Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop
curbed.com
curbed.com
In summation, I’m a city guy and I like living in cities, and despite my political differences, I made my peace with the situation and greatly enjoy the restaurants, museums, events, and so on that city life provides.
That said, I cannot possibly understand how people can think SF is desirable. Your tax dollars that aren’t stolen by this-or-that office or agency or politically connected consultant are being incinerated as quickly as possible. How many bonds and tax increases have been issued specifically to alleviate poverty and drugs and homelessness and what is the ROI of this spending? It seems like no one gives a shit and the worse things get the more the distortion of what “normal” city life is gets turned up. What a crazy situation you SFers got yourself into.
The real question is, how many of them are actually progressive, and how many are just people using the right buzzwords? SF sure looks like a lot of the latter, given the chokehold that NIMBYism has over any and all new construction that might actually help with the city's cost-of-living issues.
A lot of "progressive" policies that people are worried about have little actual impact, especially when the price of housing is completely ridiculous and creates so many problems on its own.
It all comes back to housing. If you have a desirable place, people want to live there, and at some point if you don't keep up with growth then your city starts to lose the really important people that kept it running (nurses, teachers, police officers, etc).
It's not like SF almost kept up with growth... They didn't try and fell so far behind in a deliberate attempt to keep a status quo, which completely led to the current disaster.
Asserting that e.g. people pooping in the street is caused strictly by expensive housing would require some mental gymnastics IMO, there are simpler explanations and simpler ways out, without blocking on solving the expensive housing problem. If for example we ended up with a nice peaceful city but the police budget was really really high (so they could live locally), that would be a much less hairy problem than we have today I think. Nice peaceful city tends to generate more tax revenue also.
> Asserting that e.g. people pooping in the street is caused strictly by expensive housing would require some mental gymnastics
Key word being strictly, i.e. expensive housing is the cause of street pooping, and there is ultimately no other way to prevent street pooping other than to reduce housing costs broadly.
Raising police salaries is obviously a much easier problem to solve, right? It is something that is already under government control and it can be modeled using a simple spreadsheet. Housing cost on the other hand is not really possible to model accurately, the system is too complex and has too many inputs.
Also like any other job, the best way to get good police officers is to have lots of competition. If you are desperate for staffing, you aren't getting the best.
That is a better solution than building more housing?
A community is a social construct, you have to keep a lot of things in balance for it to work properly. The most important part is giving people a roof over their heads. Overpaying for police (or teachers, or nurses, etc) isn't going to save the day. It's the same reason you can't buy your way out of the homelessness problem!
That would mean if they suddenly came into power in SF they would fight to keep the doom loop stabilized.
SF is essentially a single party system. Everyone has to run Democrat, even the conservatives. It continues down to liberal hypocrisy in the citizenry, which mirrors the conservative hypocrisy. Every abortion is immoral except the one I need, everyone deserves affordable housing except in my neighborhood.
The end-to-end government in SF, which would include the state and federal, is not meaningfully progressive. It’s extremely progressive on visible, local issues. But it’s to such a point it’s absurd. This is how you end up with a very conservative tax system while petty property crime is de facto legal.
People who claim to be progressive are so because to claim otherwise would invite significant social stigma. It's all lip service. Sure, if we were talking 15 yr olds, maybe those are true believers... but they don't tend to get elected to city councils and zoning boards.
But yea, I'm sure it's those damn people who like their backyard causing this crisis!!! In my opinion, this anti-NIMBY push is likely supported by these megalithic property owners. They’ve run out of units to buy and can no longer grow their cash flow. The solution to this problem is to take property from existing property owners. Pretty much all legislation in this countries happens with support or approval from corporate interests. It would not surprise me at all to find out corporate interests were the driving force that is compelling the state to override local zoning ordinances.
Another thing to consider is, why is the proposed solution forcing local governments to give up their zoning rights? Why don’t we force real estate investors to give up some of their units so people have a place to live? How can some people own thousands of units before others have even one?
0: https://www.fastcompany.com/90792419/12-mega-landlords-own-m...
From the linked SF Chronicle article.
Third paragraph. But also, from your link “we’re confident this list of 12 includes some of the region’s major power players in residential real estate, housing tens of thousands of families in nearly 7,000 assessor-defined properties from San Jose to Santa Rosa”.
7k / 2.3M = 0.3%
I know the human shit aspect of SF gets called out a lot, but it seems perfectly representative. The city won’t arrest humans shitting in the streets and can’t figure out how to stop it humanely so they allow it. And the citizens defend the practice as if there’s nothing possible to fix it.
So as a result you have to either deal with human shit as part of your life, or leave. The city won’t fix it. They won’t choose to arrest and institutionalize active drug scenes.
I don’t in SF but I spent a few months there in total over the years and really liked it. But I can’t imagine a reasonable person staying.
But maybe we’ll have some cool robocop style movies for when the city finally breaks down into mad max style real chaos.
The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! <https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...> The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.
On a side note, how is Austin? Any death spirals over there?
It’s a story that has played out time and time again on small scales in many places, and it’s not particularly unique to SF.
I guess I'm not even sure what drove the homeless to sf in the first place.. was it mild weather and lax law enforcement?
https://www.nola.com/news/weather/strong-line-of-storms-prom...
San Francisco offers a dense cluster of educated people and economic resources (see agglomeration economics) that will at some point create innovation or internally produced resources.
Of course, in a nation of free movement, those who can find opportunity elsewhere may do so leaving the city with declining ability to fund its services to those who remain.
In short, my opinion: 1. San Francisco has incredible capital. Universities, tight knit communities, diversity, transit, and status as a center of global trade. It will take significant decline in this capital to undermine SF's ability to recover.
2. A solution, in my view, comes from multiple levels of government, but essentially steering the incredible resources of SF to sources of non-hyperbolic, but resilient growth. These solutions are fairly obvious, but face resistance in the current form of governance. Enabling enough housing supply such that more diverse economic participants may live within SF, Nurturing, and regulating regional/ smaller banks who are responsible for providing capital to small businesses. I would be keen to see the Bay Area region push for manufacturing, which introduces capital to the area, and provides solid employment to non-college educated workforce. Lastly, crime enforcement (breathes life to small businesses and enables tourism,)
3. My more wild idea of a sector to push: convert parking garages etc. into high intensity agricultural research operations. Use the capital in the central valley and knowledge economy to solve California's existential agricultural problems
The rumors of San Francisco death are exaggerated. They are also self-fulfilling because they discourage people from investing in the community.
My advice to techies: move West. Take a pottery class and eat a dumpling. Make friends with artists. It’s a richly cultural city once you get out of the bubble.
SoMa was definitely the epicenter of "woah" but the "woah" was by no means isolated to that area.
This was all pre-covid - I didn't stick around to see if it would get worse.
I've got hundreds more stories of people getting into fights on my morning train (the J), or just doing strange things to everyone around them while everybody keeps their heads down praying it will end soon so they can just get to work.
SF is undeniably fun and pretty, and honestly an amazing place - I even saw Tim Schafer on my morning train once but didn't want to bother him. However, between the intensity of daily life and the intensity of cost of living I can't recommend it to anyone who isn't a young millionaire, or literally 2 years from that outcome. My favorite parts were the west side like you recommend though.
>We moved to Noe Valley and then a random dude broke into our house by smashing glass and opening the door.
This happened 2 months into COVID, and then I moved away soon after
Car breakins, violent street encounters, general lawlessness has definitely increased in the outlying areas.
It’s not horrible mind you, just more prevalent than say 5 years ago.
There are also long term changes playing out. The Baby Boom flooded SF with weird energy. Today young people are less numerous and not as freaked out. The Crack Boom was in some ways similar to the Fentanyl, opioid, and meth craziness but back then the users tended to flame out violently instead of stumbling around like zombies. No es bueno.
As the HIV epidemic has played out at this point much of a generation of gay people have been killed off or disabled. In the past the need to mingle to meet others drove an intense urban subculture. Nowadays Internet dating serves similar needs but works differently and rarely if ever fills public spaces.
25 years ago you didn’t go to Dolores Park because it was a dump. Now Valley was working class, Glen Park was awful.
Now those places are havens for the young and rich.
There is no reason why those times can’t return.
Whereas the complaints that come from outsiders are vague culture war talking points that transparently originate from fear/outrage media. Vague and generic driveby comments about how it's wholly unsafe and going to hell.
The cities I've lived in or visited frequently, the locals who aren't looking for trouble feel safe and don't find it difficult or burdensome to avoid unsafe areas/behaviors.
We sent a police report into the void knowing from several other anecdotes that nothing will be done.
We have no interest in going back, and wouldn’t recommend it to others.
How is that healthy for a city?
The rationalization of the current status cannot overcome reality; people and businesses simply leave [2]
It is really is very simple, just visit the city to see what has become of it.
Walk around and have a "lived experience" is really the best education.
Visit our wonderful Main Library but before they open, come greet the morning with our welcoming citizens on 7th Street and Market. You may have to stoop a bit as some folks on oversees synthetics have a bad hangover. [3]
Money is not going to solve it AND where in the hell is it going to anyway? [4]
Blaming does not solve anything, but regret, shame and utter disgust is my first step out of denial of this sh*t show.
And to those who have their head in the sand viewing our beautiful utopia out in sunny Noe Valley or Outer Sunset, just you wait until the delusion is shattered...
[1] The minority group being referred to here are natives or residents who actually live and care about the city and see what it has become over years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto
[2] Businesses: https://youtu.be/kvsGqG1pMN8 People: https://www.axios.com/2023/04/07/population-change-pandemic
[3] Where in the world can you get good cheap chemistry? https://youtu.be/z6iW1poC-0c
[4] $100K per serviced client = ($848.4 million - admin costs) /~8k = https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population https://sf.gov/data/our-city-our-home-fund-6-month-report-fi...
No municipality can fix this problem, regardless of the local politics, because to be the first city to solve it would mean that they'd find out they have so many more homeless people in the coming weeks and months. The homeless aren't stupid, and they aren't chained to the ground where ever it is they have to be right now. If they heard of a magical place where homelessness was solved, they'd hitchhike there, or panhandle for a bus ticket, or if no other options just hoof it the whole way.
Suddenly, this city finds out that they allocated the funding for 100% of their homelessness needs... but now they have twice as many. Five times as many. Is there even an upper limit?
And cities and townships everywhere else are getting bright ideas like that they can be rid of their homeless too, if they're willing to splurge on a bus ticket for them.
If you were mayor of this city, the city where you could get the bill passed to fix homelessness, would you do it? It must be in the back of your mind that any attempt to fix it will result in this embarrassing calamity. Whether you are Democrat or Republican (or anything else). Maybe it'd be better to just not bother. And so you don't. If you're on the left, you pretend to be really empathetic, if on the right you just give a really stern speech about how everyone needs to take care of themselves. Then you let it go.
This remains true, no matter what the details are for your fix for homelessness. There might even be many possible fixes, but none of them can be tried (and if some unclever local politician does try, they'll just end up making it look like it failed when it does backfire).
The solution is quite simple, cheap, boring, and unobjectionable to anyone who might hear it. But being those things, it also elicits a reaction of "how could it be so, people have been trying to solve this for years!". If anyone can find me a city manager or city council or mayor who'd listen for 15 minutes, they could be a hero that goes down in the history books.
What is it? Genuinely curious, because I’ve done the same thought experiment as you about how little control individual cities have.
With no city government having to figure out how to solve homelessness for the entire nation, I'm not sure what they'll come up with. The problem will be financially tractable and with 10,000 or more out there, at least a few will start to solve it for real.
All that's needed is a framework so that they aren't forced to choose between never being able to solve it for fear that solving it increases their population of homeless by x50 or just ignoring it. It's not rocket science.
The truth is though, none of you deserve it. All the horrible things that happen, humanity deserves. And more. You can't figure these things out because you're fundamentally flawed, and may not even be an intelligent species in any meaningful sense of the term. Vote me down some more, I love it.
- count the homeless
- ask them real nicely to stay put
- ???
- homelessness is solved
But if they want help, then there is a place (or maybe several) that they have deep enough connections to that its government is the one that is obligated to help. Everyone agrees that this government is the one with the obligations.
Do you always have such bad takes?
Spoiler: cities already do count their homeless. That hasn't solved anything.
It doesn't mean that San Francisco has the obligation to provide any sort of welfare to such a person.
Spoiler spoiler: They do fake censuses, because misreporting numbers is politically valuable. And a census isn't just a plain counting of the number, just as the US Census isn't. Details are taken down. These are needed here. It solves the only problem that must be solved first.
America doesn’t run on morals. I don’t think any country runs on morals. Largely because nobody has the same set of morals. What are the laws you’d enact.
If a city claims “moral responsibility” for 100 homeless and 100 more move in, do they get a one way bus ticket out of town? Locked up?
Yeh, if the city claims moral responsibility for those 100, and if the other 100 move in and don't meet the criteria, then yes... they get to say "tough luck, you're not our problem".
The city might still choose to offer the bus ticket, if they found out that another city is obligated. Or they might not. That's up to them.
They might not even do anything about the 100 that they do agree are theirs. There are thousands of municipal governments, and some are quite callous.
As far as locked up, I do not know. There are laws on the books about vagrancy still, though those have been challenged multiple times by various courts, so I think that'd be rare or non-existent.
The policy I propose is bureaucratic, and boring. It doesn't criminalize anything. It's just a checklist of how a homeless person would (or wouldn't) qualify for any sorts of benefits the city government might decide to provide in the future. That's all that's needed. If this policy apportions the homeless in such a way that a town of 3600 residents has a number that their resources can handle, and a large city of millions can handle, and every size in between such that some large percentage (above 98%) are apportioned to at least one municipality, that's all that's needed. The logjam is broken, and more common legislative processes will eventually arrive at solutions that see them sleeping in beds instead of gutters and dumpsters.
There are caveats. This doesn't work so well in isolated places. Hawaii and Alaska... no clue with them. Their problems probably stay where they are now. Mainland North American, maybe continental Europe would see a large reduction in the problem. But then there's that 1 or 2% who don't get apportioned anywhere... personally I'd hope that with the problem having been reduced 50fold already, the federal government would step in and take care of the remainder. That's probably foolish of me.