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Comment by jimt1234 | Hacker News Reader

Where did this recent-ish "hellscape" reputation come from? San Francisco has always been a "hellscape"; there's always been homeless, crime, drugs, etc. I've been going into San Francisco since the 80s and it doesn't seem like much has changed. If anything, I think I've/we've changed to be less tolerant of that stuff. Maybe that's just part of everyone getting older. Or, maybe everyone moved to San Francisco expecting it to be paradise, but quickly discovered it has problems just like every other city. Or, maybe the reputation is just a boogeyman created by politicians and political pundits. Not sure.

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The downtown area felt almost as busy as manhattan pre-covid, that crowd never recovered and the "homeless"/"crazies" have expanded their turf.

And I live in Manhattan now. Sure, there’s a bunch of office vacancies, but when it comes to foot traffic it looks like it’s 100% recovered.

Can’t say the same about FiDi in SF

FiDi is always dead.

Even before covid, the hardware store on Pine was closed on random weekdays. Now at least it's open all weekdays, 8-2.

So things are improving, I guess.

Newsom is going to run for president soon. Half the articles you see about how horrible SF is include references to 'Newsom's San Francisco' even though it's been a dozen years and 3 mayors since his tenure.

To paraphrase Mark Twain:

https://sfist.com/2023/07/07/san-francisco-was-declared-dead...

The difference now is that we've turned partisan rhetoric up to eleven, demonized intellectuals, and facilitated instant communication between strangers. It's always been a "hellscape", but the discourse now just fucking sucks because it's so easy to broadcast your dumbass hot take everywhere.

You obviously haven’t been back recently. I recommend you check it out for yourself. Walk around downtown, duck into soma for a bit. It looks like the apocalypse. Visit the public injection site and watch people shoot up in public, in broad daylight. Step over the human feces. Walk into any store downtown and see every single thing under lock and key because otherwise people just walk in and make off with it.

I was downtown in December and there were two cops on every corner. They were trying to get a handle on the rampant smash and grabs. Which is laughable because while there were dozens of cops you could see em for a mile so the criminals just shifted their targets a bit. Without police and prosecutor follow through presence is useless.

There’s a feeling that crime can be committed with impunity. Seriously if you think this is made up, go check it out, it’s actually kinda cool to go to a place where society is collapsing. A novel experience if nothing else. Feels a little like mad max.

> Maybe that's just part of everyone getting older.

There's younger people to replace the older people.

Except, in this case, there aren’t. WFH + a nonexistent job market for CS grads means that there isn’t much of an influx.

You need to tall them that.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/06/30/san-franciscos-a-i-boo...

I had to wait in line for my latte today. An it’s not even hipbrew.

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but “Cerebral Valley” is pure cringe. It has the energy of a third tier tech city like Boise or Vegas trying to “make it”.

You may not like the branding but any other metro region would kill to have the density of startup activity that Hayes Valley is spawning right now.

Obviously most of these startups won't make it long term, but some will, and the connections that are being made among the participants will be an important part of tech for the next decade. I've heard many people observe they haven't felt anything like this vibe in the tech community in a long time.

What's happening in this part of SF (not just Hayes Valley, but more broadly) is definitely important.

A lot of it seems to be the machinery behind the Chesa Boudin recall taking on a life of its own by tapping into a previously-unknown donor base for right-wing causes in California.

It's never been like this. Are you afraid of cities? Sf used to be a nice place to visit.

I lived in San Francisco for the summer of '92. I couldn't get friends/family to visit from Modesto; everyone said basically the same thing as today: too expensive (even to visit), too much crime, too many "crazy people" (90s for "homeless"), and so on.

I honestly don't think San Francisco is any worse than it was 30 years ago; I just think perceptions and narratives have changed.

Unsheltered homeless count is up 65% since 2005 [1], and property crime has doubled since 2009 [2].

So there's a reason people think SF is going downhill.

A 1991 paper [3] estimates homelessness at 535.1/100,000, about half the current rate [4].

[1] https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population

[2] https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1749371/

[4] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis...

  So there's a reason people think SF is going downhill.

Something to do with using scarce housing stock for short-term rentals instead of housing residents I assume.

Humans are great at short term trends and terrible at long term numbers I guess.

Edit; three months ago the weather was so much cooler, at this rate it will be 150F on Xmas!

You obviously haven’t been recently. Go check it out. I’ll accept your apology when you return.

But that doesn’t make it “good.”

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