San Francisco is a 'train wreck' of inequality

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-apos-train-wreck-110300091.html

by rfinney • 8 years ago

35 31 8 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

Reading that article, they basically just say the same thing over and over each paragraph. Like echo echo echo. No real substance.

throwaway981213• 8 years ago

I was recently in SF for the first time to attend QCon. Beautiful city with a lot of character and culture IMO.

I made the mistake of taking an Uber from my hotel, about 1 mile away from the convention center. Traffic is horrendously bad and it took about 40 minutes to go one mile. It did give me a great opportunity to sit back and just sight see some buildings and what not for 40 min.

For the week I was there, I walked a lot after the conference each day to see the city. The thing that really stuck out was there was no new construction and certainly no high rises. Well of course, why wouldn’t prices go up then?

The roads were also pretty atrocious. I understand taxes are high. What exactly do they spend tax dollars on? Serious question.

I’d certainly would like to visit again but honestly it’s not a place I’d want to live in.

geebee• 8 years ago

I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it. I grew up in SF, lived here most of my adult life (I'm in my late 40s), and the state of SF hurts. San Franciscans might have a rep for being a bit snobby toward tourists, but a lot of us actually appreciate them, at least certain kinds of tourists. There are tourists who come back often and know the restaurants, clubs, theater, music venues, and history better than most locals, and I consider them a part of the city, really, an integral part of it. There aren't many truly urban places in the United States, and while SF isn't close to NY on this front, it's one of the other places where real urban-ness exists to an extent where you can find it. In that sense, I think SF belongs to everyone, not just the people who live here. And in a lot of ways, I think SF has been taken from you. Some grit is part of urban life, but the blight has gotten bad enough that I understand why a lot of people feel that they no longer enjoy the urban experience in SF. There certainly are parts of SF where this effect is much less pronounced, and many of them are gorgeous (a walk along Chrissy field, looking out at the bay, with the golden gate bridge to your left, the bay in the middle, Alcatraz and sailboats, and the city shimmering to your right, is a pretty awesome experience, the kind that stays in your mind long after you've gone back home).

But the thing is, that thing that makes SF rare, especially in the western half of the US, the urban qualities, are without question tarnished at this point. My grandmother grew up in rural Idaho in the early 20th century, and she told me that when someone said "the city", they actually meant San Francisco. Visiting a really urban place was a fascinating experience.

There's still an urban pleasure to be found here, and I'm always encouraged to hear that someone did find it on a first trip here. Hope that was the case for you.

jiveturkey• 8 years ago

absurd. you spent a grand total of 1 week of your life there, and experienced normal city traffic for any major urban center. you also went to places within walking distance of the conference center.

and after that grand total of time (and how many long time residents did you have a meaningful conversation with?), it's definitely not for you.

I would never like to live there either, but not based on a 1 week myopic view. SF is definitely taking a turn for the worse, even of a short timeframe like that last decade. However your review is quite poor. I hope you don't come to snap judgements like that about technology you deploy.

throwaway981213• 7 years ago

Are you feeling okay?

chrisdhoover• 8 years ago

The city government is bloated, pension plans are unsustainably generous, there is corruption of course, there is a homeless industrial complex that sucks up funds and does little, there are costly building codes that were written to benefit various trades, even though fire prevention has improved greatly, the SFFD spews FUD everytime a good government type suggests a few firehouses could be closed, Police refuse to do their jobs and blames the City Attorney, and it is true the City Attorney doesn’t do their job bit its no excuse for the SFPD, MUNI has the highest cost per mile in the US, and on and on.

jungler• 8 years ago

As one SF Chronicle article put it in describing CA Governor Newsom, SF politics are a lion's den that produces strong candidates for the national stage.

Which in perspective says not that SF functions well, but rather that it functions so poorly that you have to have immense skill to survive.

And like other established cities with some history, there is a vein of the upper crust - people whose parents owned property, went to the local prep schools and now own some property themselves. That's a thing that contributes to the quagmire, since it creates more complex entanglements than the basic economics would suggest. A lot of the tech billionaires have made moves to muscle in on this scene, which has perhaps helped it from getting too stagnant, but contributes to its overall incoherence.

tabtab8• 7 years ago

Pensions often become bloated because it's easy for a politician to hand out future benefits to get current votes. It's hit-and-run gift giving: robbing the future Peter to pay the current Paul. An average politician's reign is roughly 10 years, but pension problems show up multiple decades later. We'd have to change our political incentive system to solve that. Same goes for national debt.

megaman82• 8 years ago

Roughly almost 600 Billion is spent on the homeless problem. Unfortunately, due to the incredibly high cost of housing, that money doesn't go very far. It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of where exactly all that money goes. Anecdotally, I've read articles of government funded syringes lining some of the streets.

As for why you don't see more high rises going up, that's due to regulations which increase cost. I saw one tech crunch article that said super computers are now required to comply with all the regulations: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/08/why-you-need-a-supercomput...

Ironically, affordability regulations actually drive the cost of building up to the point where no one can afford it anymore and nothing gets built. Why is this allowed? A big chunk of the SF population is deeply conservative ( politically liberal), but actually conservative in that they dont want anything to change. Meanwhile more and more jobs are added every day exacerbating a huge imbalance between housing and jobs, and employers continue to wonder why they can't find "talent".

On the plus side, there's no shortage of fun spots in SF: the fisherman's wharf, the embarcadero, the presidio, etc. Lots of fun restaurants and cafes, etc.

jtmcmc• 8 years ago

I think you mean millions in SF.

Gov funded syringes are a useful thing to prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and hepc

throwaway981213• 7 years ago

Everything you described sounds like blatant corruption or at minimum, extreme selfishness. Im not a fan of conservative politics (grew up in conservative areas), but what you describe sounds like the batshit crazy end of the other side of the spectrum.

tabtab8• 8 years ago

SF is a sign of a bigger problem, not the cause. The world is becoming a winner-take-all economy. The best and brightest get bestier and brightier because they get to work on the latest and greatest and know the latest and greatest. If you "miss the train", you have to grovel with the masses for the scraps.

The Internet has made it both easier to find who and what you are looking for, and to filter out the rest. Inefficiency of info sharing used to act as a kind of socialism, giving average people & shops sales and opportunities. Now it's winner take all, the rest be damned.

Same with countries also; it's why the 3rd world is finding it hard to keep up with the big powers.

Let's face it, some of Karl Marx's predictions about "owners" growing ever larger like a snowball rolling downhill are coming true. (Whether his "solutions" work are another matter.)

etjossem• 8 years ago

This is a genuinely good take, and the downvotes are disappointing. We like to describe new efficiencies in productivity and information-seeking as "good for the consumer," because that's a highly positive effect.

But it's awful for any supplier who hasn't found a way to be better than the best yet - and that in turn can encourage unhealthy consolidation of large businesses at the expense of small ones.

Put another way: let's face it, some of Adam Smith's predictions about the risks of monopoly were right too.

deogeo• 8 years ago

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

tabtab8• 8 years ago

Downvotes are indeed frustrating. If I am "thinking wrong", I wish to know WHY I am thinking wrong so that I don't do it again. Downvoting rarely gives the necessary feedback to correct faulty thinking. I will "stay broken" without useful feedback.

wpasc• 8 years ago

I agree with sentiments of parts of what you say. However, the 3rd world countries have had the largest gains in the last 30 years. Global extreme poverty, child mortality, lifespan in 3rd world countries have had the most improvements BY FAR.

Supermancho• 8 years ago

They are surviving due to exported social programs and technologies, along with some capitalist altruism.

The improvements are only pulling up the 3rd world to below 1st world poverty standards. The winners keep winning and the winners from the 3rd world ONLY succeed on the world stage, after having migrated to a 1st world country.

tabtab8• 8 years ago

In many cases they went from super-poor to just poor. While an improvement, they still lag way behind the so-called industrialized countries.

Put another way, if we divide a family's economic condition into very poor, poor, middle class, and wealthy; the world system(s) appears to be bunching everybody into "poor" (and perhaps a few more into "rich") while the other categories are shrinking. The ideal would be to have most of the population in the middle-class.

strikelaserclaw• 8 years ago

Your thinking is absolutely correct and i feel the same way that you do. The world in general likes to reward those who already have in an exponential fashion. This is why no matter what type of system we adopt, there will always be a 1% and a 99% (In sports, wealth, academia, whatever... with the top .01% having an even more mind boggling share of resources or whatever). I don't mind being part of the 99% if my basic necessities are met, after all the cause of revolutions and the like is because they necessities are not met. I think the efficiency in production and all the technological advances should ultimately at least allow common people their basic necessities without requiring something of them in return. I think a universal basic income will have to be adopted at some point.

sjg007• 8 years ago

I mean there are some solutions here.. Buy local. Hail a taxi. Don't use Google and log off of Facebook/Instagram.

eli_gottlieb• 8 years ago

Have we tried enforcing antitrust law?

tabtab8• 7 years ago

The (legalized) bribery pockets of the big co's are too strong.

scarejunba2• 8 years ago

It is this way by design and it will remain this way by design. I'm fine with it.

San Francisco is a 'train wreck' of inequality

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