12 ms·

SF streets were clean for APEC, here's what Tenderloin and SoMa look like now

38 points by AnhTho_FR 3y ago

LanzVonL 3y ago
Why do people still live in big, liberal cities? They're clearly trying to drive people out. Just sell up before your property values tank and move somewhere nice. Learn to entertain yourself, cook, etc. and pretty soon you won't need the amenities.
- joemazerino 3y ago
  ThE FoOd ChOicEs BrO!
- mlrtime 3y ago
  Mostly because that is where the high paying jobs are concentrated, after that I would guess family/familiarity. Politics would be lower on the list. WFH showed us that if you give people options, they will take them.
  - LanzVonL 3y ago
    >get high paying job >spend all your money on housing and property taxes and etc.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      If you get a job that pays 3X but your cost of living is also 3X, just remember that your disposable income is 3X as well. You are still economically out competing your Texan or Midwest colleagues. If you can’t get that kind of job in SF, but still live in SF, things are really tough, leaving is a good option.
      - LanzVonL 3y ago
        Is this true though?
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Not entirely. Let's say my salary is $100k/year, and my expenses are $90k/year. I have $10k/year to save (or blow). If I move to somewhere with 3x salary and 3x costs, then my salary goes to $300k/year and my expenses go to $270k/year, and so I now have $30k/year left over. But it's not that simple, because of progressive tax rates. The federal income tax on $300k/year is more than 3x the tax on $100k/year. Or, to put it a different way, you get 3x the salary, but not 3x the take home pay. Out of that less-than-3x take home pay, you now get to pay the 3x expenses. Now, it could be that when people say "3x the expenses", they're taking that into account. But I suspect they're not. I suspect they're looking at COL numbers, and I suspect that the published COL numbers are just housing, food, medical, and the like.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Your taxes go up a bit because, yes, taxes are graduated. But it’s not as big a deal, and your SS is capped. A house hold making $450k/year in a high COL is still going to be doing much better than 200k in a low COL. Lots of costs aren’t indexed to the area you live in. Computer, phones, trips to Mexico, and to some extent cars cost similar in SF as they do in Mississippi. Food prices don’t vary as much either, their might be a 20% difference, but not 3X, same with medical (really, housing is the main thing that is very much more expensive, everything else is slightly more expensive to the same price). Your retirement savings include your house, so you have a career in SF and then retire to New Mexico, the locals will hate you and your crazy home equity you bring with you.
        steveBK123 3y ago
        Yup I saw this with a lot of friends who chose to retire in their 20s to Portland. They could live remarkably comfortably working simple hourly retail jobs while I was busting my hump at competitive big corporate jobs NYC to live in less comfortable circumstances. Their "Portland dollars" income went very far on "Portland dollars" denominated goods&services like their rent, food trucks, entertainment, etc. However our disposable income was dramatically different. So anything in "US dollars" like airplane tickets, smartphones, etc were out of reach to them.
    - efields 3y ago
      And if you are happy with the deal, what’s the problem? Enough people seem to be that it keeps going…
- kypro 3y ago
  The good jobs are there. And if you have a good job you can live in a nice neighbourhood that doesn't have to worry about this stuff while benefiting from all the cheap labour that comes from having lots of poor people around – cheap restaurants, affordable delivery services, cheap taxis, etc. It's win win if you avoid the bad areas and the bad areas don't grow too large. SF failed because its underclass grew too large and they stopped arresting the criminals among them. Now the people with the nice jobs in the nice houses don't want to live there because they increasingly need to live among the poor.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  You're forgetting that the majority of the people there are voting for the issues that cause the problems - so presumably they aren't as bothered as you might be. There's a decent chunk of people living in SF that think it's the best place to live in the world BY FAR.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- elzbardico 3y ago
  If you have money you can get isolated from most of those problems. You can have an almost idilic life even in third world big cities if you have money enough actually. And big liberal cities are the places where you can get money.
- epistasis 3y ago
  > property values tank The idea that SF property values are going to tank is, well, completely disconnected from reality. If property values did tank, there would be a far better chance of solving SF's problems, but the root problem is that about 1.5x-5x people want to live in SF than they allow for homes to be built, creating massive inequality and misery. The revulsion you feel at living in SF is quite similar to the feeling many have about not living in SF.
  - LanzVonL 3y ago
    Happened in Baltimore, Detroit, formerly nice places in Minneapolis, Chicago, New Orleans... It's not "if" but "when."
- francisofascii 3y ago
  Cities are more nuanced. Good parts/bad parts. Pacific Heights is pretty nice. Cities are fun when you are young, but I admit get less and less fun the older you get. Also, aren't all US cities liberal?
- sp332 3y ago
  Most cities are not as bad at this as SF. NYC has 10x as many homeless people but they are given shelter. Also NYC can build buildings over 4 stories tall.
- DudeOpotomus 3y ago
  Why do people want to live in places that allow them to be free? Where freedom to live your life as you want as you choose, reigns? Instead of in places that not only attack one's rights to exist, they actively push their narrow and ignorant political and theological views onto people to control them? Gee, I wonder... Liberal literally means freedom.
JCM9 3y ago
The state of SF is sad to see. I remember as a child when it was so much nicer. Today it’s just depressing to see how bad it’s gotten. We’re not used to seeing nice cities become not nice cities. In my lifetime in other parts of the country the norm has been seeing not nice areas becoming nice areas.
- pcarolan 3y ago
  I grew up in Michigan during the rust belt era. Nice cities don't always get better, they can get far worse. What turns them around is 1) a commitment from the community to do something about it 2) artists and grass roots efforts transforming blighted assets 3) Financial resources 4) Frankly, the incumbents who put strangleholds on development moving out or dying and 5) visionary business leaders following the artists and seeing opportunity where others see blight. SF has all of the right ingredients, but as someone who visits often, I think the missing piece is community "roots". The people walking through the tenderloin and shaking their heads in disgust just leave. They don't live and work in these communities and so it becomes a constant gripe rather than a problem. SF will get better when people who don't want to invest in it anymore move out and people who are building for generations to come move in. I'd look to immigrants as a class of people who would kill to have a place in the tenderloin they can develop and build wealth on top of. The mental health piece is a big part of it, the "housing first" approach makes the most sense to me but is not without significant challenges. For a city that is filled with people good at building systems, it feels like inward focus and community involvement from our brightest minds outside of government would be a big step in the right direction.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    My observation from NY is that a lot of people who only lived in rich coastal cities on the long upward trajectory from the 70s~90s bottom think it's an automatic force of nature. There is also an attitude from people who moved in at the early end of this trend saying "well it was worse when I moved here". Sure, but you got to buy your condo at 1/10th to 1/4th todays prices, and everything around you got better for the last ~25 years, which is probably why you've stayed. No one deserves to be a victim of a crime. When the value proposition you offer to new residents is "your apartment will cost you $3M, but you still won't feel comfortable in your own neighborhood" then those people with money will make other choices. My observation is that only now are we starting to see some the loud "theres no problem" voices die down so maybe we are on the way to rationally tackling some of the challenges. Ironically 2023 was the year that the 2020->2022 crime wave at least in NY started to die down, so sentiment really is lagging.
mc32 3y ago
APEC proved that the laws on the books can be enforced, whereas for residents the powers that be elect when to enforce laws and not. They usually fret saying they don’t have the power to [clean up]. It also proved that they know the state of the city is not normal. Basically it proves they can clean up for superficial appearances, but when it matters to everyday residents they are incapable of acting.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Breaking news: temporarily solving a systemic problem is a lot easier than permanently solving it This is pretty much a guaranteed characteristic of a systemic problem.
  - scarmig 3y ago
    Keep on doing the temporary solution and you have a permanent one. Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanliness are maintained. The problem being public safety, not the national homelessness crisis. Although I'd love to solve the latter, it's a separate problem that San Francisco clearly is not capable of solving on its own. The former problem, on the other hand, it can.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Curious what you think the temporary solution to public safety that’s repeatable with more money actually is? Usually it’s not lack of funding that prevents good solutions to public safety issues, but rather people’s individual rights (very strong in the US) rubbing up against the commons’ rights (very weak in the US).
      - scarmig 3y ago
        The solution San Francisco implemented during APEC is an existence proof that such a solution actually exists.
scop 3y ago
There is a large degree of “this is normal” that creeps into your mind. You begin to assume that all cities are exactly like it. You can’t comprehend it being otherwise. As a native San Franciscan who moved to DFW TX area, I vividly remember walking into a TX Walgreens for the first time and being flabbergasted by how nice it was: orderly, minimally locked shelves, etc. It almost seemed like it was a fake store in some hidden camera prank or something, no way a Walgreens could be like that based on all my time in Walgreens in SF. It was normal, like a commercial or something.
- bombcar 3y ago
  When I moved here from California I was confused by the “pump before you pay” gas stations. Hadn’t seen them in 30 years.
  - nkozyra 3y ago
    I live in Florida and have traveled all over this country the last few years and haven't seen these in decades. These still exist in Texas?
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Not in Texas, but they still exist (around here they switched just last year, but if you go further and further from "the city" you still find them). You also find "pumps open 24 hours" even when the station is closed, but those are credit card only, of course.
    - aarnvns 3y ago
      They do not exist in Texas. I'm a Texas Parks enthusiast which has me driving throughout the state. You pay at the pump. Texans aren't somehow morally superior to everyone else, despite wearing crosses on their sleeves. Our ancestors stole this land from Mexico, and Texans will absolutely steal fuel from you if they think they won't get shot.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Yeah it’s definitely not normal. I’m in Seattle and visited Chicago and Boston over Christmas and it was night and day. Sure those cities have bad neighborhoods, but the downtown area actually seemed to enforce laws and there wasn’t people screaming on every block or encampments. Stores didn’t have intimidating security guards at the front door etc
rossdavidh 3y ago
Was this a case of city workers (including police) pulling a lot of overtime prior to APEC, and that can only go on for a little while? Is there a labor shortage in SF for this kind of work at least? I am especially interested in hearing actual current SF residents comment on whether or not this article is roughly speaking accurate.
- bfeynman 3y ago
  no, this is just instructions coming down from the tippy top to do something. The reality is that politicians do not want to ever risk a cataclysmic incident happening under their guard with a disenfranchised population, I guess especially in more conscionable regions where voters won't react. The same thing happens even in DC a lot (high aesthetics budget to keep it clean) - The crux is that they know it will go back to the way it was so if you're not going to solve it doesn't seem like a good use of resources, although I'm sure residents might disagree. The only other thing that can propel it is an incident such as what happened in Seattle shooting and such then they go in as well.
goles 3y ago
https://archive.is/GNyAB https://archive.is/GNyAB
dist-epoch 3y ago
The only solution is to dispense pharma produced drugs freely to anyone who can't afford them. Poor people would no longer need to steal for their daily dose, all would be provided by the state. The illegal market would disappear since you can't compete with $0 price. You would have hard drugs vending machines on street corners, that you can access with your government provided drug card.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but this is in no way an actual solution.
  - avidiax 3y ago
    It's incomplete, let's say. You would probably still need to get these people into treatment, and prevent them from selling the drugs onwards, and prevent new people from getting on drugs. The invisible hand of the market could be a powerful ally in all of these, but we prefer as a society to do things in a difficult way that has never worked. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36846754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36846754
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Would they still be sleeping on the street and committing crime to afford food, clothing, etc? IMHO, if a person is prepared to habitually commit crime to fund their habit, it's time to get them off the drugs, by force if necessary. Develop 'rehab jails' for addicts, where they can be kept off the streets, tapered off the drugs, and given decent treatment for underlying mental health issues.
- throwaway4aday 3y ago
  That is the worst possible way to implement a liberalization of drug laws. I'm in favor of decriminalizing practically all drugs but this is just insane. They need to be treated like the currently legal drugs in some cases and more tightly regulated in others where the substance is more dangerous to the user. There needs to be a spectrum from dispensaries where the cashier is some college kid and pharmacies where your access and education is handled by a pharmacist or doctor. Physical addiction, while complicated by several factors, is still a real phenomenon that must be identified and treated in order to avoid ruining lives.
DudeOpotomus 3y ago
Just for perspective. The Tenderloin has been a slum for as long as SF has existed. About every 25-30 years, SF goes through a boom / bust cycle. This has been happening as long as people have called it San Francisco and will likely happen as long as it remains a city. In the late 90's early 00's Market St was a porn hub. Before Twitter was gifted their headquarters, that part of the city was a dump full of porn shops, abandoned buildings and bums. In the 70's it was a dangerous heroin invested place with open air prostitution and lots of crime. The greatness of SF is its ability to not only reinvent itself, but with it reinventing how the US and the world at large function. SF will emerge from this slump in a new and better form. This is just a part of that process. In other words: Same as its ever been...
- steveBK123 3y ago
  And pre-Rudy/Disney/etc, Times Square NY was full of peep shows. Before SoHo was a designer shopping hub and celebrity loft neighborhood, it was nearly torn down for a highway since it was disused commercial lofts after businesses left. You have to want things to get better for them to get better. It is not an automatic force of nature. "Shrug, it's always been like this" is not how society moves forwards.
abeppu 3y ago
Occasionally, I'm reminded of a star trek DS9 episode with a time-travel plot that put characters in 2024 in San Francisco. While SF isn't exactly at the dystopia described, it's not that far off. - Poor, mentally ill or unhoused people are corralled into a lawless district. Though the district was perhaps set up with some justification about helping people, it mostly just segregates the very poor from being seen - The society has extreme wealth inequality; Dax meets/befriends a tech entrepreneur in BART - We even meet a low-level administrator who knows that the system isn't working but says something like "I need this job" https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots

38 points by AnhTho_FR 3y ago

Why do people still live in big, liberal cities? They're clearly trying to drive people out. Just sell up before your property values tank and move somewhere nice. Learn to entertain yourself, cook, etc. and pretty soon you won't need the amenities.

joemazerino 3y ago
ThE FoOd ChOicEs BrO!
mlrtime 3y ago
Mostly because that is where the high paying jobs are concentrated, after that I would guess family/familiarity. Politics would be lower on the list. WFH showed us that if you give people options, they will take them.
- LanzVonL 3y ago
  >get high paying job >spend all your money on housing and property taxes and etc.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    If you get a job that pays 3X but your cost of living is also 3X, just remember that your disposable income is 3X as well. You are still economically out competing your Texan or Midwest colleagues. If you can’t get that kind of job in SF, but still live in SF, things are really tough, leaving is a good option.
    - LanzVonL 3y ago
      Is this true though?
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Not entirely. Let's say my salary is $100k/year, and my expenses are $90k/year. I have $10k/year to save (or blow). If I move to somewhere with 3x salary and 3x costs, then my salary goes to $300k/year and my expenses go to $270k/year, and so I now have $30k/year left over. But it's not that simple, because of progressive tax rates. The federal income tax on $300k/year is more than 3x the tax on $100k/year. Or, to put it a different way, you get 3x the salary, but not 3x the take home pay. Out of that less-than-3x take home pay, you now get to pay the 3x expenses. Now, it could be that when people say "3x the expenses", they're taking that into account. But I suspect they're not. I suspect they're looking at COL numbers, and I suspect that the published COL numbers are just housing, food, medical, and the like.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Your taxes go up a bit because, yes, taxes are graduated. But it’s not as big a deal, and your SS is capped. A house hold making $450k/year in a high COL is still going to be doing much better than 200k in a low COL. Lots of costs aren’t indexed to the area you live in. Computer, phones, trips to Mexico, and to some extent cars cost similar in SF as they do in Mississippi. Food prices don’t vary as much either, their might be a 20% difference, but not 3X, same with medical (really, housing is the main thing that is very much more expensive, everything else is slightly more expensive to the same price). Your retirement savings include your house, so you have a career in SF and then retire to New Mexico, the locals will hate you and your crazy home equity you bring with you.
        steveBK123 3y ago
        Yup I saw this with a lot of friends who chose to retire in their 20s to Portland. They could live remarkably comfortably working simple hourly retail jobs while I was busting my hump at competitive big corporate jobs NYC to live in less comfortable circumstances. Their "Portland dollars" income went very far on "Portland dollars" denominated goods&services like their rent, food trucks, entertainment, etc. However our disposable income was dramatically different. So anything in "US dollars" like airplane tickets, smartphones, etc were out of reach to them.
  - efields 3y ago
    And if you are happy with the deal, what’s the problem? Enough people seem to be that it keeps going…
kypro 3y ago
The good jobs are there. And if you have a good job you can live in a nice neighbourhood that doesn't have to worry about this stuff while benefiting from all the cheap labour that comes from having lots of poor people around – cheap restaurants, affordable delivery services, cheap taxis, etc. It's win win if you avoid the bad areas and the bad areas don't grow too large. SF failed because its underclass grew too large and they stopped arresting the criminals among them. Now the people with the nice jobs in the nice houses don't want to live there because they increasingly need to live among the poor.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
You're forgetting that the majority of the people there are voting for the issues that cause the problems - so presumably they aren't as bothered as you might be. There's a decent chunk of people living in SF that think it's the best place to live in the world BY FAR.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
elzbardico 3y ago
If you have money you can get isolated from most of those problems. You can have an almost idilic life even in third world big cities if you have money enough actually. And big liberal cities are the places where you can get money.
epistasis 3y ago
> property values tank The idea that SF property values are going to tank is, well, completely disconnected from reality. If property values did tank, there would be a far better chance of solving SF's problems, but the root problem is that about 1.5x-5x people want to live in SF than they allow for homes to be built, creating massive inequality and misery. The revulsion you feel at living in SF is quite similar to the feeling many have about not living in SF.
- LanzVonL 3y ago
  Happened in Baltimore, Detroit, formerly nice places in Minneapolis, Chicago, New Orleans... It's not "if" but "when."
francisofascii 3y ago
Cities are more nuanced. Good parts/bad parts. Pacific Heights is pretty nice. Cities are fun when you are young, but I admit get less and less fun the older you get. Also, aren't all US cities liberal?
sp332 3y ago
Most cities are not as bad at this as SF. NYC has 10x as many homeless people but they are given shelter. Also NYC can build buildings over 4 stories tall.
DudeOpotomus 3y ago
Why do people want to live in places that allow them to be free? Where freedom to live your life as you want as you choose, reigns? Instead of in places that not only attack one's rights to exist, they actively push their narrow and ignorant political and theological views onto people to control them? Gee, I wonder... Liberal literally means freedom.

JCM9 3y ago

The state of SF is sad to see. I remember as a child when it was so much nicer. Today it’s just depressing to see how bad it’s gotten. We’re not used to seeing nice cities become not nice cities. In my lifetime in other parts of the country the norm has been seeing not nice areas becoming nice areas.

pcarolan 3y ago
I grew up in Michigan during the rust belt era. Nice cities don't always get better, they can get far worse. What turns them around is 1) a commitment from the community to do something about it 2) artists and grass roots efforts transforming blighted assets 3) Financial resources 4) Frankly, the incumbents who put strangleholds on development moving out or dying and 5) visionary business leaders following the artists and seeing opportunity where others see blight. SF has all of the right ingredients, but as someone who visits often, I think the missing piece is community "roots". The people walking through the tenderloin and shaking their heads in disgust just leave. They don't live and work in these communities and so it becomes a constant gripe rather than a problem. SF will get better when people who don't want to invest in it anymore move out and people who are building for generations to come move in. I'd look to immigrants as a class of people who would kill to have a place in the tenderloin they can develop and build wealth on top of. The mental health piece is a big part of it, the "housing first" approach makes the most sense to me but is not without significant challenges. For a city that is filled with people good at building systems, it feels like inward focus and community involvement from our brightest minds outside of government would be a big step in the right direction.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  My observation from NY is that a lot of people who only lived in rich coastal cities on the long upward trajectory from the 70s~90s bottom think it's an automatic force of nature. There is also an attitude from people who moved in at the early end of this trend saying "well it was worse when I moved here". Sure, but you got to buy your condo at 1/10th to 1/4th todays prices, and everything around you got better for the last ~25 years, which is probably why you've stayed. No one deserves to be a victim of a crime. When the value proposition you offer to new residents is "your apartment will cost you $3M, but you still won't feel comfortable in your own neighborhood" then those people with money will make other choices. My observation is that only now are we starting to see some the loud "theres no problem" voices die down so maybe we are on the way to rationally tackling some of the challenges. Ironically 2023 was the year that the 2020->2022 crime wave at least in NY started to die down, so sentiment really is lagging.

mc32 3y ago

APEC proved that the laws on the books can be enforced, whereas for residents the powers that be elect when to enforce laws and not. They usually fret saying they don’t have the power to [clean up]. It also proved that they know the state of the city is not normal. Basically it proves they can clean up for superficial appearances, but when it matters to everyday residents they are incapable of acting.

ethanbond 3y ago
Breaking news: temporarily solving a systemic problem is a lot easier than permanently solving it This is pretty much a guaranteed characteristic of a systemic problem.
- scarmig 3y ago
  Keep on doing the temporary solution and you have a permanent one. Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanliness are maintained. The problem being public safety, not the national homelessness crisis. Although I'd love to solve the latter, it's a separate problem that San Francisco clearly is not capable of solving on its own. The former problem, on the other hand, it can.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Curious what you think the temporary solution to public safety that’s repeatable with more money actually is? Usually it’s not lack of funding that prevents good solutions to public safety issues, but rather people’s individual rights (very strong in the US) rubbing up against the commons’ rights (very weak in the US).
    - scarmig 3y ago
      The solution San Francisco implemented during APEC is an existence proof that such a solution actually exists.

scop 3y ago

There is a large degree of “this is normal” that creeps into your mind. You begin to assume that all cities are exactly like it. You can’t comprehend it being otherwise. As a native San Franciscan who moved to DFW TX area, I vividly remember walking into a TX Walgreens for the first time and being flabbergasted by how nice it was: orderly, minimally locked shelves, etc. It almost seemed like it was a fake store in some hidden camera prank or something, no way a Walgreens could be like that based on all my time in Walgreens in SF. It was normal, like a commercial or something.

bombcar 3y ago
When I moved here from California I was confused by the “pump before you pay” gas stations. Hadn’t seen them in 30 years.
- nkozyra 3y ago
  I live in Florida and have traveled all over this country the last few years and haven't seen these in decades. These still exist in Texas?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Not in Texas, but they still exist (around here they switched just last year, but if you go further and further from "the city" you still find them). You also find "pumps open 24 hours" even when the station is closed, but those are credit card only, of course.
  - aarnvns 3y ago
    They do not exist in Texas. I'm a Texas Parks enthusiast which has me driving throughout the state. You pay at the pump. Texans aren't somehow morally superior to everyone else, despite wearing crosses on their sleeves. Our ancestors stole this land from Mexico, and Texans will absolutely steal fuel from you if they think they won't get shot.
edgyquant 3y ago
Yeah it’s definitely not normal. I’m in Seattle and visited Chicago and Boston over Christmas and it was night and day. Sure those cities have bad neighborhoods, but the downtown area actually seemed to enforce laws and there wasn’t people screaming on every block or encampments. Stores didn’t have intimidating security guards at the front door etc

rossdavidh 3y ago

Was this a case of city workers (including police) pulling a lot of overtime prior to APEC, and that can only go on for a little while? Is there a labor shortage in SF for this kind of work at least? I am especially interested in hearing actual current SF residents comment on whether or not this article is roughly speaking accurate.

bfeynman 3y ago
no, this is just instructions coming down from the tippy top to do something. The reality is that politicians do not want to ever risk a cataclysmic incident happening under their guard with a disenfranchised population, I guess especially in more conscionable regions where voters won't react. The same thing happens even in DC a lot (high aesthetics budget to keep it clean) - The crux is that they know it will go back to the way it was so if you're not going to solve it doesn't seem like a good use of resources, although I'm sure residents might disagree. The only other thing that can propel it is an incident such as what happened in Seattle shooting and such then they go in as well.

goles 3y ago

https://archive.is/GNyAB https://archive.is/GNyAB

dist-epoch 3y ago

The only solution is to dispense pharma produced drugs freely to anyone who can't afford them. Poor people would no longer need to steal for their daily dose, all would be provided by the state. The illegal market would disappear since you can't compete with $0 price. You would have hard drugs vending machines on street corners, that you can access with your government provided drug card.

edgyquant 3y ago
I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but this is in no way an actual solution.
- avidiax 3y ago
  It's incomplete, let's say. You would probably still need to get these people into treatment, and prevent them from selling the drugs onwards, and prevent new people from getting on drugs. The invisible hand of the market could be a powerful ally in all of these, but we prefer as a society to do things in a difficult way that has never worked. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36846754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36846754
bluescrn 3y ago
Would they still be sleeping on the street and committing crime to afford food, clothing, etc? IMHO, if a person is prepared to habitually commit crime to fund their habit, it's time to get them off the drugs, by force if necessary. Develop 'rehab jails' for addicts, where they can be kept off the streets, tapered off the drugs, and given decent treatment for underlying mental health issues.
throwaway4aday 3y ago
That is the worst possible way to implement a liberalization of drug laws. I'm in favor of decriminalizing practically all drugs but this is just insane. They need to be treated like the currently legal drugs in some cases and more tightly regulated in others where the substance is more dangerous to the user. There needs to be a spectrum from dispensaries where the cashier is some college kid and pharmacies where your access and education is handled by a pharmacist or doctor. Physical addiction, while complicated by several factors, is still a real phenomenon that must be identified and treated in order to avoid ruining lives.

DudeOpotomus 3y ago

Just for perspective. The Tenderloin has been a slum for as long as SF has existed. About every 25-30 years, SF goes through a boom / bust cycle. This has been happening as long as people have called it San Francisco and will likely happen as long as it remains a city. In the late 90's early 00's Market St was a porn hub. Before Twitter was gifted their headquarters, that part of the city was a dump full of porn shops, abandoned buildings and bums. In the 70's it was a dangerous heroin invested place with open air prostitution and lots of crime. The greatness of SF is its ability to not only reinvent itself, but with it reinventing how the US and the world at large function. SF will emerge from this slump in a new and better form. This is just a part of that process. In other words: Same as its ever been...

steveBK123 3y ago
And pre-Rudy/Disney/etc, Times Square NY was full of peep shows. Before SoHo was a designer shopping hub and celebrity loft neighborhood, it was nearly torn down for a highway since it was disused commercial lofts after businesses left. You have to want things to get better for them to get better. It is not an automatic force of nature. "Shrug, it's always been like this" is not how society moves forwards.

abeppu 3y ago

Occasionally, I'm reminded of a star trek DS9 episode with a time-travel plot that put characters in 2024 in San Francisco. While SF isn't exactly at the dystopia described, it's not that far off. - Poor, mentally ill or unhoused people are corralled into a lawless district. Though the district was perhaps set up with some justification about helping people, it mostly just segregates the very poor from being seen - The society has extreme wealth inequality; Dax meets/befriends a tech entrepreneur in BART - We even meet a low-level administrator who knows that the system isn't working but says something like "I need this job" https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots