4 ms·

I am currently in Warsaw. I have lived in SF. The quality of life is astoundingly different. There nearly zero visible homelessness people. There are low levels

I am currently in Warsaw. I have lived in SF. The quality of life is astoundingly different. There nearly zero visible homelessness people. There are low levels of crime and none visible. There are hardly any murders or gun crime. Not much property crime. There are quite a lot of police, but no brutality that I have heard of. I feel safe walking around at night. People have health care, higher education, and employees have strong legal protections with sane working hours. Taxes are reasonable. There's a good tech job market. As I was leaving SF, I watched a homeless man with no teeth pick a morsel of food out of the gutter and eat it. I am not sure if it's a case of boiling the frog, but trust me when I say that SF has an absolutely shameful inability to solve it's problems and that a city that was no more than a crater 70 years ago absolutely shines in comparison. I would not believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

pmalynin 5y ago
And how about religious freedoms, reproductive rights and the feelings about LGBTQ folks? To add a little bit of context to the folks bellow: I actually am from Eastern Europe and consider myself rather lucky to have escaped it to Canada and the US. If you’re a good an American straight white male, with a lot of dollars then yea of course you’re going to have a pretty good time. But let’s not trivialize the issues here. For some people the trade-off for freedoms might very well be worth, but it isn’t for me and for quite a bit of folks that I know personally. For all it’s warts, San Francisco still continues to attract people, and a part of it is it’s tolerance to all kinds of behaviors. In conclusion, I don’t like it when people only talk about the the few good things about a country / city / state and ignore all the other, less talked about things. Let’s not pretend Poland is some kind of paradise.
- m_ke 5y ago
  It's not an issue in Warsaw and most other major cities.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Hmm. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/polish-top-court-rules-in-favor-of-further-limiting-abortion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/polish-to...
- thathndude 5y ago
  Those are no doubt important, but isn’t that potentially the issue? Have those concerns distracted from basic livability efforts?
- ubertoop 5y ago
  I'm really confused as to what point you're trying to make with this comment. In order to secure religious freedoms, religious rights, and LGBTQ inclusion, we need to have a filthy city, filled with homelessness, drug addiction, and absurd policies?
  - pmalynin 5y ago
    Not at all, merely that every locale has its skeletons.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    His/her comment was clearly in regards to Poland taking a pretty stark curve to the right. Which also has absolutely nothing to do with the benefits the person above mentioned, just as it isn't a "distraction" in San Francisco (what a ridiculous canard that should be pounded down into transparency). Loads of places have all of those freedoms and inclusions, but also have little to no homelessness, crime, or police brutality. It is a complete non-sequitur. San Francisco has loads of problems. A serious housing problem. A wealth disparity problem. An "activist" police force that is basically fundamentally incompetent and incapable of doing even a modicum of their job, intentionally trying to burn the city to the ground to make some right wing point. Mental health issues. It isn't because they are inclusive or considerate.
    - dehrmann 5y ago
      > It is a complete non-sequitur. I disagree because of the hierarchy of needs. Having LGBTQ rights is great, but safety and security comes before that.
- api 5y ago
  Isn’t this changing the subject? Or are you implying a connection? There are many major cities in the US that are socially fairly liberal and nowhere near as dysfunctional as SF. Actually most urban areas in the US are pretty accepting even in areas like the Midwest and the South. If you are in a city you are generally fine. Poland could become much more tolerant and accepting of differences without becoming an open air psychiatric ward with absurdly unaffordable housing and feces on the steeet.
  - creamytaco 5y ago
    Maybe not as dysfunctional as SF, but clearly there is severe social dysfunction in a lot of the cities run by liberals: Oakland, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Detroit, DC, Minneapolis. Allowing for some variation, at what point does one begin to blame the policies and ideologies behind those policies, that are substantially similar across the board?
    - evanelias 5y ago
      What "severe social dysfunction" are you referring to in, say, NYC or DC? Among the 10 most populous US cities, not a single one currently has a Republican mayor. Among the top 25, there are only 2 with Republican mayors: Jacksonville, FL and Fort Worth, TX. Do you honestly believe that most of the other 23 largest cities in the country have severe social dysfunction? Do you honestly believe that Jacksonville and Fort Worth are substantially more functional urban societies?
      - SamReidHughes 5y ago
        In NYC, for years, Jews have repeatedly gotten attacked in the streets. Last year, the city had major riots and looting. D.C. had the same. Here in San Diego we had a Republican mayor, Republican county board of supervisors, and Republican county DA last year, and there was only minimal social dysfunction, while rioters and looters ransacked many parts of LA County.
        evanelias 5y ago
- jmspring 5y ago
  All are achievable with out caving to the lowest common denominator of tweakers and those that refuse to help themselves take precedence over everything else. That is the west coast of the US. Regardless of crime, mental situation, etc, every major city is catering to patch work policies instead of addressing crime and mental / drug related illnesses. Commit a crime with a drug addiction, there should be camps with rehab options where you serve your time on the books or engage with rehab options. Most every sheriffs office in coastal CA instead does not incarcerate drug/mental health related issues and instead just releases them again.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  You don't need that stuff if it requires that you have to experience proximity to poverty
Krasnol 5y ago
It should be mentioned that Warsaw is not at all representative for the country or even the local region. It's a status which the city had for many decades.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Then again, neither is SF for California or the USA.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  In the same way, it should be mentioned that SF is not at all representative for the country or even the local region. I have never been in another city anywhere that has the problems which people relate about SF.
youmustbeblind 5y ago
Love Warsaw but suspect your in $1000/mo+ Airbnb, alcohol abuse amongst the homeless in Warsaw is massive, and thus aggressive begging, everything else you say is correct, but your in a 2km bubble and Warsaw is a big city, even a walk to googles free coworking space will be enlightening for you (it will put you marginally outside the comfort zone briefly if you walk the quickest path over the bridge, then loop back in to an arty farty outlet shopping complex zone), even in your comfort zone I've seen some pretty horrific situations with people collapsed outside with head split open (self inflicted alcohol abuse, but I guess less scary than stringes everywhere)
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I am a block away from it in Praga. There are a handful of drunks, but I understand this is the worst area of the city, but I was interested in getting to know the other side of the Vistula. I haven't seen any rough sleeping or open air drug use near me. Very little public drinking over here (unlike all the students on the other side of the river). Praga has nothing on the Tenderloin. Elsewhere in the city, I saw pushy begging exactly once when entering the Old Town. There were about 6 rough sleepers under one of the Vistula bridges with neatly folded sleeping bags and they are being guarded by a police van. If there's a homeless tent city of heroin addicts around here, do tell.
  - youmustbeblind 5y ago
    Fair play, might of changed with covid, the many times I went I always thought they should do more for them, same in Katowice, Lodz, etc.. perhaps care has stepped up a bit, always felt safe but that's probably due to male and size. You couldn't move for pushy beggars in 2019
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      I really think there must have been a recent push to clean things up then based on what you and some friends here have said. I think the Mayor wants to run for President again and one of the richest persons in Poland is making a huge investment in Port Praski a few blocks from here, so they might want a guaranteed ROI, drunks be damned.

pmalynin 5y ago

And how about religious freedoms, reproductive rights and the feelings about LGBTQ folks? To add a little bit of context to the folks bellow: I actually am from Eastern Europe and consider myself rather lucky to have escaped it to Canada and the US. If you’re a good an American straight white male, with a lot of dollars then yea of course you’re going to have a pretty good time. But let’s not trivialize the issues here. For some people the trade-off for freedoms might very well be worth, but it isn’t for me and for quite a bit of folks that I know personally. For all it’s warts, San Francisco still continues to attract people, and a part of it is it’s tolerance to all kinds of behaviors. In conclusion, I don’t like it when people only talk about the the few good things about a country / city / state and ignore all the other, less talked about things. Let’s not pretend Poland is some kind of paradise.

m_ke 5y ago
It's not an issue in Warsaw and most other major cities.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Hmm. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/polish-top-court-rules-in-favor-of-further-limiting-abortion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/polish-to...
thathndude 5y ago
Those are no doubt important, but isn’t that potentially the issue? Have those concerns distracted from basic livability efforts?
ubertoop 5y ago
I'm really confused as to what point you're trying to make with this comment. In order to secure religious freedoms, religious rights, and LGBTQ inclusion, we need to have a filthy city, filled with homelessness, drug addiction, and absurd policies?
- pmalynin 5y ago
  Not at all, merely that every locale has its skeletons.
- defaultname 5y ago
  His/her comment was clearly in regards to Poland taking a pretty stark curve to the right. Which also has absolutely nothing to do with the benefits the person above mentioned, just as it isn't a "distraction" in San Francisco (what a ridiculous canard that should be pounded down into transparency). Loads of places have all of those freedoms and inclusions, but also have little to no homelessness, crime, or police brutality. It is a complete non-sequitur. San Francisco has loads of problems. A serious housing problem. A wealth disparity problem. An "activist" police force that is basically fundamentally incompetent and incapable of doing even a modicum of their job, intentionally trying to burn the city to the ground to make some right wing point. Mental health issues. It isn't because they are inclusive or considerate.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    > It is a complete non-sequitur. I disagree because of the hierarchy of needs. Having LGBTQ rights is great, but safety and security comes before that.
api 5y ago
Isn’t this changing the subject? Or are you implying a connection? There are many major cities in the US that are socially fairly liberal and nowhere near as dysfunctional as SF. Actually most urban areas in the US are pretty accepting even in areas like the Midwest and the South. If you are in a city you are generally fine. Poland could become much more tolerant and accepting of differences without becoming an open air psychiatric ward with absurdly unaffordable housing and feces on the steeet.
- creamytaco 5y ago
  Maybe not as dysfunctional as SF, but clearly there is severe social dysfunction in a lot of the cities run by liberals: Oakland, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Detroit, DC, Minneapolis. Allowing for some variation, at what point does one begin to blame the policies and ideologies behind those policies, that are substantially similar across the board?
  - evanelias 5y ago
    What "severe social dysfunction" are you referring to in, say, NYC or DC? Among the 10 most populous US cities, not a single one currently has a Republican mayor. Among the top 25, there are only 2 with Republican mayors: Jacksonville, FL and Fort Worth, TX. Do you honestly believe that most of the other 23 largest cities in the country have severe social dysfunction? Do you honestly believe that Jacksonville and Fort Worth are substantially more functional urban societies?
    - SamReidHughes 5y ago
      In NYC, for years, Jews have repeatedly gotten attacked in the streets. Last year, the city had major riots and looting. D.C. had the same. Here in San Diego we had a Republican mayor, Republican county board of supervisors, and Republican county DA last year, and there was only minimal social dysfunction, while rioters and looters ransacked many parts of LA County.
      - evanelias 5y ago
jmspring 5y ago
All are achievable with out caving to the lowest common denominator of tweakers and those that refuse to help themselves take precedence over everything else. That is the west coast of the US. Regardless of crime, mental situation, etc, every major city is catering to patch work policies instead of addressing crime and mental / drug related illnesses. Commit a crime with a drug addiction, there should be camps with rehab options where you serve your time on the books or engage with rehab options. Most every sheriffs office in coastal CA instead does not incarcerate drug/mental health related issues and instead just releases them again.
pessimizer 5y ago
You don't need that stuff if it requires that you have to experience proximity to poverty

Krasnol 5y ago

It should be mentioned that Warsaw is not at all representative for the country or even the local region. It's a status which the city had for many decades.

dougmwne 5y ago
Then again, neither is SF for California or the USA.
IncRnd 5y ago
In the same way, it should be mentioned that SF is not at all representative for the country or even the local region. I have never been in another city anywhere that has the problems which people relate about SF.

youmustbeblind 5y ago

Love Warsaw but suspect your in $1000/mo+ Airbnb, alcohol abuse amongst the homeless in Warsaw is massive, and thus aggressive begging, everything else you say is correct, but your in a 2km bubble and Warsaw is a big city, even a walk to googles free coworking space will be enlightening for you (it will put you marginally outside the comfort zone briefly if you walk the quickest path over the bridge, then loop back in to an arty farty outlet shopping complex zone), even in your comfort zone I've seen some pretty horrific situations with people collapsed outside with head split open (self inflicted alcohol abuse, but I guess less scary than stringes everywhere)

dougmwne 5y ago
I am a block away from it in Praga. There are a handful of drunks, but I understand this is the worst area of the city, but I was interested in getting to know the other side of the Vistula. I haven't seen any rough sleeping or open air drug use near me. Very little public drinking over here (unlike all the students on the other side of the river). Praga has nothing on the Tenderloin. Elsewhere in the city, I saw pushy begging exactly once when entering the Old Town. There were about 6 rough sleepers under one of the Vistula bridges with neatly folded sleeping bags and they are being guarded by a police van. If there's a homeless tent city of heroin addicts around here, do tell.
- youmustbeblind 5y ago
  Fair play, might of changed with covid, the many times I went I always thought they should do more for them, same in Katowice, Lodz, etc.. perhaps care has stepped up a bit, always felt safe but that's probably due to male and size. You couldn't move for pushy beggars in 2019
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I really think there must have been a recent push to clean things up then based on what you and some friends here have said. I think the Mayor wants to run for President again and one of the richest persons in Poland is making a huge investment in Port Praski a few blocks from here, so they might want a guaranteed ROI, drunks be damned.