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"The city is rampant with crime, and police needs to crack down on it." "Police budgets are bloated, and we need to cut them." "We can't have cameras and lice
by paxys 3y ago
"The city is rampant with crime, and police needs to crack down on it."
"Police budgets are bloated, and we need to cut them."
"We can't have cameras and license plate readers because they violate our privacy."
Ask an average SF resident walking down the street (or commenting on HN) and they likely hold all these views simultaneously. Ask them how exactly the city should reduce crime, and there is no answer.
- api 3y agoIsn’t it also common to believe there is not enough housing, a homelessness crisis, but that housing shouldn’t be built anywhere?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoFew people hold both of those views simultaneously. Few people actually believe that no housing should be built anywhere. A lot of people believe housing is great as long as it doesn’t directly affect them in any way ie isn’t within X miles of their home or on their commute
- Avicebron 3y agowell at least not in their backyard. As much as I support housing I also think there should just be a genuine attempt at increasing the ability for people to actually have meaningful/paying work that can put them in said housing. It seems like there isn't enough of that (despite all the supposed claims to the contrary)
- api 3y agoIf there's not enough housing then improvements in wages will just inflate the cost of housing.
- HPsquared 3y agoNot mutually exclusive if the problem is seen as "too many people".
- keerthiko 3y agoi don't think anyone who has been to any of the world's top 100 biggest cities could in good faith say SF has too many people. it's barely got a midwestern suburb's level of density.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoSF is the second most dense big city in the USA. There is no way that: > it's barely got a midwestern suburb's level of density. Is true.
- api 3y agoThe dense part is geographically confined. SF really has a perfect storm for real estate hyperinflation: high paying jobs, NIMBY attitudes that can be summarized as “keep everything like it was in 1972,” opposition to transit links to less constrained areas, and geographic constraints.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> The dense part is geographically confined. I don't see how that is relevant. > SF really has a perfect storm for real estate hyperinflation: high paying jobs, NIMBY attitudes that can be summarized as “keep everything like it was in 1972,” opposition to transit links to less constrained areas, and geographic constraints. It also has nice weather and has been a desirable trainhopping destination since the late 19th century. Given the cost of nearby areas, I'm not sure transit links would help out much, if anything the city and surrounding areas would become even more desirable, pushing prices up further. HK has much of the same problems (in terms of geographic constraints) and has a nice transit system to get around that, but it hasn't moved the needle much on affordability. Things get a little better in the rest of the Bay Area, but no one would call Shenzhen affordable.
- aworks 3y agoI wasn't sure why you were comparing the San Francisco Bay Area to Shenzhen. Then I realized you mean the bay area that's ten times the population of the San Francisco Bay Area. Now that's a bay area...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stefan_ 3y agoOh sweet summer child. New York City has tons of ALPRs and cameras of all kinds, but it also has an epidemic of unsolved hit and runs, unlicensed drivers and a police force where a large proportion of cops will deface and mangle the license plates of personal and municipal vehicles to evade law enforcement. Stop believing a magic tool can fix policing.
- idopmstuff 3y agoThere's no need to start your message off being patronizing. It doesn't make you look as clever as you think it does. The post you're responding to definitely didn't describe anything as a magic tool. It's just a regular tool that helps to catch some crime without additional manpower. That's a good thing, and exactly the type of thing we should invest in.
- stefan_ 3y agoBut it doesn’t. That’s the whole point.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoThey don’t work. They also get used by the state for unrelated surveillance. But sure cheer it on and YC for pushing it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 3y ago> "The city is rampant with crime, and police needs to crack down on it." > "Police budgets are bloated, and we need to cut them." The synthesis of this is that essentially these police are the "government employees" that conservatives keep telling horror stories about: they're unaccountable, overpaid, lazy, and incompetent, but protected by their union. They have their own ideas about which crimes to investigate or not bother with. Because they're not very good at clearup, they prefer situations where the crime comes to them. The solution is to police the police. Sack those found to be committing abuse of citizens or overtime fraud. Investigate differential clearup rates for crime. Divert some of the money into social services in problem areas. Copy the highly successful Scottish Violence Reduction Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Reduction_Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Reduction_Unit (itself inspired by work in Boston).
- itishappy 3y agoThe views aren't necessarily self-contradictory, and in fact could be self-affirming. Relevant question: Is the city rampant with the types of crime that cameras and license plate readers address?
- paxys 3y agoAccording to the article 70% of crimes committed in the city involve a motor vehicle, so the answer is likely yes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robertlagrant 3y agoIf people are eating licence plates then it could assist with prosecuting public defecation.