San Francisco’s vaunted tolerance dims amid brazen crimes

> San Franciscans … accept that trashy streets, tent encampments and petty crime are the price to pay to live in an urban wonderland.

i don’t understand this. can anyone shed some light on this? is this just hyperbole?

I ask this in good faith, since I don't live in the area: could you, reader come up with ways/legislation/policy to make the situation described in this article worse?

Take it from an engineering or project management stance: what could you possibly do to encourage the "negative" behaviors depicted here? How would you cause more chaos, more problems?

Now, if you answered that, I ask you: why do you keep doing that?

Culture war stories putting down region X will always get a ton of clicks from people who don't like the political zeitgeist of region X.

> Overall, though, crime has been trending down for years.

*facepalm*

In a story about how the terrible crime is driving people away, they still had to acknowledge that crime is going down.

This is a funny article. While it admits that crime is going down, it cherry picks a handful of egregious crimes to make the city look like some lawless hellscape, while offering little in way of concrete suggestions to improve things.

By playing up the lawlessness angle, it kind of seems like the author is advocating for more cops?

As somebody that has been homeless in, and consumed enormous amounts of drugs in that city, I find it absolutely hilarious that the homeless people get demonized every time people talk about SF.

Maybe the fact that the cartels have made it so that San Francisco has some of the cheapest and highest quality methamphetamine and opiates, as well as one of the most accessible pill markets on the west coast contributes more to the city going downhill more than “spending tax money on homelessness programs.”

So many SF rich people sneer at the meth dealer that lives in a tent on their corner, but love their meth dealers that deliver product to them in a BMW.

It's really strange (though logical if you think about who controls them) seeing these articles from supposedly neutral news sources with a very strong right slant. If you look at actual data there is no crime surge and thefts from retailers hurt almost no one (except maybe investors for insurance companies making slightly less money). On the other hand large retailers such as Target blatantly steal millions from employees through overtime violations and minimum wage violations. In fact, if you look at the numbers, both completely legal civil asset forfeiture and illegal (but not criminal and extremely lacking in enforcement) theft from employees outnumber total value stolen from burglaries.

And for feces and needles: There's an obvious solution more effective than arresting people: public toilets. Many of these cities like to think of themselves as "liberal" while refusing to do the absolute minimum for any of their poorer residents.