canada and spent the majority of my time driving around everywhere in a suburb. I used to like driving when I didn't have to do it for every little thing but now I despise it and I better understand my environmental impact of constantly starting that engine up.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >Can you imagine how expensive SF would be if it actually got its act together? It boggles my mind to imagine. SF will never get it together in its current form. The easy tach money being dumped into it breeds perpetual greed and stupidity. The money will have to run out and it will have to crash and burn before they get serious about not sucking. They will have to go through a Detroit phase.

by vecinu 6y ago

techsupporter 6y ago

> Until they fix their serious housing issues with homeless / mentally-ill people camping on sidewalks and creating a hostile environment around the downtown core... Which SF (and all other west coast cities) can do by...building more housing. Stop this bullshit of apartments in a small slice of land area and then single-residence detached housing as far as the eye can see. Build gentle density, walkups and row houses and four floors with corner stores. Don’t crowd density near main thoroughfares. Build it and house your residents. Once you’ve done that, the remainder of folks who have genuine mental and substance health issues—as opposed to the people who picked up drugs as a way of coping with the crippling depression of being unhoused—can be cared for properly.

vecinu 6y ago
I completely agree with you but this will take decades, at best. I laugh when I look at the length of projects happening in and around SF, like the Caltrain electrification project (2016-2021?), Van Ness Improvement Project (2016-2022?) and the Downtown Rail Extension (2018-2027?) that got delayed over and over again. Corruption, incompetence and greed is such bureaucratic red tape in SF that it reminded me so much of the public infrastructure projects happening in Eastern Europe (Romania) where they siphon so much tax money. Can you imagine how expensive SF would be if it actually got its act together? It boggles my mind to imagine.
- benrbray 6y ago
  > I completely agree with you but this will take decades, at best. Yup. I lived most recently in Atlanta, where they're on the right track with new projects (and a Microsoft campus to the west), so I expect it to be a much nicer place to live 20-30 years from now. But I'm 25! I don't have time to wait until retirement to enjoy my life! Seattle is streets ahead of Atlanta, with some promising light rail expansions planned in the future. Again, on a 10-20 year timeline. I have grown to despise cars so much that I thought it was time to give Japan a try. If I ever leave Japan, I'd sooner move to Germany or the UK than return to America.
  - vecinu 6y ago
    I know exactly what you mean, I'm in a similar boat. I can't wait for decades to start enjoying the fruition of something I feel should be standard and already exists in many other places. It's so strange to me how much I hate relying on cars now because I grew up in Canada and spent the majority of my time driving around everywhere in a suburb. I used to like driving when I didn't have to do it for every little thing but now I despise it and I better understand my environmental impact of constantly starting that engine up.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >Can you imagine how expensive SF would be if it actually got its act together? It boggles my mind to imagine. SF will never get it together in its current form. The easy tach money being dumped into it breeds perpetual greed and stupidity. The money will have to run out and it will have to crash and burn before they get serious about not sucking. They will have to go through a Detroit phase.