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Comment by anm89 | Hacker News Reader

I agree but I think this also understates the importance of just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.

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I didn't mention this in my comment as it was more about the broad trends in every city rather than SF/NYC specifically.

Typically for a group that got tired of a city and moved out, there would be a new group that is ready to fill their place. Thing is no one wants to move to SF given the situation (crime, COL, homeless, etc). Now for all the folks that will say "it's not that bad" I say that it doesn't really matter. If you're moving to a city, your opinion and view of the city is largely dictated by what you see/hear from friends, relatives, on the news, etc. Even if SF wasn't "that bad", it still doesn't matter, because the perception is more important for gaining residents than the actual situation IMO.

Exactly. And the problem is even if I want to stay, once my entire social group has left during the pandemic since none of us were old enough to have mortgages or kids, well, this all kind of sucks right now. All the people I work with have kids and mortgages and have enjoyed flitting up to Tahoe for the past two years, but I'm not from the state but was required to work within it for the past year anyway. Well, my life here is pretty shitty right now, and as soon as I could really start doing things, it was time to start a hybrid model designed with people with kids and mortgages in mind. Traditionally, these folks have a lot of leverage over their younger counterparts, which we're finding is not holding.

The issue is that Gen X is small, so they don't have a lot of leverage if the only other two generations in the market just leave town. Unless it's their opinion that Californians are just better, but of course, now we're back to the shrinking schools problem. It's difficult for me to imagine how California rebounds without losing a lot more ground first. Probably the best thing that could happen for people from the part of the country I grew up in, if we're actually concerned with equity though.

Also, when you pick a place to move to in this huge country, "it's not that bad" isn't going to be chosen, even if true.

I think you're right about perception to people considering going there. But I really think it just comes down to cost. Cities have gotten exorbitantly expensive.

It doesn't make financial sense to stay in SF if you're salary stays the same in Texas and your company is remote. Unless there is some specific reason to live there - you like the vibe, or it's where you were born, or some other reason (weather).

I think it's good that we have this shakeup. Change is a good thing, and I think a lot of cities need some change.

I think your argument ignores that fact that in other cities, you drive by the social problems, whereas in SF you walk through them.

Nobody complains about the homeless people who live under the Las Vegas Strip because they are unseen, but per capita, some studies imply Las Vegas has a much worse problem than SF.

I see this argument constantly, that the streets run brown with human feces. I worked in SOMA for a decade, I would commute every day on BART and would walk from Montgomery Street Station or Embarcadero or Civic Center or 16th Street to wherever my office was at the time (different companies, different offices).

SOMA was always pretty clean, Civic Center a bit more hit or miss, 16th Street was generally a bit dirtier and rougher.

The number of times I encountered human feces though was very low, like not even a monthly occurrence. Now I'm sure there's parts of San Francisco that are worse than others, and the walk from 16th Street BART to Potrero Hill would take me past plenty of homeless people camped out on the sidewalks, but I rarely if ever encountered human feces.

But every. single. time. San Francisco comes up, it's the same tired line, "Oh I couldn't deal with the absolute deluge of human feces" which like cool, neither could I and it was fine because what the heck is everyone talking about. I'm not going to claim that every sidewalk and roadway is completely free of poo, but as someone that managed a team of people and would frequently go for walking meetings all around San Francisco, it was never my experience.

This comment is absurd to someone living in a small metro area. There should not ever be human shit encountered on a sidewalk. Not once every couple months; never. You've been living in absurdity for so long that you've lost sight of it.

If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you hope?

Right, which is why you get out while things are still liquid

Just pointing this out. This post was quickly up +4 and then instantly went down to -1. Someone seems to be brigading here.

He doesn't live in San Francisco but is claiming that if he commuted to work he would always see human feces on the ground. He provides no evidence, not even a personal experience

What do you want? Pictures? This is commonly known to be an issue there. If I was there right now, I'd say give me 5 minutes and I'll post a picture. Was in SF last week. If you do a lot of walking there, you WILL see not only a shit, but someone actively shitting.

Edit: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...

That's not an indication of frequency which is what matters.

Granted I've only spent about 6 months of my life living in SF, but I did a decent amount of walking around and never saw human feces.

Same. We lived in SF for 10 years and saw something like that maybe twice? On the whole the city is pretty clean, and most of the dirtiness is because it rarely rains. That's what's keeping many of the other popular cities looking cleaner.

For reference we've been in DC for a year now and we saw someone literally pull their pants down and poop in the middle of the sidewalk the other day. I don't think that's any indication of the city though.

I think it's the kind of thing where many folks visiting would end up in the rougher part of downtown, see something unfortunate, and not really experience the rest of the city. And then the whole city is painted with that brush.

The bay area has many problems (housing policy is probably the worst in the country), but it's also a beautiful and vibrant place to live.

I'm genuinely curious, where do you live and do you 'do a lot of walking' there too?

Midwest. 0 walking here.

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