3 ms·

Ok, but San Francisco also seems to be spending a lot more per person than any other consolidated city and county, so while that may explain part of SF's budget

by abeppu 4y ago

Ok, but San Francisco also seems to be spending a lot more per person than any other consolidated city and county, so while that may explain part of SF's budget, it doesn't seem like a complete explanation. In that list, the next consolidated city/county is Honolulu, and SF was at that point spending close to 50% more per person. (I think that specific example also suggests that SF's spending is not just because local cost of living is high.) Other large city/county examples like Denver, Philadelphia and New Orleans are nowhere close.

inferiorhuman 4y ago
First off – nobody, not even me, is claiming that San Francisco spends a small amount of money. However you're not comparing like for like here. The San Francisco expenditures are a combination of factors including high cost of living, high level of infrastructure and social services, and state funding. Honolulu is expensive mainly because of the Jones Act, not because they're providing a particularly high level of services. If you check out Ballotpedia you'll see that the states chip in a much smaller portion of the expenditures in San Francisco and New York than they do in the other consolidated cities. On that list Philly comes close with transit but SF and NY are far, far more comprehensive. Muni's goal is that every SF resident is within a quarter mile of a stop that's served for something like 18 hours a day. Honolulu? lol. Denver has about the same number of library branches as San Francisco and a tenth the number of items in circulation. San Francisco PUC (which oversees water distribution and some power generation/distribution) is part of the city government, Denver Water is not. Two of the most prominent museums in San Francisco are owned by the city and run in a public-private partnership. The San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center is publicly owned (and one of the largest in the nation). Meanwhile Denver's opera and museums are an entirely private affairs. San Francisco's botanical gardens are owned by the city and county, Denver's are owned and operated by a non-profit. It costs more to do more, and I'd venture to guess most residents prefer it that way. It's not all hurr durr homeless people taxes poop bad big government scary yahtzee. https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_spending_in_America%27s_largest_cities https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_spending_in_America%27s_...
- abeppu 4y ago
  I'm not convinced that we're getting what we pay for, or that we're funding the most important things -- no one's life is being ruined by an insufficient quantity of library books, or access to too few museums. I'm glad we have the hetch hetchy water we do. I'm glad when the East Bay has brownouts SF often doesn't. The botanical gardens are _nice_. But again: ~$16k per head. For comparison, I checked and Denver is presently at 2.04B for ~740k people. The _difference_ in per-capita budget between these two consolidated city-counties is _almost_ the same as a year of in-state tuition at a UC. Think about that -- people save for years to send their kids to college, and for every single resident, we're spending a sum comparable to tuition at a competitive research university. Perhaps your way of living in the city is fundamentally different than mine, and you extract a commensurate amount of value out of the public services here. I think it indicates there must be a lot of waste. Other things SF has: - the highest paid mayor in the country - an endless parade of corruption revelations that don't even feel scandalous anymore - safe sleeping sites that cost more per tent than a 1BD apartment So if, as the article says, the city has a 4% drop in revenues, I feel like we have a lot of non-critical stuff that we should be able to cut.
  - inferiorhuman 4y ago
    I feel like we have a lot of non-critical stuff that we should be able to cut. Right. And if you don't value books, music, or art then San Francisco is not for you. There are plenty of other more bare bones cities to live in. Even in the Bay Area. You would likely be much happier in a city like Emeryville or Denver. It costs more to do more. San Francisco does a lot of things that other consolidated cities push off onto the state or private companies. Speaking of world class education, City College is run by San Francisco. Denver's community college is run by the state and doesn't even have a dedicated campus. Muni was servicing well more than half a million trips daily and is funded in large part through the city budget. Denver's got a regional transit district funded independently and the whole region only sees about 200,000 riders. I mean, look, I get that you're tap dancing around cutting social services. Who wants to pay to deal with homeless people or drug addicts? However, that's only part of the puzzle. All of the other cities (except for NY and DC) either push off the cost of the services San Francisco funds or they simply don't offer them at all.

by abeppu 4y ago

inferiorhuman 4y ago

First off – nobody, not even me, is claiming that San Francisco spends a small amount of money. However you're not comparing like for like here. The San Francisco expenditures are a combination of factors including high cost of living, high level of infrastructure and social services, and state funding. Honolulu is expensive mainly because of the Jones Act, not because they're providing a particularly high level of services. If you check out Ballotpedia you'll see that the states chip in a much smaller portion of the expenditures in San Francisco and New York than they do in the other consolidated cities. On that list Philly comes close with transit but SF and NY are far, far more comprehensive. Muni's goal is that every SF resident is within a quarter mile of a stop that's served for something like 18 hours a day. Honolulu? lol. Denver has about the same number of library branches as San Francisco and a tenth the number of items in circulation. San Francisco PUC (which oversees water distribution and some power generation/distribution) is part of the city government, Denver Water is not. Two of the most prominent museums in San Francisco are owned by the city and run in a public-private partnership. The San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center is publicly owned (and one of the largest in the nation). Meanwhile Denver's opera and museums are an entirely private affairs. San Francisco's botanical gardens are owned by the city and county, Denver's are owned and operated by a non-profit. It costs more to do more, and I'd venture to guess most residents prefer it that way. It's not all hurr durr homeless people taxes poop bad big government scary yahtzee. https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_spending_in_America%27s_largest_cities https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_spending_in_America%27s_...

abeppu 4y ago
I'm not convinced that we're getting what we pay for, or that we're funding the most important things -- no one's life is being ruined by an insufficient quantity of library books, or access to too few museums. I'm glad we have the hetch hetchy water we do. I'm glad when the East Bay has brownouts SF often doesn't. The botanical gardens are _nice_. But again: ~$16k per head. For comparison, I checked and Denver is presently at 2.04B for ~740k people. The _difference_ in per-capita budget between these two consolidated city-counties is _almost_ the same as a year of in-state tuition at a UC. Think about that -- people save for years to send their kids to college, and for every single resident, we're spending a sum comparable to tuition at a competitive research university. Perhaps your way of living in the city is fundamentally different than mine, and you extract a commensurate amount of value out of the public services here. I think it indicates there must be a lot of waste. Other things SF has: - the highest paid mayor in the country - an endless parade of corruption revelations that don't even feel scandalous anymore - safe sleeping sites that cost more per tent than a 1BD apartment So if, as the article says, the city has a 4% drop in revenues, I feel like we have a lot of non-critical stuff that we should be able to cut.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  I feel like we have a lot of non-critical stuff that we should be able to cut. Right. And if you don't value books, music, or art then San Francisco is not for you. There are plenty of other more bare bones cities to live in. Even in the Bay Area. You would likely be much happier in a city like Emeryville or Denver. It costs more to do more. San Francisco does a lot of things that other consolidated cities push off onto the state or private companies. Speaking of world class education, City College is run by San Francisco. Denver's community college is run by the state and doesn't even have a dedicated campus. Muni was servicing well more than half a million trips daily and is funded in large part through the city budget. Denver's got a regional transit district funded independently and the whole region only sees about 200,000 riders. I mean, look, I get that you're tap dancing around cutting social services. Who wants to pay to deal with homeless people or drug addicts? However, that's only part of the puzzle. All of the other cities (except for NY and DC) either push off the cost of the services San Francisco funds or they simply don't offer them at all.