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Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

As a recent downtown SF resident who just fled San Francisco after 6 years I completely agree. Sad about his passing, but SF politics and policies are completely backward. The city refuses to acknowledge problems and punish bad behavior for fear of social justice backlash. Instead they villainize hard working Americans and victimize criminals. Off to greener pastures; Nashville TN for me.

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I lived in the TL near city hall for 2 years because I got what is/was an amazing deal for a new construction studio for $1795/mo and was easy to walk to work. I ended up feeling an urgency to move not because I felt very unsafe but because of the mental toll of walking through needles, garbage, feces, and many obviously mentally ill homeless people became too much for me to take.

Put differently, a tremendous number of people are willing to put up with SF, warts and all, rather than move somewhere else. It must be an amazing place to live.

Is that true? There seems to be a lot of churn. People come when they are young and leave after a few years.

This is very much true, and has been since the 80's. Source? Me. I'm still here, but 95% of the people I met when I moved here in '85 have moved back home.

That's true of a lot of large cities in that age group - as you start families, you tend to start to value cheap housing (for more space) and good schools more than you do when you're single. I remember a stat that said if you move to a city after you're 30, you have a >50% chance of staying there long term, and that's why cities will target that age group when trying to get people to move. I'm guessing that means for people 20-30 the % that stay in a city is less than that, so it would be normal to see most folks you know eventually move out of town in that age bracket in a major city.

SF has a lot of turnover, but the few studies I've seen say it's not particularly high by US standards. Nashville, for one, is higher. (Notably this study is by MSA so it wouldn't consider someone moving from SF to say, Burlingame a departure.) https://www.abodo.com/blog/so-long-to-the-city/

I keep meaning to do an Ask HN about this. "What does living in San Francisco mean to you?" I am curious what other peoples experience with the city is. There's so many lifestyles possible and ways to enjoy the city.

As a City native, but one who grew up in the East Bay, SF means a lot to me, even though I don't live there anymore. A lot of my major life events have taken place there, and I would like to eventually move back in one day. I technically could, but the financials don't make sense, and since I don't work there, my commute wouldn't be any better — so I'm staying put for now.

You're right about being able to enjoy the city in many ways. I regularly enjoy it at my leisure, it is 45min door-to-door Bart ride away, and relatively cheap to Uber/Lyft back at any time (Compared to the premium of actually living there).

Do it!

You are welcome to your views, and they may be certainly valid, but I need to point out that you used some sensational language without providing any references.

Edit: I generally agree that SF has many management problems, I just take issue with how this comment was framed. Specifically: "social justice backlash", "villainize hard working Americans", "victimize criminals". I just think that it'd be more constructive if we discussed SF without imposing such a narrow view on a complicated topic. By "references" I meant that it'd be helpful if we had some stories or articles that substantiates these claims of "social justice backlash", "villainizing Americans", "victimizing criminals". Of course it's all relative and I have my own subjective perspective on everything, but I do believe that it's possible for us to discuss this topic without resorting to phrases that trigger knee-jerk emotional responses.

This may be totally flippant but I feel like to be constructive in this case, the 'reference' totally depends on the target audience's travel experiences.

In the simplest case, the 'reference' could just be to live in other cities (not like L.A.). Specifically other cities that weren't all that much in the past decades and had progress in recent years, more or less as an antithesis of SF which I'd categorize as a city that was ahead of its time in 50 years ago and let the hype get too deeply engrained in its psyche and culture and stagnated since, out of a sense of isolation and self superiority.

If you lived in other places and disagree, the meat of our discussion would take entirely different paths.

As someone also previously living in SF, I did not find his post sensational.

As someone who lived in SF for 24 years and is probably moving back, I will say that SF is a total dump and needs help badly.

regarding victimizing criminals, I found the recent trial of the Katherine Steinle to be very surprising, yet perhaps emblematic of the city's climate.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/jury-reaches-v...

Before trying to draw a conclusion, you should read this article by one of the (alternate) jurors who lays exactly how and why the prosecution fell short of proving the charges they made. It had absolutely nothing do with the identity of the defendant or the victim.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/06/kate-stei...

Unless, of course, you mean to suggest that juries outside of SF are more apt to ignore the law and the evidence presented.

If he'd followed the law, this would never have happened. He needs to be somewhere where he can't harm somebody else.

So somebody else would have found the stolen gun on the sidewalk.

As someone who lives here now, I did. Specifically: "social justice backlash", "villainize hard working Americans", "victimize criminals". Edit: I mostly just take issue with how the comment was framed. I agree that SF has many management issues.

Genuinely curious. I think these things are all kinda relative anyway. What's the frame of reference / point of comparison?

Kate Steinle unfortunately can't share her story.

I think the city charter contributes to the pattern where supervisors focus on their core constituency and keep city-wide issues at the periphery.

The different districts have different concerns and often do not overlap, so its hard to get consensus on big items like housing, what to do about the homeless encampments and so no.

Would be interested in reading a writeup once you've been there for say 6-12 months.

Asking for a friend.

How's the job scene in Nashville? Work in Tech?

Self employed (SaaS and consultant). I am sure there will be far less networking opportunities there vs SF, but my sanity, safety, and personal happiness is more important.

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