These are all great, I love city life and would embrace every single item, but without addressing the dramatic decline in public safety in virtually all US cities, none of these will matter at all.
During the 70s in the Netherlands there were massive protests called 'Stop the Child murder', because cars were killing too many children on bicycles. This was actually a conservative protest, because people were used to safe streets and simply did not accept that cars started killing their children.
That said, this understanding is very unevenly distributed, in large part because our neighborhood also gets more police attention and is generally very safe.
One thing I've noticed that makes biking/walking in conjunction with cars much safer is the construction of road-sized sidewalks with clear delineators, where pedestrians and cyclists can safely pass. In Helsinki, biking was a joy, despite the busy streets nearby. I saw the same organization in many parts of Israel—big sidewalks with a section designated for bicycles, scooters, and e-mobility devices. In many of the small cities surrounding Stockholm, dedicated bike paths with their lighting were located adjacent to the main roads.
Around where I live, there is a three-lane main thoroughfare that has two lanes for travel and one lane for turning. There are sidewalks along this road, but they are functionally destroyed by the roots of trees growing near them.
This could become more bicycle-friendly if roundabouts were installed at major intersections and the sidewalks were expanded to accommodate pedestrian/bicycle use. Although if they did, I could hear the screams about how the roundabouts are impeding traffic flow for commuters and removing all the sidewalk-destroying trees.
I agree with the people who say it's not that we can't do it, it's that we won't do it.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/us-c...
Property crime is down similarly.
I understand that some people feel so afraid of homeless people or street addicts that they assume they must be in danger whenever they witness such poverty, but crime statistics do not support this opinion.
I’ve seen posters complaining about unreported crimes on here in response to posts citing studies that directly and prominently address that exact problem, because I guess they just assume everyone in the social sciences is a total dipshit who can’t possibly have thought of this obvious thing (and didn’t bother to read the study and perhaps learn something).
Victimization surveys agree with police report data. Crime’s down in general, way down in some cities, and violent crime especially is down, versus the 90s, and very much so versus any decade before that. There’s been a little bump post-Covid but it’s not ongoing and last I checked it was trending back down again, and it wasn’t anywhere near wiping out the progress from before.
In terms of actual crime, we're doing about as well as we were back in the late '50s.
You sound like many people here in Seattle who gripe about "public safety", but this is a very safe city - it's kind of absurd. When you press them on it, you find out that they simply don't like to look at homeless people, or junkies, and they mistake the discomfort they feel when witnessing such sights for actual danger.
Statistics show that homeless people and street junkies are far more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crime. Merely seeing them does not harm you; nor are they likely to do anything which would harm you.
I would, however, try to keep any safe area with good foot traffic that way, or even increase foot traffic.
Life isn’t perfect, and we have serious problems like any other city, but I took my kids bike riding through downtown yesterday evening and felt safe.
I lived there for a few years, and while the river walks were very pleasant, I don’t have much to say about it particularly otherwise.
The job market was pretty bad, basically limiting you to State gov or one of the handful of insurance companies around and state government work is rough (easily the most fulfilling job I’ve had, but the salary was just way too low.
Seems hard to justify with GA and NC markets nearby unless you’re staying solely for CoL or existing ties.
But the Bull Street district is in a totally different place from when you were here, which creates a feeling of “coming liveliness.”
Also Scout Motors is dropping a multi billion dollar plant in Columbia which will help job market
Definitely not Greenville, but we are getting there.
The actual visible stuff (homeless people, trash, smell of public urination, people on drugs in public, people being mentally ill in public, shoplifting) is up. And both violent crime and rich people are more evenly distributed around the city so the “violent crime near a rich person” is up. And so people react to those.
That's like saying the economy is up from the 1930s.
Personally I think two things are true, crime ain't that bad and you're basically framing the problem to let you lie through your teeth a politican.
I’m not saying crime or homelessness don’t exist, but urban LA is just not representative.
It is shocking that the richest state in the history of the world can’t figure out how to help the people with nowhere to go.
Fast forward five years, the place is a shithole. Roach-infested, apartments severely damaged and filthy, needles and garbage everywhere. Police, fire, and EMS spending a disproportonate amount of resources there.
People who are chronically homeless and addicted do not know how to live in houses. If you give them housing they will destroy it or they people they associate with will destroy it.
Sobriety has to come first. Some people won't accept that. At some point you have to stop accomodating their behavior and just say "no, that is not an acceptable way to live, and you can't do that here."
I never understand these kinds of sentiments on the Internet. Was nobody actually alive in the 90s? Have no memories? All rich white kids who grew up sheltered in the suburbs? Is Hacker News just super European and it was way better there? I get that California closed all of the state mental hospitals 35 years ago and now you have to actually see crazy people shitting on the street near your office building, but the overall reality is so immeasurably better than it was then that you guys make me feel like I'm being Mandela Effected. I somehow slipped into the timeline where Los Angeles and San Francisco weren't gang-infested murdervilles suffering from drug and disease epidemics with barely breathable air 40 years ago but were actually paradises.
Like you're talking about the Walk of Fame? Hollywood Blvd has been public drug use, street walkers, sex shops, theaters where Pee Wee Herman might cum on you, for as long as it's existed. Pretty Woman wasn't making it up except they weren't actually as attractive as Julia Roberts.
Yet my point still stands, how can the worlds richest state not fix this?
Can you expand on this? What timeframe? Which cities? Which crimes?
Violent crime is down precipitously in pretty much every US city right now.
I'm reminded of being on an airplane sitting next to a cop who told me, "Did you know that Chicago is the murder capitol of the world?". It was fun to show her that Chicago isn't actually even in the top 10 of the US in terms of homicide.
Where do you get your news from that makes you think crime is going up?
[0] https://news.wttw.com/2025/07/11/shootings-homicides-chicago...
[1] https://chicagocrusader.com/violent-crime-in-chicago-sees-bi...
[2] https://www.wbez.org/cpd/2025/05/01/chicago-hasnt-seen-an-ap...
It wasn't the first or last car theft we witnessed.
Chicago is safe 90% of the time. Statistically speaking, you won't be a victim of a crime. That doesn't mean the crime isn't happening and it doesn't mean it's getting properly reported either. Crime is here.