4 ms·

economy doing well? are you telling me that cities that are completely unaffordable and overrun with crime, homelessness, and drug abuse - along with mass exodu

economy doing well? are you telling me that cities that are completely unaffordable and overrun with crime, homelessness, and drug abuse - along with mass exodus - are signs of a healthy economy? I live here. I'm fighting the good fight - and it isn't working. It's getting worse every day.

voxl 5y ago
Why are they signs of an unhealthy economy? Gentrification and bad zoning laws alone could explain many of your examples.
- enriquec 5y ago
  Weird comment. Could you define gentrification? For decades, "Gentrification" has the go-to for the people that applaud tesla leaving and Amazon being rejected by New York. Ironically, those same people are strong proponents of zoning and centralized planning of the whole state. Pretty fed up with their outsized control and demonization of anyone that tries to make things better.
  - throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
    Death tax vs estate tax. Immigration vs international talent acquisition. UBI vs Freedom Dividend. Gentrification vs Multi-family zoning. The (twitter centric) left would make much more progress in America if they worked on better messaging instead of just relying on moral arguments.
iso1210 5y ago
So demand massivley outstrips supply. If people aren't living in such horrible circumstances (crime, homelessness, drug abuse), why is demand so high that houses are unaffordable?
- ceeplusplus 5y ago
  I don't know if you've been in California recently, but in the East Bay at least a large number of small businesses have closed down and formerly vibrant places now look like homeless encampments. I used to feel comfortable taking out my phone even after dark on BART, now I don't. The economy might still be chugging along but it's not chugging along on the back of the big cities with ultra liberal takes on crime/homelessness/drugs, it's mostly chugging along due to the suburbs like Newport Beach, Pleasanton, etc. Those places have substantially more conservative views on crime/homelessness/drugs (Newport Beach is actually a Republican district) and don't really tolerate the sort of behavior we see in SF. Seriously, just check out downtown SF if you don't believe me. It feels dead. There are more beggars than tourists. I recently went to a nice restaurant near the MacArthur BART station and not only was it dead, the area around it felt like I was visiting the hood near USC. > why is demand so high that houses are unaffordable It is not that demand is so high but that supply is so low. When you have SFH zoning with massive set back requirements you can't fit many people into the available space.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    > Seriously, just check out downtown SF if you don't believe me. It feels dead. Wouldn't we attribute this more to COVID, though? This thread is talking about a hypothetical poor economy due to businesses leaving because of employee-friendly labor laws. In early 2020 downtown was pretty vibrant. > There are more beggars than tourists. I get that you're exaggerating for effect, but c'mon. I saw plenty of tourists/shoppers in the Powell/Market area in the middle of a weekday last week, out and about, doing their thing.
    - ceeplusplus 5y ago
      > Wouldn't we attribute this more to COVID, though? It's been my anecdotal experience that hot areas in other cities like New York and Chicago are not dead like SF and the East Bay are. Nor are they as sketchy - I'd feel comfortable walking around Millennium Park at night and be pretty confident I wouldn't get robbed. Can you say the same about the Embarcadero? > hypothetical poor economy due to businesses leaving because of employee-friendly labor laws Tons of small businesses are dying out and you think the poor economy is hypothetical? Just because Chipotle and McD's can afford to pay every surcharge CA/SF imposes through labor laws doesn't mean small businesses can afford to. It's ironic, because despite all those surcharges the suburbs are still more affordable for a low skill worker than SF is, primarily because the supply of housing is so much better. 2 coffee shops in my local area have closed down recently for good. Starbucks is still going strong, but that doesn't mean the local economy is vibrant. > I saw plenty of tourists/shoppers in the Powell/Market area in the middle of a weekday last week, out and about, doing their thing Hmm, I went last week on a weekday and I'd put it at 50/50 homeless/beggar vs tourist. Powell St. BART/Union Square area. In any case, it was certainly a lot worse than a few years ago when it would be more like 95% tourists. I saw multiple homeless sleeping in Union Square which would have been unimaginable 3 years ago.
me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
I think from a politics standpoint yeah I’m kind of a doomer. I identify as liberal but the people running on liberal platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for. Idk how we will manage to wade through that.
- hollasch 5y ago
  Hah! I identify as [Republican] but the people running on [Republican] platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for.
  - lwhalen 5y ago
    The Libertarian party welcomes you both.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system, where you need to build coalitions of people who can at least agree that this set of compromises is better than the set pitched by the other candidates. And actually, I think finding compromises is fundamentally what this tech is for, right? "How do we make decisions with neighbors we disagree with, mostly without shooting?" But because platforms are compromises, the demand for leaders that Truly Believe in their platform gives us people pretending to be crazy and stupid. With maybe some genuinely crazy and/or stupid mixed in (but I'm not confident that I can actually distinguish) and lots of layers of "it's complicated" on top.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system Yeah, our systemic duopoly and the associated requirement for backroom coalition building (and the associated papering over of differences for marketing purposes) to build viable parties is a significant defect in our structure of government compared to many other modern democracies.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> are you telling me that cities that are completely unaffordable and overrun with crime, homelessness, and drug abuse - along with mass exodus - are signs of a healthy economy? The parts of that that are real long term issues, particular unaffordability problems (of which homelessness is an effect) absolutely are an effect of a strong aggregate economy that the pro-labor and redistributive policies haven't been enough to keep with; so is the “mass exodus“ (that is, the domestic out-migration mostly in lower-income segments that has for a long time been slightly above domestic in-migration that has had substantially higher average income, that only became net overall outmigration with recent federal policy and COVID-related curbs on international immigration.) Unaffordability is a result of the enormous wealth of capitalists and elite labor that aggregate economic strength has produced driving up costs. > I live here. So do I. > I'm fighting the good fight In what way?

voxl 5y ago

Why are they signs of an unhealthy economy? Gentrification and bad zoning laws alone could explain many of your examples.

enriquec 5y ago
Weird comment. Could you define gentrification? For decades, "Gentrification" has the go-to for the people that applaud tesla leaving and Amazon being rejected by New York. Ironically, those same people are strong proponents of zoning and centralized planning of the whole state. Pretty fed up with their outsized control and demonization of anyone that tries to make things better.
- throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
  Death tax vs estate tax. Immigration vs international talent acquisition. UBI vs Freedom Dividend. Gentrification vs Multi-family zoning. The (twitter centric) left would make much more progress in America if they worked on better messaging instead of just relying on moral arguments.

iso1210 5y ago

So demand massivley outstrips supply. If people aren't living in such horrible circumstances (crime, homelessness, drug abuse), why is demand so high that houses are unaffordable?

ceeplusplus 5y ago
I don't know if you've been in California recently, but in the East Bay at least a large number of small businesses have closed down and formerly vibrant places now look like homeless encampments. I used to feel comfortable taking out my phone even after dark on BART, now I don't. The economy might still be chugging along but it's not chugging along on the back of the big cities with ultra liberal takes on crime/homelessness/drugs, it's mostly chugging along due to the suburbs like Newport Beach, Pleasanton, etc. Those places have substantially more conservative views on crime/homelessness/drugs (Newport Beach is actually a Republican district) and don't really tolerate the sort of behavior we see in SF. Seriously, just check out downtown SF if you don't believe me. It feels dead. There are more beggars than tourists. I recently went to a nice restaurant near the MacArthur BART station and not only was it dead, the area around it felt like I was visiting the hood near USC. > why is demand so high that houses are unaffordable It is not that demand is so high but that supply is so low. When you have SFH zoning with massive set back requirements you can't fit many people into the available space.
- kelnos 5y ago
  > Seriously, just check out downtown SF if you don't believe me. It feels dead. Wouldn't we attribute this more to COVID, though? This thread is talking about a hypothetical poor economy due to businesses leaving because of employee-friendly labor laws. In early 2020 downtown was pretty vibrant. > There are more beggars than tourists. I get that you're exaggerating for effect, but c'mon. I saw plenty of tourists/shoppers in the Powell/Market area in the middle of a weekday last week, out and about, doing their thing.
  - ceeplusplus 5y ago
    > Wouldn't we attribute this more to COVID, though? It's been my anecdotal experience that hot areas in other cities like New York and Chicago are not dead like SF and the East Bay are. Nor are they as sketchy - I'd feel comfortable walking around Millennium Park at night and be pretty confident I wouldn't get robbed. Can you say the same about the Embarcadero? > hypothetical poor economy due to businesses leaving because of employee-friendly labor laws Tons of small businesses are dying out and you think the poor economy is hypothetical? Just because Chipotle and McD's can afford to pay every surcharge CA/SF imposes through labor laws doesn't mean small businesses can afford to. It's ironic, because despite all those surcharges the suburbs are still more affordable for a low skill worker than SF is, primarily because the supply of housing is so much better. 2 coffee shops in my local area have closed down recently for good. Starbucks is still going strong, but that doesn't mean the local economy is vibrant. > I saw plenty of tourists/shoppers in the Powell/Market area in the middle of a weekday last week, out and about, doing their thing Hmm, I went last week on a weekday and I'd put it at 50/50 homeless/beggar vs tourist. Powell St. BART/Union Square area. In any case, it was certainly a lot worse than a few years ago when it would be more like 95% tourists. I saw multiple homeless sleeping in Union Square which would have been unimaginable 3 years ago.

me_me_mu_mu 5y ago

I think from a politics standpoint yeah I’m kind of a doomer. I identify as liberal but the people running on liberal platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for. Idk how we will manage to wade through that.

hollasch 5y ago
Hah! I identify as [Republican] but the people running on [Republican] platform are really dumb and their opponents are insane/dumb in other ways. There’s no good options to vote for.
- lwhalen 5y ago
  The Libertarian party welcomes you both.
dllthomas 5y ago
I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system, where you need to build coalitions of people who can at least agree that this set of compromises is better than the set pitched by the other candidates. And actually, I think finding compromises is fundamentally what this tech is for, right? "How do we make decisions with neighbors we disagree with, mostly without shooting?" But because platforms are compromises, the demand for leaders that Truly Believe in their platform gives us people pretending to be crazy and stupid. With maybe some genuinely crazy and/or stupid mixed in (but I'm not confident that I can actually distinguish) and lots of layers of "it's complicated" on top.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I kinda think part of the problem is the pervasive expectation that there should be someone to vote for with a Platform They Believe In And You Should Too. That's fundamentally at odds with the mechanics of our system Yeah, our systemic duopoly and the associated requirement for backroom coalition building (and the associated papering over of differences for marketing purposes) to build viable parties is a significant defect in our structure of government compared to many other modern democracies.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> are you telling me that cities that are completely unaffordable and overrun with crime, homelessness, and drug abuse - along with mass exodus - are signs of a healthy economy? The parts of that that are real long term issues, particular unaffordability problems (of which homelessness is an effect) absolutely are an effect of a strong aggregate economy that the pro-labor and redistributive policies haven't been enough to keep with; so is the “mass exodus“ (that is, the domestic out-migration mostly in lower-income segments that has for a long time been slightly above domestic in-migration that has had substantially higher average income, that only became net overall outmigration with recent federal policy and COVID-related curbs on international immigration.) Unaffordability is a result of the enormous wealth of capitalists and elite labor that aggregate economic strength has produced driving up costs. > I live here. So do I. > I'm fighting the good fight In what way?