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Comment by forapurpose | Hacker News Reader

> people feel like they are forced to live in cities

Based on what I know, people are flocking to cities because they want to be there, and companies are locating there in order to be attractive to employees. Cities have very high levels of services (due to economy of scale and density), restaurants, the arts, sports, walkability, bikeability, energy, community ... sustainability ...

San Francisco has all that in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Many people prefer that.

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San Francisco is also less sanitary than many of the poorest slums in the world.

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/2/19/17029308/trash-needles-feces...

I am not sure I want my children dealing with human feces (and the risk of diseases such as hepatitis A) and used needles as part of their childhood experience.

Hepatitis A vaccines are fairly simple: 2 shots in 6 months give 12 months of protection, and a third shot after 6 more months gives 20 years of protection. Children as young as 1 year old can be given the vaccine. Please talk to your doctor about getting this vaccine to protect you and your loved ones against this disease.

And, defense in depth: Also don't take your children places where people are pooping on the street, or leaving around needles, if you can help it.

Although I don't see why "just get a vaccine" is a sufficient response to "I don't want my children around feces and needles".

You read too much into my reply. My only point was that hepatitis A is a disease that is easily defended against, and I wanted to spread that knowledge.

This is not a problem innate to cities, and it’s not even endemic within cities that have these problems.

>This is not a problem innate to cities, and it’s not even endemic within cities that have these problems.

Density still matters though. You can go your whole life in the middle of nowhere without seeing someone take a dump in a public place or see a car that's been broken into.

Not really. The places where people are most likely to defecate in the street are places without toilet infrastructure, which in a global context, is much more a property of undeveloped rural areas than it is of dense cities.

The problem in cities is usually that some people aren't allowed to use any of the many toilets that exist, which is a much easier problem to fix.

It's not innate to cities...but SF's got some cleanliness problems that other cities in the country don't.

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