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Comment by flappyeagle | Hacker News Reader

There are enough comments on here that I am probably not adding much new, but I lived in SF for 10 years until recently. When I arrived (from New York City) I thought — hey, it's a bit sketchy but not so bad overall. I think it got progressively worse every year.

I have no idea what policy changes would help, but it's the only place I've ever been where I saw crime being committed in broad daylight. It's the only place where leaving anything within sight in a parked car results in a break-in. A fucking bag of potato chips once.

There are nice parts; the higher your physical elevation, the less chance of your being affected by crime. Literally people living their ivory towers watching their city burn.

At the end of the day, it's a democracy. The voters get what they deserve. Remote work is here — the tax base is on its way out, or retreating to high ground.

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Having seen Toronto spiraling into the same mayhem of random vagrant street violence in the same moment when rents exploded, I'm firmly with the housing advocates on this:

People think mental health causes homelessness, but it looks increasingly like it's the other way around -- cities with bad housing crises and insufficient shelter systems (NYC is notable for having an excellent shelter system compared to its peers) end up with people who hit rock bottom and become destructive out on the street when they'd be trying to get their lives together if they had a place to live.

If people can't grapple with their demons in the privacy of their own homes, they will grapple with them on the subway and we'll all be collateral damage.

Toronto's justice system has also become much more lenient to criminals in the last 8 years or so.

I think that’s a plausible theory and good analysis. I also think another factor is crime goes where the supply is.

Agree with this 100%. If you agree, in theory, that there will always be an element of crime, why wouldn't criminals go to where they'd have it the easiest?

I think you're overestimating the mobility and scope of worldview of the average criminal.

I agree, criminals are dumb. But to say they're not mobile is false: vagrants are mobile.

Scope of worldview? I don't know. I'm not sure but I don't think it matters, because it's like a market effect: they don't need to understand the dynamic to be subject to the dynamic.

I think the problem is when people are incapable of grappling with their demons even in the privacy of their own homes. If given a place to stay, many people _choose_ to use it for non-productive things. Surely, exploding housing prices make things worse, but it's also easy enough to see why productive members of society want to distance themselves from this destructive behavior. After all, even the excellent shelter that you claim for NYC doesn't really seem to have resulted in paradise.

If you're talking about initiatives to house the homeless, I don't think it's just about "being given a place to stay". People who have gotten to the point where they lose their place in the first place are already traumatized, and likely to lose any sense of security from having another place.

Add to that, housing designed for recently-homeless people is not conducive to improving oneself, and the other resources they need in conjunction with that are often absent, or scarce.

No, but NYC has far, far better street-crime situation than SF.

Understood. I'm not arguing against providing housing for the homeless (although I'm also not sure I'd argue for it). My point is more that (as with everything else) one can look at "strongly rising rents" as either a cause or an effect. The left-wing point-of-view is that it's a cause, which then leads to homelessness and the problems associated with it. On the other hand, right-wing folks might be more inclined to think of it as an effect of some other problem (e.g., a populace in which an increasing percentage of people is unproductive). Both points-of-view strike me as having merit.

> but it's also easy enough to see why productive members of society want to distance themselves from this destructive behavior.

Classic game theory: "fuck you, got mine". When everyone in a society just looks out for themselves instead of for their fellow citizens as well, you get precisely what happens in SF - although there are external factors making the issue worse, such as Republiqan mayors busing out the homeless to Democrat/progressive areas or harassing and demonizing them until they leave on their own.

I used to live near the top of Buena Vista. The way the chaos of Haight, Castro, Mission neighborhoods would fade away as I climbed the hill towards my place was always a poignant experience. Calm and serene at the top, carnage below.

>It's the only place where leaving anything within sight in a parked car results in a break-in. A fucking bag of potato chips once.

Another signal that tremendous wealth inequality in a confined region is a microcosm of what's at the root of similar outcomes around the US?

Many in the comments seem to blame local politics/policies when it's clear the major contributing factors are inflation, economic downturns, mass layoffs, etc... these have been a long time coming, were never evenly geographically distributed, and aren't created or solvable at the local political level.

The relatively minor recent attempts at criminal justice reform being used as the scapegoat for these outcomes is a distraction at best.

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