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Comment by Veratyr | Hacker News Reader

There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguably better maintained.

Another disclaimer: I live in the Bay Area and that's where most (but not all) of my feelings about US public spaces come from.

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The Bay Area is bad even by American standards. But the places I've been in America do tend to be rather shabby in comparison to places I've visited abroad, in general.

> Berlin

Lol what? In Berlin you see heaps of trash, broken furniture and fridges on the sidewalks once you leave the main roads. The city stinks in the summer (guess this is due to not enough water in the sewage). In Neukölln (and other parts of the city) you gotta take care of druggies everywhere. Parts of the city have a severe neonazi problem (left-wing and "foreign looking" people are getting beaten up, and their cars torched). Rents are skyrocketing and the government doesn't care much except to fight those who protest against gentrification.

I don't get the Berlin hype. Really not.

I lived in Kruezburg and agree with you. As the Peter Fox song says, Kotze am Kotti.

IMHO, Paris is fairly dirty (like 60% San Francisco dirty). Especially the subway is a mess, and there is no law enforcement (e.g. minor children begging during weekday and no-one does anything). Many of the trains are vandalized.

St. Petersburg is much nicer than Paris (at least in the summer). Surprisingly, the it is cleaner even though the country is poorer.

It might be the large US population of homeless people worsens this (especially in the bay area), as they have no better option than to leave their waste in public places.

That's still the US's problem to fix though. Other countries provide public toilets.

With a quick search, I can only find maps for the London Underground and Britain generally:

[1] http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf

[2] https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ (many semi-public also listed)

At least according to Wikipedia, many European countries have a higher homeless rate than the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...

The US is a big place, which averages away the extremes. In San Francisco, population 868k, there are about 10-12k homeless folks (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homeless...), which puts it at over 1% homelessness. That's a tragic number for such a wealthy city.

It's only a tragic reflection on the city if you assume all the homeless are born and raised there. How many of those migrated there from colder climates? How many were given a bus ticket by their home city and sent there?

SF spends an absolute fortune on homeless people. That, coupled with its temperate climate, makes it a magnet for many types of homeless people.

Correct, but I have never seen such concentration of homeless people anywhere in Spain, where climate varies significantly as well, and economic conditions are historically harsher. But there's a safety net that prevents most people from falling all the way down.

Years ago I travelled through norcal without stopping in to SF. Started in Crescent City, traversed into Oregon, past Shasta region and the farthest south I achieved was to Santa Rosa. Headed east to Oroville and then back to Crescent City to catch my prop flight to SF for the flight east.

Wonderful personal trip on the winding mountain roads and experiencing the abrupt climate|vista changes in an hour+ from pacific coast to desert. Morning 50 degrees, afternoon 80+.

It was my first time in norcal and the thing that shocked me the most (reading my emails to friends from that time) was the filth, poverty and mental illness in the towns and cities.

That's not really California. That's Hela Nor-cal, or the Jefferson State.

Explain please, I'm an easterner. (edit) I see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_st...

In terms of litter, the Dominican Republic is far worse than the USA. Major DR roads are lined with unbroken mounds of trash.

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