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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

The local political scene in San Francisco is beyond broken, but the idea that it's a failed city was always a media fabrication. Based on yet more terrible politics, but just political wish casting from outside of San Francisco.

To be surprised, you'd have to believe the media and propaganda more than your own eyes and ears.

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> but the idea that it's a failed city was always a media fabrication.

Let me copy a piece of my comment I already wrote as a reply to a different comment deeper in this thread:

> Homelessness, drugs, expensive housing, traffic, car break-ins, theft in broad daylight (you can steal up to I think $800 worth of stuff and not get punished), underground street racing gangs (they block intersections in broad daylight to do donuts and cops just stand there and watch unable to do anything about them), red light traffic cameras everywhere, paid freeway lanes, gender politics is being forced on elementary/middle school kids while science like math is being simplified (instead of encouraging smart kids to study harder material they bring curriculum to a lower level to match the level of kids who struggle with math).

So no, it’s not just “media fabrication”. San Francisco is in a state of chaos and lawlessness and it is getting worse.

From Parent:

> but the idea that it's a "failed city" was always a media fabrication.

And you mention:

"Things I don't like" does not make SF a failed city, it doesn't mean property values will fall (let alone go to zero) as everyone flees. It does mean that SF will continue being a city not for everyone.

> So no, it’s not just “media fabrication”. San Francisco is in a state of chaos and lawlessness and it is getting worse.

Again, that's really just your opinion and outlook, you don't have to live in SF, you probably don't.

First time driving through San Francisco I saw someone shooting up heroin on the sidewalk. Seen lots of stuff in NYC, Trenton, Camden, etc., but never such obvious issues with drug addiction and homelessness.

First time I was walking through Houston I saw a man shit on the sidewalk and fall into it. What was your point?

Everyone shits, not everyone does heroin.

Ever been to rural Wisconsin?

We definitely have what we like to call an 'opioid' problem here.

I lived in Houston from Rita to Harvey. Also had serious drug problems. Needles and all. There is no way other people living in Houston could not have noticed these issues. Homelessness, drugs, rampant crime.

For San Fran to be different from Houston, there would need to be something more.

It was an anecdotal example. Other examples I saw include drug paraphernalia (e.g. needles) littered all over the sidewalks, vast encampments of homeless people, and no police presence. Maybe a bad day? I've been to Houston many times and never seen anything like that. I've also seen shadier parts of NYC but the level of despair appeared much higher in SF.

Drove through Hollywood and saw a man pull over on a very busy and well-lit street, open his car door, and proceed to piss between his car and the busy sidewalk. That's just normal city stuff. Has a certain charm to it imo

The first time I saw someone shooting up in public was in Vancouver BC back in the 90s. But then I found out they had a bunch of safe needle exchanges and repositories and such.

If you are rich then San Francisco is not broken / failed. It is a great place: excellent private schools, nice wether, nice restaurants, etc.

South bay / peninsula have better private schools (even some good public ones), nicer weather, maybe fewer nicer restaurants though

South bay is car hell if you don't like to drive. There are plenty of reasons to want to live in SF rather than San Jose.

Most rich people mostly don’t have to drive. Sf is for young single/dinks and retirees

Really? I lived there. It felt pretty failed to me. Utter corruption at the planning department. Lawlessness, open injection of opioids in broad daylight on city streets. No police response for anything. People just stop reporting theft and property crime because police obviously don’t give a shit. Speaking of shit. All over the streets. Smash and grab theft so rampant that there’s a cop on every corner downtown during Christmas season. The only thing they can get done is the one city service that is cash flow positive. Writing you tickets for street cleaning. Honestly, couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

What part of sf do you still enjoy?

The solution is pretty simple, don't go to downtown. Downtown, at least many parts of it, is a containment zone for the homeless and the addicted and their various services. It's not that different from Skid Row/Flower District in DTLA.

You can enjoy Pac Heights, Noe, the Dogpatch, the Sunset, the Richmond, North Beach etc. etc. just fine without ever making contact with downtown, the same way most people don't hang out on 5th and San Pedro in LA and can still enjoy Silver Lake. You can pretend it doesn't exist and never cross paths, unless you really insist on spending quality time on 6th and Mission and other fine intersections.

Would I like it better if the Tenderloin was more Fifth Avenue and less World War Z? Sure, but that's not happening with the way SF politics work, so I might as well live with the cards we were dealt.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement lol. Where are the gay bars in SF?

In the Castro. Not downtown

A whole 1.5 miles away

A block is all you need.

I can tell you live in a land of sprawling strip malls if you think that's even remotely close in a city.

Interesting. So is there any reason tourists would check out downtown or is it a little like south Chicago?

What the media calls "Downtown" is really mostly offices. There also isn't really any district called "Downtown". There is FiDi (financial district), which is definitely all offices (dead on weekends), and SoMa (south of market), which is also mostly offices in the north-east part and ex-industrial/residential in the south-west part. Then there is the mid-Market area which has some newish residential development. Any remaining bars, restaurants etc are basically all just serving either the office crowd or the residents of SoMa (the former is getting smaller, so those businesses are unsurprisingly not doing so well). There is some stuff like a Target with an AMC and a convention center in SoMa too but that's basically it.

All the tourist attractions are in different, older parts of the city (Powell St, Embarcadero, etc). I don't see a reason a tourist would want to go to downtown (aka SoMa or FiDi).

Twin Peaks Tavern is located at 401 Castro St.

> The solution is pretty simple, don't go to downtown.

The city is what, 5 miles by 5 miles? This isn't LA where you just skip the bad parts your whole life.

It’s 7x7 and as it turns out, you can fit a lot of stuff if you don’t have highways and parking lots everywhere. A wild concept for Texans for whom the other opposite sidewalk may be a 6 minute drive away.

Or just no sidewalks. A company flew me to Dallas for a conference. Me and a colleague saw that the restaurant we wanted to go to was one block away, so no point in taking a taxi. Staff at the front desk looked at us like we were crazy. We found out why once we left the hotel: we had to walk on landscaping to get there, no pavement that wasn't road and absolutely nobody else out walking anywhere that could be seen.

Same happened to me when I interviewed in Austin. Had to walk through high grass on the median to get to a restaurant in the evening. Afterwards, someone told you that there occasionally were rattlesnakes living in the same grass…

The bad part of SF is about one square mile out of 49.

The Haight, Cole Valley, Hayes Valley, Chinatown, Valencia Street, the Sunset District, the Embarcadero, Van Ness Avenue, Ocean Beach, the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Park, Lake Merced, Mission Bay, Fort Mason etc.

I was harassed at the SF Public Library in the Civic Center so I do avoid the library. I drive through the Tenderloin although I try not to walk there.

Adding to the list... Alamo Square, Presidio, Twin Peaks, North Beach, Mission, Treasure Island, Castro, Noe Valley, Potrero Hill, Russian Hill, Financial District... and 10 others.

Its more insightful to ask about the parts of San Francisco that you don't enjoy. Oh, yes, there's one such area. It's one of the smallest in terms of geography but receives the most media attention.

You do bring up a good point though that a lot needs to get fixed even though the city is enjoyable, high up on my list.

1. Crime 2. Education 3. Cleanliness 4. Illogical supervisors who harm not help the city 5. Dirt bikers riding in city illegally for the sole purpose of harassing others

Police not giving a shit actually has a reason. I know that many officers quit SFPD because they grew tired of the DA not prosecuting anything. Criminals know this and openly taunt cops. So the best cops who actually cared have quit the force. Source: know people at a South Bay police department that has a lot of SFPD refugees.

That DA was recalled more than 18 months ago. The excuse is starting to wear thin.

And the real reason cops went after him (to the extent of refusing to participate in a raid on a shop used for fencing stolen goods: https://sfist.com/2022/05/23/report-sfpd-refused-to-particip...) was that he wanted to hold corrupt cops accountable. Now that he's gone, police have what they want and they went back to doing nothing.

> The local political scene in San Francisco is beyond broken

Real question here, is there a city who's residents don't say this?

Copenhagen?

Maybe if they don't know what happens on the backstage.

There are myriad

Yes, many I say. When you see the poverty, malcontent, and crime right before your eyes every day on the streets of your city, it is a problem. Atlanta does not have the level of open lawlessness than San Francisco does. Atlanta has its problems but it's a nice place to live for anyone. San Francisco is only a place to live for the wealthy, everyone else is crushed by the insanity.

Atlanta has more violent crime than San Francisco (as do many other cities). The one crime where San Francisco really stands out is theft, everything else is more or less middle of the pack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Atlanta has a lot more violent crime than any west coast city. Easier to get murdered there as well.

> a media fabrication.

it's in the interest of the right-wing media to push the narrative that san fran is failing due to the left's "interference".

this isn’t reduced to something so basic as “right wing media.”

there was a real problem. the city as a whole thought it and voted to recall their district attorney for his policies of not prosecuting crimes

Is it?

I used to live there and now I don't.

The homeless situation really did get out of control after 2015 or so. I hear it's only gotten worse.

Maybe owning a home shouldn't take longer than a SWE's working lifespan.

If you're very wealthy and can afford to be isolated in SF, it's probably still a lovely experience.

Not sure why you are downvoted. I lived there 8 years, relocated to the east side (because of work initially but decided to stay) and would never want to (or even be able to afford) to come back. Homelessness, drugs, expensive housing, traffic, car break-ins, theft in broad daylight (you can steal up to I think $800 worth of stuff and not get punished), underground street racing gangs (they block intersections in broad daylight to do donuts and cops just stand there and watch unable to do anything about them), red light traffic cameras everywhere, paid freeway lanes, gender politics is being forced on elementary/middle school kids while science like math is being simplified (instead of encouraging smart kids to study harder material they bring curriculum to a lower level to match the level of kids who struggle with math) - it’s not a city where I would want to raise children in.

Pardon my poor English.

How to tell someone you haven't visited SF since 2021, without telling them

It’s easy to dismiss everyone who doesn’t like being surrounded by fentanyl and meth addiction and crime as “right wing,” but it just makes them sound pretty sensible.

All my friends moved away over a span of about three years. I held on as long as I could but I finally threw in the towel too.

Easy way to tell which longtime SF residents have Stockholm Syndrome: they blame everything that is completely broken in the city on "right wing media."

you'd have to believe the media and propaganda more than your own eyes and ears.

So basically, you'd have to be any human. We parrot propaganda all the time. Rarely is any of it fact based.

You don't need facts to get people to buy into your narrative. You just need a story that fits your world view. Truth or falsehood is largely irrelevant.

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