70% of respondents say quality of life in San Francisco has declined
sfgate.com
sfgate.com
The sad part is plenty of people are happy to move, the privilege of mobility, to get away from the madness of SF, but will happily vote in similar ways in the next place they set up shop in. And thus the cycle will continue. It can only stop if there is a proper reflection on how and why this state of affairs was allowed to happen, and with changed actions in the future.
Its never been as bad as it has in the last 5 years.
The Poopocalypse started under Gavin in 2003 and has continually gotten far worse. The new DA has made it 10x worse.
As someone who lived in SF for over 10 years I can tell you that in the first 7 years there were zero homeless tents at Mission / Van Ness and in the following 3 years the street was lined up with them.
There were zero homeless in the tunnel to Powell station and then the tunnel was lined up with them. You could not only see but also smell.
I don't know how to express going from 0 homeless to "have I been teleported to a favela?" in percentages. You can't divide by 0.
Yeah, SF never was a paradise but now it's definitely a slum.
The open violence has exploded, period.
The crime against artists in the 1990's was VERY very low, and the rent was affordable.
How are they avoiding all of the change?
Addendum/update:
Also, this context seems to share a lot of similarities with the rise and fall of the now abandoned ghost towns that emerged during gold mining, or am I the only one making this association?
* said tolerance for weirdness has seriously declined over the last couple of decades as people moved in for reasons other than that variety.
I have everything I need within walking distance. The weather is incredible. I’ve never been robbed or had any particularly bad experiences (I’m relatively tall and a man so ymmv).
I don’t know, from my perspective it’s a pretty great city unless you have to spend a lot of time in SOMA or the tenderloin.
I can certainly understand why others haven’t had the same experience. But I don’t think it’s surprising that 3 in 10 are able to say they still enjoy it. It all comes down to when you moved here, where you live, and how much you’re paying.
It's sad that eg the bbq joint down the street closed down, but I can't wait to see what ends up there next! Will it be a fancy tea place? or have some sort of interesting delicious fusion food? It's sad they didn't survive covid, but all of the restaurants I'll miss aren't a 30% hit to the quality of life - there are a bunch of restaurants that managed to survive, and even some that opened up during the pandemic!
For those that had never really explored their neighborhood until the pandemic, finding awesome things nearby their house like a hidden garden actually improves life from before the pandemic! I became close friends during the pandemic to some acquaintences, and it's absolutely improved my quality of life.
Change isn't necessarily bad, so the 30% aren't avoiding the change - they're embracing it, celebrating the good parts, complaining about the old and new problems, but not letting it dampen their optimism for the future.
In a single sentence makes it clear as day.
What has this world -- or more importantly san Francisco, come to??
Now don’t get me wrong the city is epically mismanaged and has a lot of its own problems, but the amount of chart crime going on right now (X is up YYY% since last year!) is pretty unforgivable.
People are pushing an agenda on you.
Sam Altman himself has now started saying that if the facts don't match his feelings, we need to look harder until we find facts that do: https://twitter.com/sama/status/1410251675395264517
I remember a time when hackers - real hackers - valued truth, wherever it took them. But a funny thing about the truth is that it doesn't tend to suit the rich.
Be careful not to read too much into specific data points. Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative—and making a big rhetorical narrative about it is almost certainly a bad idea.