Because SF is one of the first places to become a sanctuary city (contrary to federal law). Not only a sanctuary city in the traditional sense but a sanctuary to those who live outside society norms on many levels. It has a wealthy population and known as one of the great cities in the US. Its decision to tolerate homelessness, drug use, high levels of property crime with no city response is disconcerting to people outside the city. Why its citizens seemingly tolerate the lawlessness is also concerning. Elected officials, law enforcement duty are to protect the citizens. The “oh, it’s not so bad” attitude of people who live there bothers many. It should. And if you don’t think it’s a big deal then it’s because it doesn’t affect you directly–but it affects many others.
Right now it may still be okay to those living there (and there are many areas of SF)–outsiders see it as a slow rot to a once great city.
SF has been through many ups and downs in the past. Its neighborhoods have experienced phases of poverty, crime, renewal, gentrification (not always welcomed), social upheaval, boom and bust. My personal memories of SF throughout my lifetime are pretty mixed, since in the past I’ve lived in less wealthy neighborhoods with plenty of urban problems. I can remember scary moments in SF from 40 years ago, and throughout the intervening decades. I expect to have scary moments in the future too. I’m still OK with my high school senior taking Bart to SF for an evening concert, for example (as he did last week) and our younger child taking Bart to her classes there, etc.
This is not to minimize SF’s current set of issues, but if outsiders view SF through rose colored tourist glasses as having been “a once great city” without urban problems… you are not seeing all the complexity of this city’s history.
To me this sounds like a caricature — do you live here? It seems like you are interpreting the experience of living in San Francisco, presuming things like the responses and emotions of its residents (or lack thereof) through a picture that someone has painted for you, when those of us here know it to be far more complex than the portrait you are painting. Of course the city has problems. All cities do. But don’t believe every hyperbolic report you see on sensationalist media. Your description reads like a poor “ripped from the headlines” 8pm news segment and well…ok. Don’t come! But don’t try to tell those of us who actually live in and around the city that we are somehow wrong to love living here. It’s just weird!
I’m just glad you aren’t talking about Portland. Because people say exactly the same things and it’s all overblown. Of course, we are also known for rioting and the whole city is burning down (hyperbole and sarcasm).
Homelessness is a huge problem for west coast cities (and housing prices are not dropping) and the pandemic made it worse. In part, this is due to a legal ruling that does not allow us to criminalize sleeping on the streets. (Boise vs. something) You in other federal districts don’t have that. The pandemic also emptied out our city cores with so many information industry folks who could work from home. There will be no “back to normal” but something new will be created. It all just takes time. Stay away if you want to, or come and be part of the change if you want to.
If any city on the west coast is likely to be the next Detroit, I would think it would be Portland, not San Francisco. San Franciso is part of a huge metropolitan area and has good weather. Portland is much smaller but is the biggest thing around. And it rains a lot here. But even here, while I see changes and redevelopment in new ways, needed and slowly starting to happen, I don’t see death. I was here in the early 80s when crime was a lot worse, and I didn’t come back until the 10s so I missed the utopian days. It’s still my favorite place out of everywhere we’ve lived for a lot of reasons. And I’ve lived all over this country, except the South.
I lived in NJ in the mid-80s. Going to NYC was a big scary deal. Then it changed.
Like a lot of things, change for the better takes a lot longer and much greater effort than a change in the opposite direction.
Agreed. A lot happened in the past 3 years. And it will take a lot of effort to address it all. In San Francisco and other places as well.
That improvement was largely driven by the financial community and other business leaders desire to “clean up” the city for their workers. Tax revenue was growing dramatically as the finance and banking firms benefited from bull markets and the sudden “access” and democratization of investment vehicles emerged.
As money flowed in, more workers arrived and services improved attracting smaller businesses to support the throngs of workers. Previously unpopulated or less desirable space was used or gentrified in a never ending cycle of finding the next new hot neighborhood even extending to Brooklyn and Jersey City.
This current downward cycle is different particularly in SF as the pandemic has created a new normal where workers will not return suffocating small business and creating a downward spiral of tax revenue. Many of these business have up and left with no impetus for them to return. The tolerance for lawlessness and deteriorating social construct adds just another reason for businesses not to invest in the downtown. Currently workers don’t want to work collectively, the tech space is experiencing downsizing and disruption and even if these two trends didn’t exist SF certainly wouldn’t be a desirable location. On top of that there is so much excess office and commercial space available that getting to an economy of scale would require a significant reversal of these trends.
Unfortunately this will take much longer to correct and we are no where near a bottom as the impact of lower tax revenue hasn’t yet been adjusted for. You can’t borrow your way out of this situation, you need to build your way out and local leaders seemingly have no plan to attract investment.
The difference is that no one thought of Portland as a great city, in the sense that SF once was. To see how far it has fallen is depressing. Many places have had economic collapses-Buffalo or Cleveland, for example. But they were not tourist destinations to begin with. SF still has a strong economy but far more visible human misery than most.
Is the difference that the human misery is visible in the tourist areas?
SF has had its ups and downs, but I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t palpable human misery in at least some of its neighborhoods. I still remember some of the street people on the streets where I lived in the 90s and 00s.
Yes, I do think that is a lot of the difference. More visible to tourists or those working in the financial district who confront it during their commute. Most cities do not let tent encampments arise in prominent places-even Lafayette Park in DC had to clear those out years ago.
I was there several weeks ago for work. There were simply fewer office workers and statistically speaking more homeless and fewer tourists. That combo ensures human misery feels much more endemic and pronounced.
That lopsided ratio also keeps conventions away-planners used to consider it a desireable destination, but far less so now.
Perhaps I was lucky, but I didnt see the problem as pronounced in Newport Beach-maybe they have a different method of handling it?
Type “upcoming conferences in San Francisco” into a search engine. Lots are scheduled.
Yes they were probably scheduled a bit ago, once the world started to open up, but they haven’t been cancelled.
They “migrate” the transients through a number of policies to more accepting communities like Venice Beach and Santa Monica. In many ways the human suffering is more on display than SF in these areas.
Just relying on local SF reporting.
Oh, that is unfortunate. I had hoped they had a different approach.
Conferences in San Francisco 2023/2024/2025 Lots and lots of other venues
This. SF’s municipal flag has a phoenix rising from the ashes. Per Wikipedia: “The mythological phoenix appears in many ancient cultures and is a symbol of immortality. When the long-lived phoenix feels death is near, it builds a nest of aromatic wood and sets it afire. A new phoenix then arises from the ashes, just as San Francisco arose from the great fires of the 1850s.”
DH and I moved to SF over 20 years ago. Raised our kids here. It’s been a wonderful place to raise our family. C21 can’t wait to come back for the summer and wants to visit all the wonderful places she grew up going to. While they like going to school on the east coast, they’ve stated they like the “CA sensibility” better and would love to one day be back in CA and hopefully back in SF (I know, I know, the real estate prices and cost of living, blah, blah, blah, but many do it). Both my kids have loved growing up in this city. They feel proud of their City and love showing it off to their friends from the burbs who often have never even rode the bus, train, walked around alone downtown unaccompanied by a parent. My kids are savvy, city dwellers, which has translated into being confident, wise, worldly, empathetic, cultured, young adults.
My 80 year old mom in law moved to the City after her husband died and lives smack dab in the middle of it. She walks all around the City. When she fell off a curb one day, many rushed to help her get up. She spends her retirement tutoring low income kids in SF public schools through her Synagogue, goes to lectures, museums, the symphony, farmer’s markets, with other friends in the City and those from the burbs. All in their 80s, they love exploring the City.
While friends have left to go the burbs over the years, mainly to have more space at a cheaper price, many can’t wait to come back when their kids go off to college. None of them left because of crime rates. A friend left for an expensive burb in the East bay and within a week her home was robbed. She’d lived in SF for 15 years and had never been the victim of a crime. All of my friends who’ve moved out, come back to the City to go to dinner, theater, jazz, hikes, etc. with us, or just to spend a beautiful day on the bay.
Every city and many suburbs are grappling with the issue of unhoused persons, but they rarely commit crimes. You see it more in SF because we are a small city (7 by 7 miles). And you have to drive through less desirable areas to get out of the City. Believe me, it’s an issue we discuss and do not ignore. But we do not feel unsafe. We do not leave anything in our cars, and have done so for years, but we’ve never had our car or home broken into (and we’ve lived in many different SF neighborhoods). We feel empathy for the unhoused and SF is working on the issue, as is every other City.
SF is not perfect, it’s not for everyone. Live here, don’t live here, it’s your choice. But really, enough is enough. Stop judging. If you visit, we’ll welcome you with open arms and brag on the beauty of our City and all it has to offer. The phoenix will rise again.
What “different” approach do you expect? This is what is done to the homeless. Communities that don’t “tolerate homelessness” (to quote a poster above) don’t actually address homelessness, mental health, or anything else. They just force the homeless to another jurisdiction, then get all high and mighty about how other places (SF in this instance) refuse to deal with the issue.
As another poster pointed out, no one here has any solutions. It is just bashing SF, even though the problem is one that is much broader than just SF.