27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
Not sure I would ever call San Francisco "beautiful" - it was a dirty, beat-down city when I lived there in 1999/2000. Unless you can afford a view to just stare over the actual city to the waterfronts, pretending a bum isn't taking a shit on your doorstep right now and leaving their heroine needle for you to clean up.
Working in Manhattan many years later, I expected much the same arriving for the first time, but surprisingly wasn't so. What the hell are they doing wrong there? This article says much.
Underrated observation. S.F. has always had a scraggly personality since the Gold Rush days. It's where Dirty Harry and tons of '70s police procedurals were set in, after all. The issue is that despite tech wealth since the late 2000s, none of it has seemed to better the city and in some ways has increased wealth inequality.
Manhattan's answer is because of Giuliani's authoritarian mayoral reign. Cleanliness came at a cost of mass arrests and evictions of the homelessness, restrictions on shelters, and stop-and-frisk. Probably not a price that S.F. is willing to pay.
Far more than just SOMA/Tenderloin is problematic. Mission, Hunters Point are just as bad.
And more suburban areas like Fillmore, Western Addition Inner Richmond are still subject to rampant petty crime. I’ve lived in a few of these areas and I am well aware.
Didn’t a family just get held up at gunpoint while washing their car near Bernal Heights?
This specific thread was merely talking about the look and feel of the city. If you look at some of my other comments regarding crime, you'll see I very much agree with you.
The quintessential feel of SF, cherry-picked to be outside of known bad areas, is the sound that is produced when, on a quiet street of Inner Richmond at 1am, nearly weekly, people (I use the term loosely) too incompetent to hold a rectangular object drop a recycling bin upon themselves as they steal recycling, and swear profusely.
Sure, there are a couple of attractive areas, but a lot of it is just ugly sprawl. I love driving in to the city and looking over rows of boxes smashed together in rows. It looks a lot like Tijuana. So much of the city is treeless and just poorly maintained old buildings from what looks like the 50s and 60s. Sure, lots of old victorians and some of them are even taken care of. The parks are pretty. Overall though, I don't get the appeal. SF is perpetually cold and dreary. I know some people like that, but it's definitely not my cup of tea. Throw in the high cost of living, the crime, homelessness, the sidewalk poop(stepped over some last time I was there)... But hey, it's expensive, so someone must like living there, right?
I love the hills. Walk up 10 minutes from tenderloin (worst part of the city) and you are on Russian hill. Almost never see homeless there, just 5 start hotels. (In fact this seems to be true of most areas of the city, walk up any hill and there are almost no homeless, they are for the most part too lazy to do it). From there you can see the bay on one side. Just a beautiful view.
Nearby from Russian hill is the biggest Chinatown in the US. Walk 5 blocks into Chinatown and you are in a different world. 95% Chinese people, no Chinese in the grocery stores and food that I have no idea what it is.
I can have a drink and smoke a joint with some friends in the park and no one cares. Where I live now I would be immediately have the cops called and arrested. Speaking of parks, I love golden gate park. It is huge and on the other side you are at the ocean.
Most of the people I have found to be far friendlier than on the east coast. Maybe I am a bit on the spectrum but people in SF don't care. Or maybe it is some other reason. But when I lived in SF I made friends way more easily. Also went on a lot more dates. For me I would be happier to move back to SF and complain about the rent and the homeless than live on the east coast and commute to my soulless suburban office park.
There's human feces everywhere outside the tourist/financial districts, and the entirety of the inner city (Tenderloin) is disintegrated and full of poverty, homelessness and crime - and it's predominantly people of color who accumulate there.
If that's "diverse" and "beautiful" then I'd hate to think what "monocultural" and "dull" looks like...
> There's human feces everywhere outside the tourist/financial districts,
This is not accurate. The Sunset, Richmond, Parkside, Presidio, Marina, and many other parts of the city are very clean (or at least not notably dirty for a city). Perhaps the Marina/Presidio could be called tourist areas but the Sunset and Richmond certainly are not.
Imagine saying "Yeah, there are human feces all over my living room and kitchen, but the bedrooms are clean. Overall it is a great place to live."
Whenever I visit SF I run into someone who looks like an extra from a zombie movie every time, without fail. Sometimes they "violently beg" by lunging at your feet as you walk past. Scream obscenities. Offer stolen goods at red lights. And if you somehow don't see them you can certainly smell them.
Just because we collectively got desensitized doesn't make all this OK.
I’ve seen someone take a shit on the sidewalk in the Marina (chestnut street). And I’ve seen similar stuff in the sunset. And to the OP I see this stuff fairly often in the financial district.
Anywhere near Market is mid to high levels of gross for sure. I think in FiDi and the East Cut companies pay for private cleaning services (and perhaps some private pseudo-policing as well) but these areas are directly adjacent to highly distressed parts of the city.
I've lived here for over 5 years and can absolutely confirm there are a few parts of the city that are dirty and have the feces/needles that people who honestly can't afford to live here love to talk about when they're denigrating the city. As you've noted, there are lots of neighborhoods, MOST of the city, that are very clean, safe, and obviously very desirable to live in.
Hmmm. I lived in the heart of the Castro for 15 years. When I arrived it was lovely. When I left (3 years ago, pre-covid), it was... not. Homeless and vacant storefronts everywhere.
The merchant who has been running the shop below my place longer than I have been alive (and I'm OLD by HN standards) put it this way: The Castro is dying.
Maybe there are neighborhoods changing for the better somewhere to balance it out, but I kinda doubt it. The change is real.
Sunset, Parkside, and Marina are all wealthy areas in the north/west of the city.
Richmond is not in SF city.
Presidio is right next to the pier and thus I would consider it a "touristy area".
You're living under a (perhaps bejeweled) rock if you've lived in SF and never seen human shit, someone peeing between some cars, dead animals, homeless literally everywhere, disheveled buildings, trash piles lining the gutters, etc.
Someone who doesn't know that the Richmond is a district of San Francisco doesn't get to pompously lecture me on not knowing about the city I lived in for seven years. Also, the Sunset is not a particularly wealthy district and it's not in the northwest.
I never claimed that these problems don't exist, but the idea that they're part of life in every part of the city is simply false.
San Francisco has an Inner/Outer Richmond district. It’s the area north of Golden Gate Park. Inner/outer Sunset is south of Golden Gate Park. How can you be such an authority on SF and not know this? Yes there’s a Richmond city but it’s not what’s being referred to here…
Richmond is also a city, hence why people usually say Richmond District if they want to explicitly refer to the NW District of SF when discussing the city and the surrounding area.
Poster you’re replying to isn’t wrong, just as you aren’t.
They were providing a list of neighborhoods in SF. It wasn't ambiguous and would have been well understood by anyone familiar enough with the city to comment on the state of SF. There's also a Richmond Virginia (among many other Richmonds), none would make sense in the context of a list of SF neighborhoods.
You don't even live here. Your twitter bio says you live in Germany... "Homeless literally everywhere" - no, not literally at all. "Trash piles lining the gutters" - you don't even know what you're talking about.
San Francisco was brilliant before tech, and will be shining in the next boom. Some things are bigger than now, and maybe bigger than we can fully understand.
To me the confluence of cultures, like the brackish waters of the bay, are it’s hallmark. The issues around sudden wealth, excess, limited housing, and visionary governance seem to be more about the place than a particular moment.
So according to people voting with their feet: no, San Francisco was not a brilliant place before tech. Or at least it wasn't brilliant enough to attract a net increase in population.
Believe it or not, I met a RE agent who told me back in the early 90s RE agents were leaving SF because business was so bad. It's hard to imagine, but at least an anecdote.
But so was San Jose. Apparently the "downtown" was boarded up in many places till the late 90s when it began emerging from a mini-Detroit like state. MacEnary was feverishly trying to resuscitate it, I don't think it was his effort so much as it was tech to the rescue, else it would have been an Albukerke.
That is completely true, but it's by no means confined to SF.
In SF in the 1980s, SOMA was one of the cheapest places even in a cheap city like SF... lost of broke creative types living in old warehouse/industrial space that would otherwise be going derelict.
In lower Manhattan whole neighborhoods were in a similar state -- bohemian artists occupying loads of space that nobody else would touch.
And in London plenty of neighborhoods were full of squats. Housing stock had become so worthless that it wasn't even worth the effort to prevent people living there for free.
Now those same neighborhoods are among the most expensive urban areas in the English-speaking world. People are literally spending millions of dollars to live at those exact same street addresses... in some cases even living in the same structures, just instead of a half-derelict warehouse it'll now be all marble countertops and the like.
All of these places have their own stories and unique factors, but it's also very remarkable how similar the trajectories and how extreme the swing has been.
I don’t live in California but visit[ed] a bunch for work and family reasons. San Jose has essentially always felt like a rust belt city with better weather. Even up until 2020 the downtown restaurant and bar scene was like going to the cool part of Toledo. I don’t understand why that is, but it’s not surprising to me that any small economic downturn would result in flight.
I’ll also add that 60’s - 80’s San Francisco and the Bay Area at large gave the world counter-culture, organic food, gay rights, and the birth of modern computing. I would attribute the population swing more to general trends towards growth in suburbia.
I've lived in south china pre-2000, in southern Europe and in south America. The first (and only) time I've seen human excrement on the streets was 2 years ago in San Francisco. It's very... odd. I mean, I don't think we should obsessed with the human feces part of it, but it would be nice to understand what's going on that it is so visible.
Let me explain. The authorities there made it ok for people to do that. Police will not arrest you. You can use the streets as your bathroom. They even announced it on the local news (around 2014-2015). Either they are too stupid to realize people would take advantage of that, or they are malevolent and wanted to destroy SF for whatever political reason.
Just because people vote for it, it doesn’t mean it is what people want. There is also the option that the voting system is faulty and that the voters don’t have a real option.
As an example, the city of Reykjavík has 23 representatives in the city council. They are voted proportionally from parties represented distinct views. San Francisco board of supervisors have 11 members, less then half of Reykjavík’s despite having more then 6 times the population. ~And to make it worse, each member is voted on a first past the post system.~ [Edit: Not true as pointed out in a comment]
The San Francisco mayor is voted in a separate election and is not on the board of supervisors. Since this is a position where a lot of political capital is to be gained it is often used as an opportunity for a politician seeking a career, rather then as a passive position willing to let diverse opinions and find consensus among differing views.
None of this is voter’s fault. Rather there is a systemic problem which can only be fixed by the people who are benefiting from the status quo.
> Just because people vote for it, it doesn’t mean it is what people want.
This is really key, and should be a bigger topic of discussion in mainstream political philosophy. Governments that purport to be democracies ought to be responsible for aligning policies and outcomes with the preferences of the electorate. It's far too common for people to dismiss literally any problem in an ostensibly democratic jurisdiction as "well that's what the people voted for," as if the only end goal of a government is to pass some bare minimum threshold of being considered a "democracy" and the rest of the responsibility is on the electorate.
There is accountability at the ballot box, but only if you're willing to vote for the other guy. SF has been under one- party rule for a long time, and if incumbents don't fear for their jobs, they have no incentive to do what they say.
I grew up in SF and still have family sticking it out there. I don't completely disagree with the sentiment here but last I heard I thought SF had a pretty serious diversity problem. Is that no longer the case?
Not sure why this got down voted, I was just asking a question. Thanks HN. Seriously though thanks for the responses, I was legit curious what people thought. I'm gonna go watch last black man in san francisco again.
African-Americans ethnically cleansed from the city, first by Justin Herman’s “revitalization” of the Western Addition, or the shocking fact that black men in Bayview-Hunter’s Point have a life expectancy 20 years less than other SF males, and in fact lower than the US average for black males.
Just because we have a black female mayor does not mean the real racism of SF is gone, just as electing Obama did not miraculously cure the US if it’s racism.
I don't agree that they have been "ethnically cleansed." I'm sure economics has forced some out.
I've live in many parts of the country, and this is by far the least racist, and most racially diverse, place I've lived.
Black men in the city would be expected to have a lower life span than black men nationwide, since urban black neighborhood are more prone to drugs and gangs. Have you compared to other big cities, as opposed to just nationwide?
I once took a Uber ride with an African-American gentleman as the driver. He had previously been a policeman in the SFPD, and his uncle owned a print shop in the Western Addition. He refused to sell his shop when Justin Herman's "renewal" project started. Shortly after, persons unknown vandalized and destroyed the print shop at night.
Ok, well that was over 50 years ago. A lot has changed since. Currently San Francisco is one of the most diverse and liberal large cities in the country. The black population is certainly lower than various surrounding cities such as Oakland, but that doesn't mean it's mostly white.
San Francisco (and much of California) has effectively a one party system. This means that often the real elections are primaries or along party lines. Chesa Boudin and Gavin Newsom are both in the same political party, but their political views are vastly different.
in this social respect though, one party actively promotes 'diverse' lifestyles while the other just accepts them. I don't think SF would have come to be under the latter, nor could the latter exist in SF
IMO there’s kind of a lot. I live a few minutes south of SF on the peninsula and last weekend I walked around the waterfront and the mission with friends. I was struck that I encountered visible piles and marks as well as smells pretty much everywhere we walked. Like, it’s really a lot of public shit compared to any town a few minutes south of the city.
FWIW I blame systemic problems not the individuals responsible. But the problem was viscerally apparent to me.
I reported some shit for the city to clean up. They never cleaned it up. It just sat there for weeks decaying. After weeks, there was only a little bit left... probably ended up on someone's shoe.
Early in the pandemic, the city looked worse. Now it looks somewhat cleaner but still depopulated.
There are some tourists but surprisingly many of the people walking around at Bay Area locals. The tourists are still so few that you can recognize them upon seeing them again.
I've lived in SOMA, the Mission, and Russian hill to name a few... there is a lot of shit here my dude, far more than should exist for a city with this much wealth.
There is literal shit everywhere. A walk down any block needs one eye kept on where you step. If it's not human shit it's dog shit because pet owners can't seem to be bothered.
There are few and dwindling public bathrooms to the point where gig workers struggle to find facilities[1] while they're out there doing critical work. Rich NIMBYs believe that bathrooms (and not the sky-high rents they seek) encourage people to become homeless, so they've successfully shut down the emergency facilities opened up during the pandemic[2].
True, my comment was a bit loaded but 'shit' in my comment was not really mean excrements... I used it to mean 'problems' in a hard, loaded way like 'This is the shit I have to deal with' with some parallels to homelessness but if you read my comment again, it doesn't really say what you think it does
