5 ms·

A lot of my family has lived in SF for decades, all of them have moved out in the past 4 years. It's a monstrous dystopia now. The ultra rich completely insulat

A lot of my family has lived in SF for decades, all of them have moved out in the past 4 years. It's a monstrous dystopia now. The ultra rich completely insulated from the human misery sprawled out in every direction around them while their peasants toil away as tiny ants looked down upon with pity from their gleaming towers.

ahmadss 5y ago
sounds like Mumbai or Karachi or any other large city in a developing nation. sheesh.
- pknomad 5y ago
  yep. I moved to the SF Bay area from NYC 4 years ago and I routinely tell my friends that you need to watch out for human, not animal, feces on the street. It's really sad to see people who are employed that are still homeless and have to deal with mental issues :(
  - yodsanklai 5y ago
    Reading from HN, half of Americans are either in jail or homeless dealing with mental issues. Are there proper statistics to get a better assessment of the situation?
    - nradov 5y ago
      https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ The Federal Government estimates that about 0.4% of Californians were homeless in 2020. From what I've seen on the streets the numbers are probably a little worse now.
      - yodsanklai 5y ago
        By comparison, France has 300 000 homeless persons [1], which is about 0.44%. It doesn't seem to be as big an issue here compared to California. Maybe homeless people are more concentrated in SF which makes the problem appear worse than in other countries? [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/11/15/la-fondation-abbe-pierre-estime-que-la-france-compte-pres-de-300-000-sdf_6059802_3224.html https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/11/15/la-fondati...
        asdff 5y ago
        LA county alone has like 100 thousand homeless people. That's the population of Burbank California.
    - rufus_foreman 5y ago
      "If all prisoners are counted (including those juvenile, territorial, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (immigration detention), Indian country, and military), then in 2008 the United States had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners." --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... The list of countries by incarceration rate is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera.... About 5% of people in the US go to prison at some point, 9% for males, 16% for Hispanic males, and 29% for black males. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf "About one-quarter of U.S. adults report having a mental health diagnosis such as anxiety or depression or experiencing emotional distress. This is one of the highest rates among 11 high-income countries. ... The United States has some of the worst mental health–related outcomes, including the highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate." --https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/may/mental-health-conditions-substance-use-comparing-us-other-countries https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2... And of course, "Approximately 80 percent of the global opioid supply is consumed in the United States". -- https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all-of-the-global-opioid-supply.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all...
- flyinglizard 5y ago
  No, it’s actually crazier in a sense. The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other, seeing all the crazy on the backdrop of Twitter and Uber buildings and ultimately recognizing the futility of a place so rich destroying itself like a misdirected, spoiled trust fund brat. It’s the city that had everything going for it other than a common sense. I love SF but get it the fuck together. The article touches on why that won’t happen though. Voter demographics won’t allow that. It’s either radical and young liberals which would go for every insane policy or the old and entrenched.
  - wahern 5y ago
    > The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other San Francisco was this way since forever. The poor have been systematically corralled into the Tenderloin for over 100 years. The divisions between neighborhoods elsewhere were why San Francisco was always considered so "charming"--you could cross the street and enter an entirely different world. Setting aside the tremendous increase in drug abuse and homelessness, it's the tearing down of those virtual fences, especially around the Tenderloin, that is really causing people to freak out. It's just that their freak outs are coded in the language of social activism. Excepting the Tenderloin, every other part of San Francisco has become systematically homogenized, not to mention seen increased wealth.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Or any other place with an extreme wealth gradient.
shuckles 5y ago
Huh? The primary issue with San Francisco is that you are in fact not insulated from human misery at all. If you want insulation, check out Atherton or Woodside 20 miles down south. In addition, the wealthy of San Francisco live in giant single family homes. It’s not a big skyscraper culture.
- metalforever 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. The poster above is a nut.
  - dang 5y ago
    Could you please follow the site guidelines, regardless of how nutty another commenter is or you feel they are? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- andbberger 5y ago
  Yes yes, too many poor people. That's definitely the problem /s
- babesh 5y ago
  Woodside and Atherton are closer to 30 miles to the south. I should know. I live 20 miles to the south.
kelnos 5y ago
Er, what? Anyone who has walked through SoMa or the Tenderloin or the financial district or... quite a few other neighborhoods knows that no one here is "insulated from human misery". Also what "gleaming towers"? We have, like... 5 of those in the entire city? Most residential stock is low-rise or SFH, and the rich certainly mostly live in the latter (see: Pacific Heights and parts of the Sunset). I'll be the first to not only admit, but scream, that SF has a ton of problems, but you have not characterized them correctly at all.
- johnny53169 5y ago
  What would be some of those issues for you?
bryan0 5y ago
I can sadly relate to this. Before the pandemic, in my tech company’s offices you could sip free cold brew looking out at the beautiful city from way up above. But if you looked directly down at the plaza below there was a growing sea of homelessness. Often needles and shit littered around them. Everyone seemed to just “tune it out” and pretend they weren’t there, because otherwise you would have to face that we were living in a dystopian reality.
nlh 5y ago
Sorry, that's just not true. Twitter loves perpetuating the story of what an insane dystopia SF is these days, but if you actually live here and actually spend time in the city instead of complaining about it, you'll see that is just insanely false. It's got problems (rise in homelessness & property crimes and the Tenderloin is as bad as its ever been re: drugs), but the gap between "big city problems" and "monstrous dystopia" is about as wide as the bay itself.
robbrown451 5y ago
I've lived in SF for decades, it is hardly a monstrous dystopia. It's actually a very nice, if expensive, place to live. There are homeless in several parts of the city, yes, but those parts are easy to avoid if that's your inclination. San Francisco is a very liberal city, and with that comes compassion for the less fortunate. Because the Constitution says anyone can move about anywhere in the US, that means that a lot of those unlucky end up here because it is better than living in a conservative city where there are less activists looking out for their interests. San Francisco doesn't create homeless people faster than other cities, but it does attract them, simply because compassion isn't spread evenly across the country. I'm not convinced it is as dysfunctional as the article states. And I'm very happy I don't live where people are screaming at other people because those people are (god forbid) wearing masks. All of the partisan hatred and vitriol that has consumed so much of the country hasn't really hit us here. At least not among ourselves.
- bryan0 5y ago
  > There are homeless in several parts of the city, yes, but those parts are easy to avoid if that's your inclination. You’re joking right? If by easy to avoid you mean do not go outside. A friend lives in a very nice neighborhood in a beautiful home in SF. A block away while walking to my car there was a half naked man rambling to himself in the bushes. It is ubiquitous unless you mentally block it out.
lpolovets 5y ago
I think many of SF's ultra rich are also very aware of the issues and are moving out in droves. FWIW a lot of my VC friends who have been in VC long enough to have $$$ have moved to other states (or at least other cities in California). I think that's an especially strong signal about SF's dysfunction given how much motivation there is for venture capitalists to be close to SF given its founder density.

ahmadss 5y ago

sounds like Mumbai or Karachi or any other large city in a developing nation. sheesh.

pknomad 5y ago
yep. I moved to the SF Bay area from NYC 4 years ago and I routinely tell my friends that you need to watch out for human, not animal, feces on the street. It's really sad to see people who are employed that are still homeless and have to deal with mental issues :(
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  Reading from HN, half of Americans are either in jail or homeless dealing with mental issues. Are there proper statistics to get a better assessment of the situation?
  - nradov 5y ago
    https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ca/ The Federal Government estimates that about 0.4% of Californians were homeless in 2020. From what I've seen on the streets the numbers are probably a little worse now.
    - yodsanklai 5y ago
      By comparison, France has 300 000 homeless persons [1], which is about 0.44%. It doesn't seem to be as big an issue here compared to California. Maybe homeless people are more concentrated in SF which makes the problem appear worse than in other countries? [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/11/15/la-fondation-abbe-pierre-estime-que-la-france-compte-pres-de-300-000-sdf_6059802_3224.html https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/11/15/la-fondati...
      - asdff 5y ago
        LA county alone has like 100 thousand homeless people. That's the population of Burbank California.
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    "If all prisoners are counted (including those juvenile, territorial, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (immigration detention), Indian country, and military), then in 2008 the United States had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners." --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra... The list of countries by incarceration rate is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera.... About 5% of people in the US go to prison at some point, 9% for males, 16% for Hispanic males, and 29% for black males. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf "About one-quarter of U.S. adults report having a mental health diagnosis such as anxiety or depression or experiencing emotional distress. This is one of the highest rates among 11 high-income countries. ... The United States has some of the worst mental health–related outcomes, including the highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate." --https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/may/mental-health-conditions-substance-use-comparing-us-other-countries https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2... And of course, "Approximately 80 percent of the global opioid supply is consumed in the United States". -- https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all-of-the-global-opioid-supply.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all...
flyinglizard 5y ago
No, it’s actually crazier in a sense. The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other, seeing all the crazy on the backdrop of Twitter and Uber buildings and ultimately recognizing the futility of a place so rich destroying itself like a misdirected, spoiled trust fund brat. It’s the city that had everything going for it other than a common sense. I love SF but get it the fuck together. The article touches on why that won’t happen though. Voter demographics won’t allow that. It’s either radical and young liberals which would go for every insane policy or the old and entrenched.
- wahern 5y ago
  > The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other San Francisco was this way since forever. The poor have been systematically corralled into the Tenderloin for over 100 years. The divisions between neighborhoods elsewhere were why San Francisco was always considered so "charming"--you could cross the street and enter an entirely different world. Setting aside the tremendous increase in drug abuse and homelessness, it's the tearing down of those virtual fences, especially around the Tenderloin, that is really causing people to freak out. It's just that their freak outs are coded in the language of social activism. Excepting the Tenderloin, every other part of San Francisco has become systematically homogenized, not to mention seen increased wealth.
pessimizer 5y ago
Or any other place with an extreme wealth gradient.

shuckles 5y ago

Huh? The primary issue with San Francisco is that you are in fact not insulated from human misery at all. If you want insulation, check out Atherton or Woodside 20 miles down south. In addition, the wealthy of San Francisco live in giant single family homes. It’s not a big skyscraper culture.

metalforever 5y ago
Yeah, I agree. The poster above is a nut.
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please follow the site guidelines, regardless of how nutty another commenter is or you feel they are? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
andbberger 5y ago
Yes yes, too many poor people. That's definitely the problem /s
babesh 5y ago
Woodside and Atherton are closer to 30 miles to the south. I should know. I live 20 miles to the south.

kelnos 5y ago

Er, what? Anyone who has walked through SoMa or the Tenderloin or the financial district or... quite a few other neighborhoods knows that no one here is "insulated from human misery". Also what "gleaming towers"? We have, like... 5 of those in the entire city? Most residential stock is low-rise or SFH, and the rich certainly mostly live in the latter (see: Pacific Heights and parts of the Sunset). I'll be the first to not only admit, but scream, that SF has a ton of problems, but you have not characterized them correctly at all.

johnny53169 5y ago
What would be some of those issues for you?

bryan0 5y ago

I can sadly relate to this. Before the pandemic, in my tech company’s offices you could sip free cold brew looking out at the beautiful city from way up above. But if you looked directly down at the plaza below there was a growing sea of homelessness. Often needles and shit littered around them. Everyone seemed to just “tune it out” and pretend they weren’t there, because otherwise you would have to face that we were living in a dystopian reality.

nlh 5y ago

Sorry, that's just not true. Twitter loves perpetuating the story of what an insane dystopia SF is these days, but if you actually live here and actually spend time in the city instead of complaining about it, you'll see that is just insanely false. It's got problems (rise in homelessness & property crimes and the Tenderloin is as bad as its ever been re: drugs), but the gap between "big city problems" and "monstrous dystopia" is about as wide as the bay itself.

robbrown451 5y ago

I've lived in SF for decades, it is hardly a monstrous dystopia. It's actually a very nice, if expensive, place to live. There are homeless in several parts of the city, yes, but those parts are easy to avoid if that's your inclination. San Francisco is a very liberal city, and with that comes compassion for the less fortunate. Because the Constitution says anyone can move about anywhere in the US, that means that a lot of those unlucky end up here because it is better than living in a conservative city where there are less activists looking out for their interests. San Francisco doesn't create homeless people faster than other cities, but it does attract them, simply because compassion isn't spread evenly across the country. I'm not convinced it is as dysfunctional as the article states. And I'm very happy I don't live where people are screaming at other people because those people are (god forbid) wearing masks. All of the partisan hatred and vitriol that has consumed so much of the country hasn't really hit us here. At least not among ourselves.

bryan0 5y ago
> There are homeless in several parts of the city, yes, but those parts are easy to avoid if that's your inclination. You’re joking right? If by easy to avoid you mean do not go outside. A friend lives in a very nice neighborhood in a beautiful home in SF. A block away while walking to my car there was a half naked man rambling to himself in the bushes. It is ubiquitous unless you mentally block it out.

lpolovets 5y ago

I think many of SF's ultra rich are also very aware of the issues and are moving out in droves. FWIW a lot of my VC friends who have been in VC long enough to have $$$ have moved to other states (or at least other cities in California). I think that's an especially strong signal about SF's dysfunction given how much motivation there is for venture capitalists to be close to SF given its founder density.