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I've lived in the Bay Area for my entire life and am considering leaving only because it's not progressive enough. The Bay and most of California is only progre

I've lived in the Bay Area for my entire life and am considering leaving only because it's not progressive enough. The Bay and most of California is only progressive on inconsequential social issues. Housing? Homelessness? Fucking Houston Texas is more progressive than us. Frankly, I blame the venture capitalists. They have turned what was once a vibrant region I loved into a soulless husk of itself though money. Our local politics have become unbearaable. Anything that would slightly impact a VC donor is immediately shot down.

tvaughan 4y ago
Born and raised in the Bay Area. I've lived in some nice places in SF, LA, and Seattle. I also spent two years in the Netherlands which was by far the highest quality of life experience I've had precisely because it was more progressive.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> I've lived in the Bay Area for my entire life and am considering leaving only because it's not progressive enough. Where will you go? Wakanda?
- danny_codes 4y ago
  Anyplace in Europe I suppose. And I think plenty of other US cities. The bay is actually not very progressive. Economically I'd say it's purely neoliberal. We simply refuse to inconvenience the rich to fix things.
  - Glawen 4y ago
    What does it mean to be progressive? All the woke movement we see now in Europe has been imported from US. We just copy paste stuff even when it makes no sense because we do not share the same history.
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      Example; British activists imported all the BLM stuff, including "Defund the Police". Unfortunately, police in Britain are already quite underfunded and don't have a lot of the negative aspects of American police.
      - foreverCarlos 4y ago
        Not to defend this very poorly-named movement, but I think the main idea wasn't about defunding the police but about redirecting some of the funds from the police to other social services. Which again, in the case of the British police makes far less sense.
- fortuna86 4y ago
  Literally anywhere in Europe outside of Poland or Hungary ?
  - foreverCarlos 4y ago
    Welcome to Bulgaria, my friend. The most progressive country in the World! In all seriousness, if the parent commenter is expecting modern US woke-inspired progressive policies to be driving decision-making anywhere in Europe, they will be disappointed. (I don't like throwing the word "woke" around but have no better way to summarize the difference between the modern progressive movement and the original progressive movement in the US).
    - bradlys 4y ago
      Both movements in the US are very neoliberal. The US doesn’t have a real “left” movement. It has a center movement at most. Most posters here are talking about economics - which have little to do with “woke” anything.
      - foreverCarlos 4y ago
        By the "original movement" I mean Woodrow Wilson and such, which was not neo-liberal. The modern progressive movement is still left-leaning, at least by American standards (yes, quite different from European).
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      Bulgaria has single payer health care, it's to the left of most leftist states in the USA. And it's funny you recognize the usage of "woke" as problematic, but you still use it. Actual liberal politics means schools, roads, health care, climate, etc. It means a social safety net and labour protections. All of that are universal in Europe while most of it is completely lacking, as I said in even the most "liberal" parts of the US. Confusing policy (what matters) with social media arguments about what a woman is defined as is a distraction. It's meant to divide people that otherwise agree. Don't play into that game.
foreverCarlos 4y ago
I really hope you thoroughly investigate this concern before moving to Europe. It's far less "progressive" in some aspects than the Bay Area. In most European countries if you are a mentally ill individual screaming at night in the middle of the city you will either be arrested (and likely hospitalized) for disturbing public order or beaten up by someone local. There are very few places in the world where it's a widely held view that we can just dump mentally ill people on the street if that's what they want. Progressive politics in the US sadly transformed from mostly socially and economically-oriented (Wilson, Roosevelt) to an amalgamation of Marxism (Boudin), capitalism, wokeism and social impotency that satisfies no one.
- usednet 4y ago
  The funny thing about homelessness is that its a material issue. When you address the material root causes, homelessness disappears. So does mental illness, which is why the correlation between these issues and GINI coefficient is so strong. > Progressive politics in the US sadly transformed from mostly socially and economically-oriented (Wilson, Roosevelt) to an amalgamation of Marxism (Boudin), capitalism, wokeism and social impotency that satisfies no one. This sentence is incomprehensible. Progressive politics has turned into Marxism and capitalism?
  - foreverCarlos 4y ago
    > The funny thing about homelessness is that its a material issue. This is funny indeed. But for a different reason than you think. Bay Area progressives like yourself became so embedded into capitalist thinking that they discarded everything else from a working social system. Everything is solved with money (i.e. capital). Homelessness - money. Mental illness - money. Drug addiction - money. Racism - money. Crime - money. It's no surprise that you did not understand my last statement - you are the prime example of it. Marxist because it's a class war, we just need to get rid of the rich and everything will be great. Capitalist because we can solve _everything_ with more money (ignore social responsibilities, opportunities, community, fairness). Wokeist because all inequality is caused by racism, sexism and other -isms. It's an amalgamation so intoxicating that even when you read the description, you don't realise it's about you.

tvaughan 4y ago

Born and raised in the Bay Area. I've lived in some nice places in SF, LA, and Seattle. I also spent two years in the Netherlands which was by far the highest quality of life experience I've had precisely because it was more progressive.

nonethewiser 4y ago

> I've lived in the Bay Area for my entire life and am considering leaving only because it's not progressive enough. Where will you go? Wakanda?

danny_codes 4y ago
Anyplace in Europe I suppose. And I think plenty of other US cities. The bay is actually not very progressive. Economically I'd say it's purely neoliberal. We simply refuse to inconvenience the rich to fix things.
- Glawen 4y ago
  What does it mean to be progressive? All the woke movement we see now in Europe has been imported from US. We just copy paste stuff even when it makes no sense because we do not share the same history.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    Example; British activists imported all the BLM stuff, including "Defund the Police". Unfortunately, police in Britain are already quite underfunded and don't have a lot of the negative aspects of American police.
    - foreverCarlos 4y ago
      Not to defend this very poorly-named movement, but I think the main idea wasn't about defunding the police but about redirecting some of the funds from the police to other social services. Which again, in the case of the British police makes far less sense.
fortuna86 4y ago
Literally anywhere in Europe outside of Poland or Hungary ?
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  Welcome to Bulgaria, my friend. The most progressive country in the World! In all seriousness, if the parent commenter is expecting modern US woke-inspired progressive policies to be driving decision-making anywhere in Europe, they will be disappointed. (I don't like throwing the word "woke" around but have no better way to summarize the difference between the modern progressive movement and the original progressive movement in the US).
  - bradlys 4y ago
    Both movements in the US are very neoliberal. The US doesn’t have a real “left” movement. It has a center movement at most. Most posters here are talking about economics - which have little to do with “woke” anything.
    - foreverCarlos 4y ago
      By the "original movement" I mean Woodrow Wilson and such, which was not neo-liberal. The modern progressive movement is still left-leaning, at least by American standards (yes, quite different from European).
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    Bulgaria has single payer health care, it's to the left of most leftist states in the USA. And it's funny you recognize the usage of "woke" as problematic, but you still use it. Actual liberal politics means schools, roads, health care, climate, etc. It means a social safety net and labour protections. All of that are universal in Europe while most of it is completely lacking, as I said in even the most "liberal" parts of the US. Confusing policy (what matters) with social media arguments about what a woman is defined as is a distraction. It's meant to divide people that otherwise agree. Don't play into that game.

foreverCarlos 4y ago

I really hope you thoroughly investigate this concern before moving to Europe. It's far less "progressive" in some aspects than the Bay Area. In most European countries if you are a mentally ill individual screaming at night in the middle of the city you will either be arrested (and likely hospitalized) for disturbing public order or beaten up by someone local. There are very few places in the world where it's a widely held view that we can just dump mentally ill people on the street if that's what they want. Progressive politics in the US sadly transformed from mostly socially and economically-oriented (Wilson, Roosevelt) to an amalgamation of Marxism (Boudin), capitalism, wokeism and social impotency that satisfies no one.

usednet 4y ago
The funny thing about homelessness is that its a material issue. When you address the material root causes, homelessness disappears. So does mental illness, which is why the correlation between these issues and GINI coefficient is so strong. > Progressive politics in the US sadly transformed from mostly socially and economically-oriented (Wilson, Roosevelt) to an amalgamation of Marxism (Boudin), capitalism, wokeism and social impotency that satisfies no one. This sentence is incomprehensible. Progressive politics has turned into Marxism and capitalism?
- foreverCarlos 4y ago
  > The funny thing about homelessness is that its a material issue. This is funny indeed. But for a different reason than you think. Bay Area progressives like yourself became so embedded into capitalist thinking that they discarded everything else from a working social system. Everything is solved with money (i.e. capital). Homelessness - money. Mental illness - money. Drug addiction - money. Racism - money. Crime - money. It's no surprise that you did not understand my last statement - you are the prime example of it. Marxist because it's a class war, we just need to get rid of the rich and everything will be great. Capitalist because we can solve _everything_ with more money (ignore social responsibilities, opportunities, community, fairness). Wokeist because all inequality is caused by racism, sexism and other -isms. It's an amalgamation so intoxicating that even when you read the description, you don't realise it's about you.