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Comment by aritraghosh007 | Hacker News Reader

The Bay Area is 6900 square miles of land and cost of living is as high as any other metro on average per square mile. London, Tokyo, New York and pretty much every other major metropolis has problems akin to the Bay Area but we never quite as frequently refer to London or Tokyo “falling apart” the way we like to attract all our collective attention to bash the Bay Area here.

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> London, Tokyo, New York and pretty much every other major metropolis has problems akin to the Bay Area

I've never lived in the Bay Area/SF so I can't comment on the problems there, but I have lived in London for the past few years.

I volunteer extensively with the homeless, and I haven't seen a fraction of what people describe in San Francisco, or anywhere near the level of antisocial behaviour or crime. Every week I'm serving food on the streets for at least a few hours; I've never once been threatened with anything other than words (and even then maybe twice with words?), never seen needles lying around (co-volunteers have, not common though), and never seen human faeces on the street.

I've lived in the Bay Area for 15 years. Except for the "poop on street" part, I've never witnessed any of those other things in SF or anywhere else either. I've never ever been threatened by anything (words or physically) in real life (this is true everywhere I've lived: Hong Kong, Florida, Connecticut, Texas, SF/Bay Area) In the Bay Area I've largely stayed in the less crowded suburbs such as Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc. where things are kept absurdly clean and orderly (the parks are hosed down at least once a week). Last week while going to work in Burlingame I did see there was human feces in the parking lot but the city sanitation worker was already cleaning it up. I do go to SF sometimes to see friends, to go at a restaurant (in pre-COVID times), etc. There is a small part of SF that gives me uncomfortable feelings but the rest of the city has never given me any issues and I've run through parts of the city in the middle of the night (during the Golden Gate Relay).

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen or that people who write about them are being untruthful. However, I do wonder if it is the extreme events or experiences that get written about and aggregated into news.

The solution has always been fewer rich people, and the more they believe this is hell-on-earth, the more they will leave and the fewer will come.

Please stay the course and let them have their “reality”.

Having lived all my life in several packed downtown metro areas all over from Delhi, Mumbai, NYC to San Francisco, being safety aware and conscious of your surroundings is pure common sense and not just a specific city problem. Yes, the political class and municipality can absolutely do better to quell the concerns for the wealth and demand the metro area attracts as someone pointed out earlier, although that’s a tangential discussion IMO

With all of its wealth and demand, the Bay Area should look like London or Tokyo or New York. Instead it looks like Tracy. It’s not falling apart, but neither is it growing up. It’s stagnant.

Lowrise with mountains and surf breaks is actually pretty nice.

Well speaking just for London when I lived there for 12 years before leaving commutes were as easy as jumping on the tube for 30-40 minutes, pretty reliable from a reasonably priced distance. The Bay Area sounds like actual hell in comparison.

“Sounds like actual hell in comparison” What gives that assumption?

I have been taking the Caltrain for work in the past decade, sure it isn’t the most ideal or perfect railway system in the world debatably but it sure is the workhorse of a bustling population that doesn’t get as much praise for doing it’s job.

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