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Comment by conbandit | Hacker News Reader

Manhattan isn't what it was 40 years ago. It's a lot cleaner now.

Yes. Perhaps this is what SF has to go through? I'm generally not a fan of trickle-down economics, but does the city have to go through such a long stretch of prosperity for there to be enough wealth to pay for everyone? If so, advocates for UBI may need to wait a while.

Is SF unique in such a large % of the population being mentally ill or addicts?

Well the weather is absolutely phenomenal, so it definitely has a leg up on NYC there.

It's just spit-balling, but there's also a thriving drug culture and ideologically-driven tolerance for all manner of person.

The city already spends a ton of money on the issue - clearly the government just isn't great at putting that cash to use. So I don't think throwing more money at the problem will help. Truthfully the answers to the problem may make the situation worse before it gets better. You should look up an article by Nick Buckley, who runs an outreach service for homeless people in Manchester UK. It's obviously a different situation than SF but it piqued my interest because it's an angle you really never hear.

"There being enough wealth to pay everyone" is not really what happened in New York, I don't think.

The difference in NYC (really, mostly Manhattan) wasn't really spending although the city had financial issues as well in the 80s. It was mostly a change in attitude. What some people now decry as "Disneyfication" for example was the political will to clean up areas like 42nd Street. Rudy Giuliani was nicknamed the proctor of New York for a reason.

>> Yes. Perhaps this is what SF has to go through?

What - getting a Guiliani to fix it?

but does the city have to go through such a long stretch of prosperity for there to be enough wealth to pay for everyone?

Does SF get prosperous? Serious question; I don't know how SF's taxes work. Does SF get a piece of everyone's income, such that as the people make more money the city gets more money? What actually puts more money into SF's pocket when people in SF get richer?

Last time I was in Manhattan there were literally mountains of trash on the sidewalk and the entire city smelled like it.

Probably a trash collection day. Those days during the summer are gonna stink, no real way around it.

The city is remarkably clean and safe for what it is.

NYC of the 70s-90s was considerably different from today: much less safe, bankrupt, gritty, dirty...while you might have seen and smelled some trash, it's not at all like it used to be.

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/1980s-new-york

That's just garbage day though.

The areas of Manhattan you'd be likely to visit are very dense and there are generally no back alleys so, even with the system working as intended, there can be a lot of trash that ends up on the sidewalk waiting to be collected. Yes, in the summer especially, Manhattan gets hot and smelly. There's a reason that a "house in the Hamptons" is something of a meme for wealthy New Yorkers.

When I lived in Manhattan one summer, during a time when the city was "rougher around the edges" than today, I was definitely ready to get out of town on a number of weekends.

> there can be a lot of trash that ends up on the sidewalk waiting to be collected.

Correct my if I'm wrong, but they still put bags of trash out don't they? Those things also attract rats who can easily chew through the bags or they can not be tied up properly in the first place, allowing he smell to escape. Why don't they use tidier, less smelly wheelie bins: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=chakra&q=wheelie+bins&iax=images&i...

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