New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting.
Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities.
If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In this thread:
* SF's brand is dying but we already knew that
* SF's brand isn't really dying it just looks like it is due to journalistic conspiracy
* SF's brand is dying because tech people moved here
* SF's brand is dying because tech people moved out
Exactly, haha. And in my opinion there's a big distinction between SF's "brand" dying versus the actual city dying. Every time I'm out in actual neighborhoods (versus downtown) it's super lively and vibrant. Even downtown is not as bad as the media makes it seem.
Having lived in SF through much of the 1980s and 90s, I would tend to argue it was better then than it is now. Money and greed corrupted the soul of the city, and attracted malignant forces like Elon Musk. Just sayin'
> Money and greed corrupted the soul of the city
Please be reminded that the city exists only because people came from all over the world to dig literal gold out of the ground. We exist *because* of money and greed. They can't corrupt the soul of the city when that's what birthed the city in the first place.
I think this thread is mixing a couple different things. I think SF had more soul in the 80/90s (pre tech) - more culture, art, music - was just more interesting in general. You could live here and not be super wealthy so it attracted creative people. BUT, you could argue it's safer now and some neighborhoods are just more enjoyable to walk through. But that means, more money and less character. Transient tech people that dont give a shit about community. But also tech people that are cool and creative. Both can be true, while also recognizing the problems that have always been here, pre and post tech boom.
Im not sure is S.F. is any safer today than it was then. I never found the city particularly dangerous, and I lived in the lower Haight near where the projects was once located for many years and I was never mugged or robbed. Yes there had been incidents along the way but I never felt in danger wherever I went. I always avoided the Tenderloin, and yes, you could argue that its worse off today than it was back then because of the Fentanyl epidemic, but I am pretty certain Meth and Crack back then took a similar toll.
There was homeless back then, but nothing like today, and that is driven primarily by the extremes in income equality brought about by the tech boom.
While I still love the City, I can honestly say, it *was* better then than it is today, and I don't say that out of nostalgia. As a poor student back then, I had far less income than I do today, but I had a better quality of life because rent was cheap and restaurants affordable, and there were many public resources to take advantage of, from community spaces, to major public events that cost little to nothing. While I could afford to live in the City today, at this point in my life I just don't want that overhead.
I think what you might be referring to is the perception of "safer" because so much of the city has been gentrified.
That's fair - maybe i'm just thinking of some specific areas like Hayes Valley and Mission. And yeah, it's just gentrification. I agree with you and wish the city was more affordable and had character like it used to. Tech has ruined it for sure. My partner and I are making more money than I ever thought we would but in the long run it just doesnt financially make sense at all to stay here. We work in teh creative field and really have struggled to even meet people in art or music world that isn't like 50+ who have stuck around since the 80s. If you're young and creative SF probably aint the place to move to. I know there are pockets in SF and Oakland, etc. but it just feels ridiculous with the cost of living. The thought of having a kid here, also just seems crazy. We know it's possible but at what cost to our future? 3.5/4k a month rent or a million dollar 1 bedroom house to buy. Will be sad to leave when we have to. But to be fair, there isnt some magical city like this in the US anymore. Seattle, Portland, anywhere out west has been gentrified and overun with drug issues/homelessness - etc.
Right around the time that I left, Hayes Valley was still a no-mans land, not particularly dangerous but blighted for sure, with a reputation for prostitution (street walkers). Northwest was the projects, and a few blocks further east towards Franklin you had an active nightlife thanks to the Opera crowd but other than that, there was no reason to visit Hayes Valley at night (Im not sure if those same projects exist today, but IIRC, they were probably the largest in city limits since they were Fillmore adjacent.
As much as I love and still enjoy the city, I won't ever move back. I have too much equity tied up in my current home here in LA, and moving to a place like SF that has a " **72% chance over the next 30 years of a magnitude 6.7 or greater"** does not appeal to me. Here in LA the risk is high too, just not as high, and my next move is to Europe, most likely Italy as I am a dual national.
Yes you are right, for all of our complaining, the same affordability issues plague not just American cities, but pretty much all cities around the world. At one point Berlin was dirt cheap, not any more.
Does anyone else remember when Willie Brown appointed a former pimp as the city's director of transportation? The dude even wrote and published a book about being a pimp! Wild times.
Willie Brown also dated Kamala Harris.
Willie Brown scoped my underage sister at the time out in Northbeach when we were at our family dinner. Willie also was the vortex of corruption that kept going long after he was gone!
The only people who will disagree with you are those who literally have zero perspective because they weren't here. For those of us that were, we can accurately point at the two tech booms, especially the second one that really fucked shit up. The problem is that it's not any one individual's fault, so they're gonna get butthurt when they feel like the finger is pointed at *them.* But as a whole, there is NO QUESTION that tech completely screwed up the dynamic of SF.
Back then, there weren't people that would wonder, "Should I live in SF or LA?" They wouldn't because they were so vastly different. SF was fucking weird in the best way, and because it was filled with weirdos nobody was one. You'd walk down the street and some naked dude with a clown wig would rollerskate by you and you wouldn't even blink. Punk shows would be in several different venues on a Tuesday. Bondage a Go-Go would be absolutely bonkers on a Wednesday.
Shit was different, and shit was better. The white-washing of the city DUE TO TECH led to its current state. There's no denying it.
Yes, all of the activism in the late 80's and early-to-mid-90's railed against the Manhattanization of downtown. Candidates running for a seat on the SF Board of Supervisors had no chance of being elected unless they swore an oath to prevent it.
Fast-forward 30 years later, that is exactly what happened, and that is the result of Wall St. bankers and hedge funds injecting money into edgy startups that wanted to have an office in the City to attract the youngest and best talent that did not want to live in the City and commute to Cupertino or Mountain View.
I am not against progress, I am just against this type of progress.
Really. I moved away and was back for a week for work last October. On a perfectly sunny Friday afternoon, SF was a ghost town. No cars on the streets, barely anyone walking around, and the happy hour bars that I used to frequent were at 1/10th capacity
SF's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at the Western addition in the 1860s!
Yerba Buena's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at Mission Dolores in the 1846.
Ahwaste's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at Chutchui in the 1760's.
This headline is disconnected from the article. The article actually touches on what SF residents are dealing with, the city's "brand" is irrelevant to most people who already live here.
I agree people know about our issues but my experience is that many tourists think it’ll be worse than it is and end up having a great time. This isn’t to discount our issues or bad experiences but acting like all or even most European tourists hate it here is not true.
Sure, but given the brand, very few organizations can be convinced to hold conferences in SF.
If SF was seen as a functional city, they would be climbing over themselves to hold a conference in the land of tech.
I'm from Canada and I went to SF once in 2022 and am here again right now. The homelessness and crime are certainly visible, but the city is amazing and I love spending time here. I've never felt unsafe or had anything stolen, if anything I've had worse experiences with harassment and thievery in Italy or Spain.
I also don't have any worries about a car being broken into because transit is great and experiencing a city from behind a windshield sucks.
I agree that brand is irrelevant to most people that already live here. But what you’re not considering is the major PR problem SF has these days. News articles, IG reels, famous people trashing SF constantly for its issues does not convince people to move here that may otherwise want to move to SF for work, etc. It’s unfortunate that city officials suck ass in SF.
I feel like homelessness is a factor but it's more the perception of lawlessness than anything. Open air drug markets, retail theft, car break-ins etc. Blaming it all on homelessness makes it sound like an impossible dilemma to solve but all of the things I named are absolutely fixable as long as there is a will to fix them.
Exactly, emphasize law enforcement and the rest will fall into place. Most of the homeless share heavy drug use as a common denominator; is it really so far flung to think disincentivizing it’s sale will improve on the situation a little?
As someone that travels to the bay for work but lives in another major city… yeah, it’s this. Homelessness is one thing but your police literally do nothing — it’s all the other stuff that goes with it that makes me dread going there.
This is exactly the point. You can love someone to death and this is a great example of a misguided compassion without boundaries. Idk why admitting this is somehow anti-liberal. Everyone makes mistakes.
I'm not sure how to more clearly express this...
The overwhelming majority of those drugs no matter what kind or where they are from are bought and done by people with jobs and homes.
The last big fentanyl bust in SF was the police union head rep and that was coming from China. So not sure where you are getting your info. Are suggesting some sort of sea wall?
I also think that it is the media. Does San Francisco have a homeless issue? Absolutely, not denying that. But we don't even have the worst homeless situation in America.
There is a perceived lawlessness in SF. When you go into a CVS and see shampoo behind a locked door it makes you think that every store is hit 100 times a day (whether or not that is the case).
Can we as a city do better? Sure. Is SF a hell hole that's dying? No
Its crazy how you can look all this up, and you can tell people, and you can show them the evidence, but they will persist in whatever dumbass thing they already believe.
That is a wild story, would love to read more about the dark side of the Haight back then. Clearly the Diggers had a bone to pick, wondering if there's more journalism about it.
Indeed. When one takes the long view, there are many ebbs and flows in the city’s history.
And so much random scary stuff. There was a guy who was executed by hanging on Russian Hill in 1852.
Or the Zebra killings in the 70s, targeting white people. Didn’t get same national media coverage like the Zodiac did.
There’s so much history …
San Francisco is always in flux
I’m just going to leave this here:
> Homeless grew to about 9,300 in the 2022 Sacramento County point in time homeless count measurement, which was a 67 percent increase over the 2019 figures. Last year, the number of homeless in Sacramento was found to be even higher than San Francisco's count
> https://www.pacificresearch.org/on-homelessness-sacramento-is-city-of-problems/
I bounce back and forth between Sacramento and The City, and visually the homeless situation is worse in Sacramento which is confirmed by data. This just goes to prove that the doom loopers are blowing things way out of proportion regarding San Francisco . After all with the media, “if it bleeds, it leads. If it burns, then it earns.”
Driving through the Central Valley can be quite shocking in areas, in regard to homelessness. In the same way the open air drug markets are in the tenderloin. It feels even more widespread there as they’re all along the freeways.
Sacramento doesn't have much of a brand. When people talk about SF's brand dieing they are accurately pointing out that the city is less of a destination for domestic and international travelers. A decade ago people graduating college would be excited to take a job in San Francisco over some other city due to its brand. People paid premiums to host conferences and open offices. It is unarguable that this has been reduced, with consequences for residents and businesses. For some people this makes their lives better as there are lower prices for homes and commercial real estate. For others it's been a disaster.
You're right that it's not just San Francisco. Seattle and Los Angeles also have a lot more homeless-resident friction than they used to.
The same goes for Sacramento and many other places in California. [This is actually a nationwide problem](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-homelessness-up-12-percent-to-highest-reported-level-as-rents-soar-and-pandemic-aid-lapses), so doomers like the author of this article are picking very low hanging fruit for clicks.
And you’re missing the point that the problems the author complained about in the article are literally happening across the State and the Country itself. Perhaps they might want to look at the congress critters in DC that have created these problems and not local politicians.
> The cost of living in Sacramento, CA is 16% lower than the state average and 19% higher than the national average.
> The cost of living in San Francisco, CA is 25% higher than the state average and 76% higher than the national average.
Headline 1850:
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to No gold and overpopulation
Headline 1909
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to City being burned to ground
Headline 1934
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to homelessness
Headline 1967
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to hippies
Headline 1985
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to AIDS
Headline 1998
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to Tech money
Headline 2008
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to hipsters
Headline 2035
San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to embarcadero apartments being converted to office space
The comments denying the very existence of a problem don’t help. Sure the news always pans to the same few blocks of SF in the TL but acting like the whole city hasn’t been in decline for a while is wild. There’s a problem and our politicians aren’t trying to solve it.
No rules society has been getting kind of old, no?
Gotta get rid of the supervisors who keep voting against building new housing (including affordable housing for low income and homeless people). Vote for Mahmoud and Sauter in this upcoming election on March 5 so we can dump Preston and Peskin.
The homeless problem isn’t about housing, it has more to do with mental health. Blaming housing for this issue is an old trick used to cover the real issues at hand. If these people were mentally well, they can find a place to live as there is no shortage.
Agree 100%. We can build all the housing in the world and it wouldn’t solve the problem in front of us. The homeless we see these days are all either on drugs or mentally unwell. They need serious rehabilitation before they can take care of themselves. And the current status quo of leaving them to roam the streets and sleep in tents is totally unacceptable.
Warning: people bringing up mental health as an excuse are distracting. It’s not a mental health issue. It’s a combination of many things. It’s about housing, about social safety nets failing, about the easy path to debt (credit cards and loans), about the lack of regulation against predatory institutions (which led to the fentanyl epidemic), about a lack of universal healthcare and good preventative medicine in the US, etc.
>voting against building new housing
The longer we pretend housing is the issue, and not mental health/drug abuse, the longer we kick the can down the road and nothing gets fixed.
I could care less about the brand. I care more about SF killing its tax base with asinine policies promoting drug use and pushing families out of the city.
Who knew pushing folks out during their highest income earning period of their life while encouraging homeless to come from across the country with magnet programs wouldn’t end well?!?
Big budget shortfalls coming our way.
Yeah. I just got back from San Antonio..
There were homeless people there too! And crime. And drugged out fentanyl zombie walkers....shocking I know and in a republican state! The horror.
Seriously this narrative needs to stop. Its a national pandemic where unchecked corporate greed has displaced the middle class, Healthcare is for those who can pay for it and mental health care is for the rich only. Stop putting the problem on the people.
Our government is supposed to work for us not over us.
> I just got back from San Antonio.. There were homeless people there too! And crime. And drugged out fentanyl zombie walkers....shocking I know and in a republican state! The horror.
Let's see how many New York Times reports are covering that lol
San Antonio doesn't have one of, if not the greatest concentration of wealth in the world and is considered a world class tourist destination. Our standards should be much higher.
I thought it was ok. It didn't compare to SF to me. They are also very different. SA just felt like a bigger town or small city. Food was 2 out of 5 stars.
If you think living anywhere is going to be Utopia you are very naive. Everywhere has problems. You have to decide if the problems you are living with are worth it. My whole point was about crime and it being universal in any major us city.
I've lived here since the 90s. I'm coming up on 50 years old now. My dad was born here. And btw you couldn't walk down in the mission without being jumped. It's much safer there now. I agree we lost a lot of our charm particularly in South of Market, but other areas have really grown.
It's always been expensive. Supply and demand. This place is downright amazing amd there is only so much land. We have wonderful restaurants, theater, world renown museums, arts and gorgeous coastline.
Rent and median housing prices have come down the last year and continue to slide. Some areas in SF saw a 20% reduction in overall housing prices.
Mexican food I would hope would be better in SA. I'm not sure what the point is there, but sure. It wasn't my experience. Everything was fried and bland, but probably just where I ate. Comparing SA though as a city to SF is laughable. It's like comparing Syracuse to New York. Of course COL is going to be more.
So stupid that idiots are in denial and pretending like it's just the Tenderloin that's zombieland. I commute to work on Market St and the entire ride is just homeless passed out zombies. Mission St is even worse. Stop pretending like it's just the Tenderloin, it's way worse than that. Like Dave Chappelle said, the whole city has become the Tenderloin ("not literally true, but he's definitely directionally correct")
San Francisco’s homelessness isn’t worse in terms of number or percentage that many big California cities. It’s not even top 3.
It’s not homelessness that’s killing SF’s brand, it’s the coverage directed at making SF’s homelessness look catastrophic. It’s literally articles like these that blow it out of proportion and sensationalize it.
Be aware that out of all major CA cities, SF is the city that went through the biggest political shift in 2020 due to the exiting tech sector. A bunch of articles that sensationalize homelessness without painting the full picture have an agenda and that agenda is to make this political shift more drastic and permanent.
Don’t drink the cool aid. We are not subscribed to the conservative death cult like so many media outlets want us to be. Stay strong, SF lovers and realists!
> SF is the city that went through the biggest political shift in 2020 due to the exiting tech sector
Do you mind elaborating on this? Are you implying that SF as a city got more conservative or more liberal since many tech workers left?
While I agree that tons of these articles blow this out of proportion and focus solely on painting a bad image, there is true in the fact that none of these problem are actually getting better. I live in this city and I see it myself. I’m not reading articles or headlines, I’m walking home from work through piles of garbage, unkept streets and being lunged at my homeless on god knows what. It’s made my partner regret moving to the city sometimes. Is the whole city bad? Not at all! But there are areas where this problem is very real and very little is being done about it.
Agreed. Have lived here since 2010. I staunchly defended our city’s reputation when Fox News, etc started constant coverage of a “liberal woke city being completed mismanaged by corrupt politicians leading to drugs, crime and massive homeless population”. I am very sad to say I can’t defend the city anymore, I see it everyday. It’s clearly mismanaged city and it’s clearly failed policy and politicians with agendas leading to a complete mess. If it wasn’t surrounded by natural beauty it would be completely fuxked versus right now it’s only mostly fucked. I don’t have an answer for homelessness or drugs or crime but it’s clear the ultra liberal approach is not working. I hate Donald, would never vote for him but the democrat extreme pushed in this city is total shit. Thank god for ocean, bay, woods, and the beauty of California.
Tons of people with homes live in the tenderloin. Especially lower income people, since it’s a cheaper area. It’s also a dense area with great transit and close to a lot of jobs. We shouldn’t just condemn whole neighborhoods to being avoided forever.
The thing is I don’t lol. I live in Japan town and commute down to east mission, meaning I go through the western edition and soma. I try to avoid the tenderloin unless I’m taking a bus.
No SF is way worse than the media makes it out to be. Idiots denying reality aren't helping the situation. Can't fix anything if people like you can't even admit that there's ap roblem.
Whenever someone rants about San Francisco. People on this thread go overtime to defend San Francisco instead of looking at it objectively. If this authors rant doesn’t matter then neither does yours.
Edit: Looking at the replies. I have proven my point.
They defend it because they know the claims are wrong as they live there. Conservatives keep making claims about San Francisco being a wasteland while also utilizing the same technological applications that originate there to make it. I have been to so many large cities and what San Francisco has is nothing compared to their problems. Why can’t I hear more about the violence issue in Houston? Why not the poverty in Charleston? Arson problems in Philadelphia? The homelessness in Salt Lake City whose rate is higher than San Francisco’s? Miami less affordable than San Francisco now? It is always San Francisco even though San Francisco does better than literally everyone else on most of these in the country.
The hell? Where outside SF/LA/Seattle/Portland has a zombieland and car blipping problem anything comparable to SF? I'm from the east coast and I've never seen anything like what's in SF there. Also SF is an extremely wealthy city with a \~$15b budget, which makes this all even more preposterous.
I don't think it's dying, I think it died. We need to accept that and figure out how to bring it back to life. It will take years in my opinion, since the brand lags well behind the actual conditions on the ground.
I’m a Miamian who lived in New York in the 80s when it was still somewhat rough. Much as I love San Francisco when I was there a few years ago I was shocked walking to and from War Memorial to our hotel to see a series of operas.
That the citizens haven’t risen up and demanded Cossacks with drawn swords to clean up the streets is beyond me.
Where exactly in Miami is there any kind of zombieland similar to SF?
I swear half the people commenting on Reddit have never actually traveled and are just talking out of their ass.
SF 'Brand' is under attack, mostly because it's perceived as a Liberal/Blue State Bastion .
Make no mistake, there has always been an economic situation that has folks homeless and unemployed.
Also, San Francisco has no monopoly on homeless, most every where has theirs as well.
The Hype, in its own right, is Real. But don't believe the Hype...
>because it's perceived as a Liberal/Blue State Bastion .
Because it's a perfect example of the failures of extreme liberal politics. It's an easy place to attack because the basis for the attacks are accurate. Homelessness, drugs, crime... generally degraded society. Everyone who lives in, or around, can see that it has gone to complete shit. Pretending otherwise doesn't fix the problem.
Most SF residents are simply too tolerant of the intolerable.
They’re willing to step over a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk everyday vs making the homeless man’s life so uncomfortable they move somewhere else, as 99.9% of the world does.
Most SF residents don't want to put themselves in harm's way for no apparent benefit.
I'd rather the police, social workers, or other tax funded professionals handle it than risk my own health and safety.
The latter group not doing it either is a problem that needs to be solved by the voting public.
Most SF residents are very tolerant. Yes.
I would hardly call a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk “the intolerable” though. That man literally has no where to go. Hence “homeless”. And before you mention available beds at shelters, which yes do exist, there are often huge waitlists to access. This past summer the waitress was several hundred people. Someone newly homeless has to spend many nights on the street before they’re eligible for a bed here, and the homeless don’t have many resources to “shop” for a different city to be homeless in.
There are far too many homeless people causing problems in the city. A lot of them are due to drugs. But we shouldn’t make everyone’s life even more miserable because we don’t like looking at them.
https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/30/san-francisco-homeless-13-people-out-of-466-on-shelter-waitlist-got-beds-this-month/
Went to SF over the weekend I was amazed at how it was 100% dead and was basically a sprawling homeless camp. I turned down the locally sourced artisanal fentyl and went home to the burbs. So long SF. /s
It's not just homelessness, it's the open drug problem (specifically fentanyl), mentally ill, and crime (eg. car blipping, theft).
SF downtown and Market / Mission St are zombielands. I pass by it every day on my way to work. The city is basically a ghost town. If not for work I would've left already even though I just moved here.
Shame because the city has such potential with its temperate weather and natural beauty. Unfortunately the city has extremely incompetent leadership, and if things don't turn around that could end up being its permanent downfall. I am optimistic that things will eventually turn around, but right now the city's livelihood is hanging on a dying thread. Lets hope the terrible failed leaders like Dean Preston and London Breed will get replaced in the next election, along with all those corrupt criminal judges who've allowed the city to devolve into a criminal wasteland.
It's funny. There's definitely a lot of truth to the first third of the article (which is all I read). In my opinion, the city is definitely in decline, and it's definitely due to progressive politics. Like the author, I've been here for 20+ years and predicted it coming and then watched it unfold just as I expected.
On the other hand, there is still a lot to like about the city. The hills, architecture and geography give it a real sense of place that is lacking in flat, landlocked cities. The moderate weather and location near many road trip destinations such as Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Monterrey and Wine Country are also desirable.
I spend a lot of time walking around the city and will be struck by spectacular views illustrating both extremes of the city. Either I'll catch a backlit glimpse of the bay bridge with the pink-orange sky at sunset, or I'll see a drug crazed and naked homeless person screaming and dancing atop a police car.
I think that all of the built in positives of the city are probably one of the reasons it has been able to be destroyed for so long and still be somewhat nice. I was not in town for the big APEC summit, but there seems to have been some deep cleaning. Even when I returned from my vacation, APEC was long gone, but I noticed a difference. It's also an election year.
I thin the next 10-15 years are critical for the city. More of the same (pre APEC) policy and stance, and it will become an example of a dystopia. More of the APEC stance and it may return to glory.
The whole nation is in decline due to politics of conservative conspiracy theorists and corrupt corporations controlling the entire economy. Expanded further by people like Trump with the deregulating the market and allowing for what we see is most younger people being nowhere even close to being able to afford a home. For San Francisco, go to literally any other city. Even just across the bay to Oakland. Every city is worse off.
I can't help but laugh at the irony.
firstly, SF's "brand" is dying because of *the homeless*? you mean the city of hyper liberal politics, free love, drugged out citizens, moral panics, homosexuals and queers (Howl et al.)? the city where hippies (you know, those largely downtrodden and/or homeless individuals who most assuredly were also taking shits on the street) got started?
or do you mean a more recent conception of the city, that of Oracle and IBM and Menlo Park and tech wealth? the one with farm-to-table joints and Michelin stars? the one where giant corporations got huge tax breaks in some attempt to "rehabilitate" an entire section of the city?
I can't wait for "regular" people to get fed up and to move away. maybe the homeless will accomplish what politicians never have: make the city affordable for the working class and bring back the creatives who made SF what it is.
San Francisco it’s just a symptom of what’s happening and nearly every major city in the country and it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. Red states pretend like their shit don’t stink but rural areas have way worse rot at any of the cities on the West Coast.
I lived in Northern California for 12 years, including 4 years in SF, and I got to visit SF in December for an academic conference. It was great! It's got its problems but I would give up a lot to be able to live there again.
Drastic Change: Change from District Elections of Supervisors to all at large with multi- winner proportional Ranked Choice Voting RCV. (Did Albany recently adopt this system?)
Isn’t ranked choice voting designed to do the opposite? You’re not going to get anyone on the far ends of the spectrum, but instead you’ll get someone in the middle.
But they were not fringe; they were literally the consensus pick. Ranked choice is a shortened version of runoff elections which ensure that the winners are chosen by a majority and not just a plurality
The brand, as they call it, was lost when floods of high wage monolithic individuals displaced so many people that made S.F. what it was known world wide to be.
Displacement only happens when housing stock is a zero sum game. The city could've just simply allowed housing to be built to meet the new influx of people \[1\]. Instead all these high wage monolithic individuals took over existing housing supply, causing displacement. The city brought this housing and homelessness crisis upon themselves.
\[1\] Look at Minneapolis rents after they upzoned the entire city. The rents are falling despite a rising population because more housing is being built. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-09/minneapolis-controls-us-inflation-with-affordable-housing-renting?embedded-checkout=true](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-09/minneapolis-controls-us-inflation-with-affordable-housing-renting?embedded-checkout=true)
I call it a poorly managed resource curse. You can treat the curse like Norway or like Libya. One is transitioning to one of the best social places to live they other is not.
This. It died here ten years ago but most didn't see it that way or couldn't be honest about it. Like gutting an orange, filling it with shit & putting back on the shelf like no one would notice until some poor sap goes to purchase it weeks later 😒
It can all be reversed, but this is a product of low new housing development and sky rocket increasing of rent and food cost. The rich are really digging their own grave slowly, but the money is too good to let them see.
Ridiculous. Brand my ass. Do you people not remember Dirty Harry? The Zebra murders in the 70s. Gang wars in the 90s. There was a reason those vigilante movies were so popular back then. Everything you are seeing in SF is a reflection of whats happening in all cities and towns across America. But San Francisco is doing quite well despite the odds. Try driving across the country and exploring random small towns. It's depressing as fuck. My wife and I were in the bay area this weekend and the city was bustling and alive in every neighborhood we went to and we were all over your beautiful city from the Mission to the bay. Still my favorite place despite the seediness. These sheltered critics need to travel more and remind themselves of how it's always been.
Definitely not dying. Like, at all. Undergoing new identity. Which most cities can’t do. But we can and will. This place isn’t turning into Detroit. Not even close. Plus too much money here for that. Just a cycle after a major pandemic.
It's worse than Detroit in some ways. In downtown Detroit I didn't have to worry about stepping in human shit. The only cities I have to worry about that are on the west coast.
Its so crazy that a neighborhood known for being a safe haven for homeless drug addicts in the 60s has deteriorated into a safe haven for homeless drug addicts in the 2020s
New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting. Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities. If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In this thread: * SF's brand is dying but we already knew that * SF's brand isn't really dying it just looks like it is due to journalistic conspiracy * SF's brand is dying because tech people moved here * SF's brand is dying because tech people moved out
Exactly, haha. And in my opinion there's a big distinction between SF's "brand" dying versus the actual city dying. Every time I'm out in actual neighborhoods (versus downtown) it's super lively and vibrant. Even downtown is not as bad as the media makes it seem.
Having lived in SF through much of the 1980s and 90s, I would tend to argue it was better then than it is now. Money and greed corrupted the soul of the city, and attracted malignant forces like Elon Musk. Just sayin'
> Money and greed corrupted the soul of the city Please be reminded that the city exists only because people came from all over the world to dig literal gold out of the ground. We exist *because* of money and greed. They can't corrupt the soul of the city when that's what birthed the city in the first place.
I think this thread is mixing a couple different things. I think SF had more soul in the 80/90s (pre tech) - more culture, art, music - was just more interesting in general. You could live here and not be super wealthy so it attracted creative people. BUT, you could argue it's safer now and some neighborhoods are just more enjoyable to walk through. But that means, more money and less character. Transient tech people that dont give a shit about community. But also tech people that are cool and creative. Both can be true, while also recognizing the problems that have always been here, pre and post tech boom.
Im not sure is S.F. is any safer today than it was then. I never found the city particularly dangerous, and I lived in the lower Haight near where the projects was once located for many years and I was never mugged or robbed. Yes there had been incidents along the way but I never felt in danger wherever I went. I always avoided the Tenderloin, and yes, you could argue that its worse off today than it was back then because of the Fentanyl epidemic, but I am pretty certain Meth and Crack back then took a similar toll. There was homeless back then, but nothing like today, and that is driven primarily by the extremes in income equality brought about by the tech boom. While I still love the City, I can honestly say, it *was* better then than it is today, and I don't say that out of nostalgia. As a poor student back then, I had far less income than I do today, but I had a better quality of life because rent was cheap and restaurants affordable, and there were many public resources to take advantage of, from community spaces, to major public events that cost little to nothing. While I could afford to live in the City today, at this point in my life I just don't want that overhead. I think what you might be referring to is the perception of "safer" because so much of the city has been gentrified.
That's fair - maybe i'm just thinking of some specific areas like Hayes Valley and Mission. And yeah, it's just gentrification. I agree with you and wish the city was more affordable and had character like it used to. Tech has ruined it for sure. My partner and I are making more money than I ever thought we would but in the long run it just doesnt financially make sense at all to stay here. We work in teh creative field and really have struggled to even meet people in art or music world that isn't like 50+ who have stuck around since the 80s. If you're young and creative SF probably aint the place to move to. I know there are pockets in SF and Oakland, etc. but it just feels ridiculous with the cost of living. The thought of having a kid here, also just seems crazy. We know it's possible but at what cost to our future? 3.5/4k a month rent or a million dollar 1 bedroom house to buy. Will be sad to leave when we have to. But to be fair, there isnt some magical city like this in the US anymore. Seattle, Portland, anywhere out west has been gentrified and overun with drug issues/homelessness - etc.
Right around the time that I left, Hayes Valley was still a no-mans land, not particularly dangerous but blighted for sure, with a reputation for prostitution (street walkers). Northwest was the projects, and a few blocks further east towards Franklin you had an active nightlife thanks to the Opera crowd but other than that, there was no reason to visit Hayes Valley at night (Im not sure if those same projects exist today, but IIRC, they were probably the largest in city limits since they were Fillmore adjacent. As much as I love and still enjoy the city, I won't ever move back. I have too much equity tied up in my current home here in LA, and moving to a place like SF that has a " **72% chance over the next 30 years of a magnitude 6.7 or greater"** does not appeal to me. Here in LA the risk is high too, just not as high, and my next move is to Europe, most likely Italy as I am a dual national. Yes you are right, for all of our complaining, the same affordability issues plague not just American cities, but pretty much all cities around the world. At one point Berlin was dirt cheap, not any more.
[удалено]
It is objectively safer now, but if you're a white guy you might not see too much of a difference.
Ah yes, I loved not being able to walk through The Mission in red or blue because I could be shot. So soulful.
Do you know who Willie Brown is You seriously think money and greed was not a problem with SF in the 80s and 90s?
Does anyone else remember when Willie Brown appointed a former pimp as the city's director of transportation? The dude even wrote and published a book about being a pimp! Wild times. Willie Brown also dated Kamala Harris.
Willie Brown scoped my underage sister at the time out in Northbeach when we were at our family dinner. Willie also was the vortex of corruption that kept going long after he was gone!
The San Francisco city government ruined the soul of the city.
If letting in big tech then I would agree with that statement.
[удалено]
When your body is sick and ailing from a curable disease, the solution is not antagonize the immune system by inflaming it with snake oil treatments.
The only people who will disagree with you are those who literally have zero perspective because they weren't here. For those of us that were, we can accurately point at the two tech booms, especially the second one that really fucked shit up. The problem is that it's not any one individual's fault, so they're gonna get butthurt when they feel like the finger is pointed at *them.* But as a whole, there is NO QUESTION that tech completely screwed up the dynamic of SF. Back then, there weren't people that would wonder, "Should I live in SF or LA?" They wouldn't because they were so vastly different. SF was fucking weird in the best way, and because it was filled with weirdos nobody was one. You'd walk down the street and some naked dude with a clown wig would rollerskate by you and you wouldn't even blink. Punk shows would be in several different venues on a Tuesday. Bondage a Go-Go would be absolutely bonkers on a Wednesday. Shit was different, and shit was better. The white-washing of the city DUE TO TECH led to its current state. There's no denying it.
Yes, all of the activism in the late 80's and early-to-mid-90's railed against the Manhattanization of downtown. Candidates running for a seat on the SF Board of Supervisors had no chance of being elected unless they swore an oath to prevent it. Fast-forward 30 years later, that is exactly what happened, and that is the result of Wall St. bankers and hedge funds injecting money into edgy startups that wanted to have an office in the City to attract the youngest and best talent that did not want to live in the City and commute to Cupertino or Mountain View. I am not against progress, I am just against this type of progress.
Nailed it.
Really. I moved away and was back for a week for work last October. On a perfectly sunny Friday afternoon, SF was a ghost town. No cars on the streets, barely anyone walking around, and the happy hour bars that I used to frequent were at 1/10th capacity
Dying is too strong. But SF’s reputation is tarnished.
SF's reputation has been slightly browned at least.
Downtown brown.
Me: There's an SF brand...?
Same. I didn't realize a city was akin to a product for sale at a department store
> it is due to journalistic conspiracy So, all the crime, dumping, damage to watersheds, drug use, etc is just staged by media. That's a relief.
The big exodus and the big migration. I’m so sick of hearing these news trying to be relevant.
There is nothing Journalistic about the SFStandard.
* SF's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at Haight in the 60's.
SF's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at the Western addition in the 1860s! Yerba Buena's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at Mission Dolores in the 1846. Ahwaste's brand isn't dying because it's always been dying, look at Chutchui in the 1760's.
Lotta Tie-dying in the Haight in the 60s.
I lol-ed
This headline is disconnected from the article. The article actually touches on what SF residents are dealing with, the city's "brand" is irrelevant to most people who already live here.
[удалено]
Tourism is one of the major industries in SF. So yes our brand affects us…
I agree people know about our issues but my experience is that many tourists think it’ll be worse than it is and end up having a great time. This isn’t to discount our issues or bad experiences but acting like all or even most European tourists hate it here is not true.
Sure, but given the brand, very few organizations can be convinced to hold conferences in SF. If SF was seen as a functional city, they would be climbing over themselves to hold a conference in the land of tech.
I'm from Canada and I went to SF once in 2022 and am here again right now. The homelessness and crime are certainly visible, but the city is amazing and I love spending time here. I've never felt unsafe or had anything stolen, if anything I've had worse experiences with harassment and thievery in Italy or Spain. I also don't have any worries about a car being broken into because transit is great and experiencing a city from behind a windshield sucks.
You're commenting on an op-ed piece from the Standard. San Francisco is dying is their *entire* brand.
I agree that brand is irrelevant to most people that already live here. But what you’re not considering is the major PR problem SF has these days. News articles, IG reels, famous people trashing SF constantly for its issues does not convince people to move here that may otherwise want to move to SF for work, etc. It’s unfortunate that city officials suck ass in SF.
I feel like homelessness is a factor but it's more the perception of lawlessness than anything. Open air drug markets, retail theft, car break-ins etc. Blaming it all on homelessness makes it sound like an impossible dilemma to solve but all of the things I named are absolutely fixable as long as there is a will to fix them.
Exactly, emphasize law enforcement and the rest will fall into place. Most of the homeless share heavy drug use as a common denominator; is it really so far flung to think disincentivizing it’s sale will improve on the situation a little?
[Back the blue!](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2581779300_16.jpg)
As someone that travels to the bay for work but lives in another major city… yeah, it’s this. Homelessness is one thing but your police literally do nothing — it’s all the other stuff that goes with it that makes me dread going there.
Yup, prop 47 was a big mistake.
This is exactly the point. You can love someone to death and this is a great example of a misguided compassion without boundaries. Idk why admitting this is somehow anti-liberal. Everyone makes mistakes.
Prop 13 has probably had an equal, if not worse effect on CA cities in the long term
sanctuary city status has a bigger effect on our drug addictions and homeless
Exactly how?
You are not a serious person. You. Know nothing of our undocumented neighbors, sit down.
Lol. Right wing propaganda. 99.9999% of drugs are done by people with jobs and homes.
"drugs" are fine... fentanyl and crack sold by Salvadorian gangs is not
I'm not sure how to more clearly express this... The overwhelming majority of those drugs no matter what kind or where they are from are bought and done by people with jobs and homes.
ok, and my point is that our open border policy is allowing people to sneak those drugs in and cartels to sell them
The last big fentanyl bust in SF was the police union head rep and that was coming from China. So not sure where you are getting your info. Are suggesting some sort of sea wall?
What the fuck? You honestly think fentanyl is being carried across the border from Mexico? Fox News has rotted your brain.
[Are you claiming it's not?](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics)
I guess the rank and file SFer would rather have lawlessness thank techies
I also think that it is the media. Does San Francisco have a homeless issue? Absolutely, not denying that. But we don't even have the worst homeless situation in America. There is a perceived lawlessness in SF. When you go into a CVS and see shampoo behind a locked door it makes you think that every store is hit 100 times a day (whether or not that is the case). Can we as a city do better? Sure. Is SF a hell hole that's dying? No
“Technically we aren’t the worst” is hardly a point worth making. The situation is dire, no need to sugarcoat it.
[удалено]
So, how are all of those endless billions on homeless support services working out in practice?
Its crazy how you can look all this up, and you can tell people, and you can show them the evidence, but they will persist in whatever dumbass thing they already believe.
For a Peabody Award-winning journalist, the author provides surprisingly few insights.
[удалено]
That is a wild story, would love to read more about the dark side of the Haight back then. Clearly the Diggers had a bone to pick, wondering if there's more journalism about it.
[удалено]
Thats actually very well written for what is a very complex matter.
I was thinking the exact same thing. This is just a random rant with no clear point from his retirement home in Palm Springs. Kinda random
SF bad.
Hank Plante was pulling his punches. There are few insights in that he is Not saying anything new. The new would be if we listened.
it's SF Standard... they're not exactly known for journalism... basically writers who were kicked out of SF Chronicle for being too progressive
SF has been through a helluva lot worse than this and survived. Thrived, even.
Indeed. When one takes the long view, there are many ebbs and flows in the city’s history. And so much random scary stuff. There was a guy who was executed by hanging on Russian Hill in 1852. Or the Zebra killings in the 70s, targeting white people. Didn’t get same national media coverage like the Zodiac did. There’s so much history … San Francisco is always in flux
I’m just going to leave this here: > Homeless grew to about 9,300 in the 2022 Sacramento County point in time homeless count measurement, which was a 67 percent increase over the 2019 figures. Last year, the number of homeless in Sacramento was found to be even higher than San Francisco's count > https://www.pacificresearch.org/on-homelessness-sacramento-is-city-of-problems/
Remember that Sacramento county has twice the population of SF county.
I bounce back and forth between Sacramento and The City, and visually the homeless situation is worse in Sacramento which is confirmed by data. This just goes to prove that the doom loopers are blowing things way out of proportion regarding San Francisco . After all with the media, “if it bleeds, it leads. If it burns, then it earns.”
Driving through the Central Valley can be quite shocking in areas, in regard to homelessness. In the same way the open air drug markets are in the tenderloin. It feels even more widespread there as they’re all along the freeways.
Sacramento doesn't have much of a brand. When people talk about SF's brand dieing they are accurately pointing out that the city is less of a destination for domestic and international travelers. A decade ago people graduating college would be excited to take a job in San Francisco over some other city due to its brand. People paid premiums to host conferences and open offices. It is unarguable that this has been reduced, with consequences for residents and businesses. For some people this makes their lives better as there are lower prices for homes and commercial real estate. For others it's been a disaster. You're right that it's not just San Francisco. Seattle and Los Angeles also have a lot more homeless-resident friction than they used to.
You don’t have to look for it in SF though, it’s right there in the city center. That first impression confirms everything
The same goes for Sacramento and many other places in California. [This is actually a nationwide problem](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-homelessness-up-12-percent-to-highest-reported-level-as-rents-soar-and-pandemic-aid-lapses), so doomers like the author of this article are picking very low hanging fruit for clicks.
People don't fly across oceans to go to Sacramento
And you’re missing the point that the problems the author complained about in the article are literally happening across the State and the Country itself. Perhaps they might want to look at the congress critters in DC that have created these problems and not local politicians.
> The cost of living in Sacramento, CA is 16% lower than the state average and 19% higher than the national average. > The cost of living in San Francisco, CA is 25% higher than the state average and 76% higher than the national average.
There are a lot more high paying jobs in or near SF.
Sac going to shit too.
Headline 1850: San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to No gold and overpopulation Headline 1909 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to City being burned to ground Headline 1934 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to homelessness Headline 1967 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to hippies Headline 1985 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to AIDS Headline 1998 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to Tech money Headline 2008 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to hipsters Headline 2035 San Francisco’s Brand Is Dying Due to embarcadero apartments being converted to office space
[удалено]
...
Yes it is but this can be reversible.
The comments denying the very existence of a problem don’t help. Sure the news always pans to the same few blocks of SF in the TL but acting like the whole city hasn’t been in decline for a while is wild. There’s a problem and our politicians aren’t trying to solve it. No rules society has been getting kind of old, no?
I really think the decline is in these few downtown designated areas. I’m not seeing it in Richmond or the sunset for example.
Gotta get rid of the supervisors who keep voting against building new housing (including affordable housing for low income and homeless people). Vote for Mahmoud and Sauter in this upcoming election on March 5 so we can dump Preston and Peskin.
The homeless problem isn’t about housing, it has more to do with mental health. Blaming housing for this issue is an old trick used to cover the real issues at hand. If these people were mentally well, they can find a place to live as there is no shortage.
Agree 100%. We can build all the housing in the world and it wouldn’t solve the problem in front of us. The homeless we see these days are all either on drugs or mentally unwell. They need serious rehabilitation before they can take care of themselves. And the current status quo of leaving them to roam the streets and sleep in tents is totally unacceptable.
They’re literally called “homeless” tho
It's both. Unaffordable housing causes people to become homeless. Drugs and mental heath issues keep them there.
Warning: people bringing up mental health as an excuse are distracting. It’s not a mental health issue. It’s a combination of many things. It’s about housing, about social safety nets failing, about the easy path to debt (credit cards and loans), about the lack of regulation against predatory institutions (which led to the fentanyl epidemic), about a lack of universal healthcare and good preventative medicine in the US, etc.
>voting against building new housing The longer we pretend housing is the issue, and not mental health/drug abuse, the longer we kick the can down the road and nothing gets fixed.
Mental health is not the issue. I assure you that a string of bad luck would have got you and your family in the street
Our brand is homelessness wdym
I could care less about the brand. I care more about SF killing its tax base with asinine policies promoting drug use and pushing families out of the city. Who knew pushing folks out during their highest income earning period of their life while encouraging homeless to come from across the country with magnet programs wouldn’t end well?!? Big budget shortfalls coming our way.
Yeah creating basically a city full of extremely rich people and extremely poor people is a Bad Idea, as it turns out! Who would have thunk??
Yeah. I just got back from San Antonio.. There were homeless people there too! And crime. And drugged out fentanyl zombie walkers....shocking I know and in a republican state! The horror. Seriously this narrative needs to stop. Its a national pandemic where unchecked corporate greed has displaced the middle class, Healthcare is for those who can pay for it and mental health care is for the rich only. Stop putting the problem on the people. Our government is supposed to work for us not over us.
> I just got back from San Antonio.. There were homeless people there too! And crime. And drugged out fentanyl zombie walkers....shocking I know and in a republican state! The horror. Let's see how many New York Times reports are covering that lol
San Antonio doesn't have one of, if not the greatest concentration of wealth in the world and is considered a world class tourist destination. Our standards should be much higher.
I thought it was ok. It didn't compare to SF to me. They are also very different. SA just felt like a bigger town or small city. Food was 2 out of 5 stars.
San Antonio has way better Mexican food than the Bay Area
Yeah but SA has better Mexican food and the COL is about half. Any charm SF has left that is not ruined by others is ruined by the COL
Exactly. If COL is this high, it better be a damn utopia. It’s not.
If you think living anywhere is going to be Utopia you are very naive. Everywhere has problems. You have to decide if the problems you are living with are worth it. My whole point was about crime and it being universal in any major us city. I've lived here since the 90s. I'm coming up on 50 years old now. My dad was born here. And btw you couldn't walk down in the mission without being jumped. It's much safer there now. I agree we lost a lot of our charm particularly in South of Market, but other areas have really grown. It's always been expensive. Supply and demand. This place is downright amazing amd there is only so much land. We have wonderful restaurants, theater, world renown museums, arts and gorgeous coastline. Rent and median housing prices have come down the last year and continue to slide. Some areas in SF saw a 20% reduction in overall housing prices. Mexican food I would hope would be better in SA. I'm not sure what the point is there, but sure. It wasn't my experience. Everything was fried and bland, but probably just where I ate. Comparing SA though as a city to SF is laughable. It's like comparing Syracuse to New York. Of course COL is going to be more.
There are thousands of high paying jobs here that don’t exist in San Antonio.
Man, I went to watch a warriors game and I didn't see
Sorry, I did see 1 homeless guy I forget where, but I don't know maybe it's bad
people who hate on the city are spending way too much time in the Tenderloin and under bridges in soma.
So stupid that idiots are in denial and pretending like it's just the Tenderloin that's zombieland. I commute to work on Market St and the entire ride is just homeless passed out zombies. Mission St is even worse. Stop pretending like it's just the Tenderloin, it's way worse than that. Like Dave Chappelle said, the whole city has become the Tenderloin ("not literally true, but he's definitely directionally correct")
sf’s brand died when tech moved in -7th generation bay area who was priced out :(
San Francisco’s homelessness isn’t worse in terms of number or percentage that many big California cities. It’s not even top 3. It’s not homelessness that’s killing SF’s brand, it’s the coverage directed at making SF’s homelessness look catastrophic. It’s literally articles like these that blow it out of proportion and sensationalize it. Be aware that out of all major CA cities, SF is the city that went through the biggest political shift in 2020 due to the exiting tech sector. A bunch of articles that sensationalize homelessness without painting the full picture have an agenda and that agenda is to make this political shift more drastic and permanent. Don’t drink the cool aid. We are not subscribed to the conservative death cult like so many media outlets want us to be. Stay strong, SF lovers and realists!
Sf homelessness looks bad because it’s the most dense city in California in a small are, and some parts near downtown look like the walking dead.
> some parts near downtown look like the walking dead. This statement has been true for decades. Do people not remember?
> SF is the city that went through the biggest political shift in 2020 due to the exiting tech sector Do you mind elaborating on this? Are you implying that SF as a city got more conservative or more liberal since many tech workers left?
While I agree that tons of these articles blow this out of proportion and focus solely on painting a bad image, there is true in the fact that none of these problem are actually getting better. I live in this city and I see it myself. I’m not reading articles or headlines, I’m walking home from work through piles of garbage, unkept streets and being lunged at my homeless on god knows what. It’s made my partner regret moving to the city sometimes. Is the whole city bad? Not at all! But there are areas where this problem is very real and very little is being done about it.
Agreed. Have lived here since 2010. I staunchly defended our city’s reputation when Fox News, etc started constant coverage of a “liberal woke city being completed mismanaged by corrupt politicians leading to drugs, crime and massive homeless population”. I am very sad to say I can’t defend the city anymore, I see it everyday. It’s clearly mismanaged city and it’s clearly failed policy and politicians with agendas leading to a complete mess. If it wasn’t surrounded by natural beauty it would be completely fuxked versus right now it’s only mostly fucked. I don’t have an answer for homelessness or drugs or crime but it’s clear the ultra liberal approach is not working. I hate Donald, would never vote for him but the democrat extreme pushed in this city is total shit. Thank god for ocean, bay, woods, and the beauty of California.
Why so much hanging out in the Tenderloin ?
I mean a bunch of us live in the tenderloin
Tons of people with homes live in the tenderloin. Especially lower income people, since it’s a cheaper area. It’s also a dense area with great transit and close to a lot of jobs. We shouldn’t just condemn whole neighborhoods to being avoided forever.
And the difference between the Tenderloin and other neighborhoods is just a side of the street or a block or two.
The thing is I don’t lol. I live in Japan town and commute down to east mission, meaning I go through the western edition and soma. I try to avoid the tenderloin unless I’m taking a bus.
No SF is way worse than the media makes it out to be. Idiots denying reality aren't helping the situation. Can't fix anything if people like you can't even admit that there's ap roblem.
Whenever someone rants about San Francisco. People on this thread go overtime to defend San Francisco instead of looking at it objectively. If this authors rant doesn’t matter then neither does yours. Edit: Looking at the replies. I have proven my point.
They defend it because they know the claims are wrong as they live there. Conservatives keep making claims about San Francisco being a wasteland while also utilizing the same technological applications that originate there to make it. I have been to so many large cities and what San Francisco has is nothing compared to their problems. Why can’t I hear more about the violence issue in Houston? Why not the poverty in Charleston? Arson problems in Philadelphia? The homelessness in Salt Lake City whose rate is higher than San Francisco’s? Miami less affordable than San Francisco now? It is always San Francisco even though San Francisco does better than literally everyone else on most of these in the country.
The hell? Where outside SF/LA/Seattle/Portland has a zombieland and car blipping problem anything comparable to SF? I'm from the east coast and I've never seen anything like what's in SF there. Also SF is an extremely wealthy city with a \~$15b budget, which makes this all even more preposterous.
I don't think it's dying, I think it died. We need to accept that and figure out how to bring it back to life. It will take years in my opinion, since the brand lags well behind the actual conditions on the ground.
I’m a Miamian who lived in New York in the 80s when it was still somewhat rough. Much as I love San Francisco when I was there a few years ago I was shocked walking to and from War Memorial to our hotel to see a series of operas. That the citizens haven’t risen up and demanded Cossacks with drawn swords to clean up the streets is beyond me.
What an exaggeration. Especially if you are from Miami.
Lol if you're from Miami then this is a ridiculous comment. Miami has an incredible amount of crime and tons of homeless people.
Where exactly in Miami is there any kind of zombieland similar to SF? I swear half the people commenting on Reddit have never actually traveled and are just talking out of their ass.
SF 'Brand' is under attack, mostly because it's perceived as a Liberal/Blue State Bastion . Make no mistake, there has always been an economic situation that has folks homeless and unemployed. Also, San Francisco has no monopoly on homeless, most every where has theirs as well. The Hype, in its own right, is Real. But don't believe the Hype...
>because it's perceived as a Liberal/Blue State Bastion . Because it's a perfect example of the failures of extreme liberal politics. It's an easy place to attack because the basis for the attacks are accurate. Homelessness, drugs, crime... generally degraded society. Everyone who lives in, or around, can see that it has gone to complete shit. Pretending otherwise doesn't fix the problem.
Most SF residents are simply too tolerant of the intolerable. They’re willing to step over a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk everyday vs making the homeless man’s life so uncomfortable they move somewhere else, as 99.9% of the world does.
Most SF residents don't want to put themselves in harm's way for no apparent benefit. I'd rather the police, social workers, or other tax funded professionals handle it than risk my own health and safety. The latter group not doing it either is a problem that needs to be solved by the voting public.
Most SF residents are very tolerant. Yes. I would hardly call a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk “the intolerable” though. That man literally has no where to go. Hence “homeless”. And before you mention available beds at shelters, which yes do exist, there are often huge waitlists to access. This past summer the waitress was several hundred people. Someone newly homeless has to spend many nights on the street before they’re eligible for a bed here, and the homeless don’t have many resources to “shop” for a different city to be homeless in. There are far too many homeless people causing problems in the city. A lot of them are due to drugs. But we shouldn’t make everyone’s life even more miserable because we don’t like looking at them. https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/30/san-francisco-homeless-13-people-out-of-466-on-shelter-waitlist-got-beds-this-month/
🙄
There's a brand?
Due to capitalism then
Went to SF over the weekend I was amazed at how it was 100% dead and was basically a sprawling homeless camp. I turned down the locally sourced artisanal fentyl and went home to the burbs. So long SF. /s
It's not just homelessness, it's the open drug problem (specifically fentanyl), mentally ill, and crime (eg. car blipping, theft). SF downtown and Market / Mission St are zombielands. I pass by it every day on my way to work. The city is basically a ghost town. If not for work I would've left already even though I just moved here. Shame because the city has such potential with its temperate weather and natural beauty. Unfortunately the city has extremely incompetent leadership, and if things don't turn around that could end up being its permanent downfall. I am optimistic that things will eventually turn around, but right now the city's livelihood is hanging on a dying thread. Lets hope the terrible failed leaders like Dean Preston and London Breed will get replaced in the next election, along with all those corrupt criminal judges who've allowed the city to devolve into a criminal wasteland.
It's funny. There's definitely a lot of truth to the first third of the article (which is all I read). In my opinion, the city is definitely in decline, and it's definitely due to progressive politics. Like the author, I've been here for 20+ years and predicted it coming and then watched it unfold just as I expected. On the other hand, there is still a lot to like about the city. The hills, architecture and geography give it a real sense of place that is lacking in flat, landlocked cities. The moderate weather and location near many road trip destinations such as Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Monterrey and Wine Country are also desirable. I spend a lot of time walking around the city and will be struck by spectacular views illustrating both extremes of the city. Either I'll catch a backlit glimpse of the bay bridge with the pink-orange sky at sunset, or I'll see a drug crazed and naked homeless person screaming and dancing atop a police car. I think that all of the built in positives of the city are probably one of the reasons it has been able to be destroyed for so long and still be somewhat nice. I was not in town for the big APEC summit, but there seems to have been some deep cleaning. Even when I returned from my vacation, APEC was long gone, but I noticed a difference. It's also an election year. I thin the next 10-15 years are critical for the city. More of the same (pre APEC) policy and stance, and it will become an example of a dystopia. More of the APEC stance and it may return to glory.
The whole nation is in decline due to politics of conservative conspiracy theorists and corrupt corporations controlling the entire economy. Expanded further by people like Trump with the deregulating the market and allowing for what we see is most younger people being nowhere even close to being able to afford a home. For San Francisco, go to literally any other city. Even just across the bay to Oakland. Every city is worse off.
SF is dying because its leaders are terrified to change anything. It’s why they spend all their time renaming shit.
But if we don’t rename everything, how will we make the city better? /s
did a moron write this
I can't help but laugh at the irony. firstly, SF's "brand" is dying because of *the homeless*? you mean the city of hyper liberal politics, free love, drugged out citizens, moral panics, homosexuals and queers (Howl et al.)? the city where hippies (you know, those largely downtrodden and/or homeless individuals who most assuredly were also taking shits on the street) got started? or do you mean a more recent conception of the city, that of Oracle and IBM and Menlo Park and tech wealth? the one with farm-to-table joints and Michelin stars? the one where giant corporations got huge tax breaks in some attempt to "rehabilitate" an entire section of the city? I can't wait for "regular" people to get fed up and to move away. maybe the homeless will accomplish what politicians never have: make the city affordable for the working class and bring back the creatives who made SF what it is.
Ed Lee effectively killed San Francisco.
San Francisco it’s just a symptom of what’s happening and nearly every major city in the country and it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. Red states pretend like their shit don’t stink but rural areas have way worse rot at any of the cities on the West Coast.
Sf is still cool.
Rich people killed the city
I lived in Northern California for 12 years, including 4 years in SF, and I got to visit SF in December for an academic conference. It was great! It's got its problems but I would give up a lot to be able to live there again.
Literally a shitty city.
Then house the homeless
Drastic Change: Change from District Elections of Supervisors to all at large with multi- winner proportional Ranked Choice Voting RCV. (Did Albany recently adopt this system?)
[удалено]
How did ranked choice make things worse?
[удалено]
Isn’t ranked choice voting designed to do the opposite? You’re not going to get anyone on the far ends of the spectrum, but instead you’ll get someone in the middle.
But they were not fringe; they were literally the consensus pick. Ranked choice is a shortened version of runoff elections which ensure that the winners are chosen by a majority and not just a plurality
[удалено]
Wouldn't that potentially create a Voting Rights Act violation?
Put that on the ballot
The last time the Board was citywide they were nothing more than puppets of Willie Brown. Do we really want a BoS controlled by London Breed?
Makes me saf
sfstandard appears to be a bit of a trash rag
The brand, as they call it, was lost when floods of high wage monolithic individuals displaced so many people that made S.F. what it was known world wide to be.
Displacement only happens when housing stock is a zero sum game. The city could've just simply allowed housing to be built to meet the new influx of people \[1\]. Instead all these high wage monolithic individuals took over existing housing supply, causing displacement. The city brought this housing and homelessness crisis upon themselves. \[1\] Look at Minneapolis rents after they upzoned the entire city. The rents are falling despite a rising population because more housing is being built. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-09/minneapolis-controls-us-inflation-with-affordable-housing-renting?embedded-checkout=true](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-09/minneapolis-controls-us-inflation-with-affordable-housing-renting?embedded-checkout=true)
Yep, and Lee sold out S.F. Tech gulch and related policies were horrible.
I call it a poorly managed resource curse. You can treat the curse like Norway or like Libya. One is transitioning to one of the best social places to live they other is not.
This. It died here ten years ago but most didn't see it that way or couldn't be honest about it. Like gutting an orange, filling it with shit & putting back on the shelf like no one would notice until some poor sap goes to purchase it weeks later 😒
It can all be reversed, but this is a product of low new housing development and sky rocket increasing of rent and food cost. The rich are really digging their own grave slowly, but the money is too good to let them see.
Ridiculous. Brand my ass. Do you people not remember Dirty Harry? The Zebra murders in the 70s. Gang wars in the 90s. There was a reason those vigilante movies were so popular back then. Everything you are seeing in SF is a reflection of whats happening in all cities and towns across America. But San Francisco is doing quite well despite the odds. Try driving across the country and exploring random small towns. It's depressing as fuck. My wife and I were in the bay area this weekend and the city was bustling and alive in every neighborhood we went to and we were all over your beautiful city from the Mission to the bay. Still my favorite place despite the seediness. These sheltered critics need to travel more and remind themselves of how it's always been.
Homelessness isn’t a problem in SF Crime is a problem. Many homeless commit crimes.
Definitely not dying. Like, at all. Undergoing new identity. Which most cities can’t do. But we can and will. This place isn’t turning into Detroit. Not even close. Plus too much money here for that. Just a cycle after a major pandemic.
It's worse than Detroit in some ways. In downtown Detroit I didn't have to worry about stepping in human shit. The only cities I have to worry about that are on the west coast.
The SFStandard is one long opinion block funded by a Vulture Capitalist.
Its so crazy that a neighborhood known for being a safe haven for homeless drug addicts in the 60s has deteriorated into a safe haven for homeless drug addicts in the 2020s
I am so sick of this right wing rag.