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Comment by leetcrew | Hacker News Reader

> It’s really odd to me that California is perceived to be such a problem while the area is so economically productive. It’s a very odd type of cognitive dissonance where something is both a model to be copied and a mess at the same time by the same people.

it's only odd if you think economic productivity is the sole determination of what makes a desirable place to live. regarding SF in particular, it's phenomenal what has been accomplished there, don't get me wrong. but this has to be weighed against the fact that a "starter home" costs $1mm, the rate of petty crime rivals that of the most dangerous cities in america, etc. it's not cognitive dissonance to acknowledge that, while great things have been accomplished, a lot of stupid mistakes have also been made.

and by the way, I don't think the ban on non-competes is usually what people are thinking of when they describe california as a mess.

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> I don't think the ban on non-competes is usually what people are thinking of when they describe california as a mess.

Antibusiness/antiemployer government intervention is the most commonly explicitly-cited thing, and pretty much every State law, rule, and regulation that favors employees or restricts employers is included in that basket.

> the rate of petty crime rivals that of the most dangerous cities in america

Correction: SF has nation-leading levels of property crime, a leaderboard dominated by west coast cities. The US cities with highest violent crime rates have comparably low property crime. Which makes sense: Property crime is riskier in those places.

Violent crime is often also property crime in fact, but often not counted as such. So the level of violent crime masks some of the property crime.

A negligible amount. Property crime rate far exceeds violent crime rate in every US city.

That rate of property crime is a direct result of prosperity. In poor areas there is less stuff worth stealing and people spend more effort protecting it.

The average house in Riverdale Chicago is worth less than the average car in Silicon Vally. People there make less money from armed robbery than someone can shoplift from a Silicon Valley Apple store. So shockingly with different risk/reward payoffs you get more property crime instead of armed robbery.

According to https://www.neighborhoodscout.com

SF property crime: 57.01/1000

SF median home: $1,195,367

SF per-capita income: $64k

NYC property crime: 18.64/1000

NYC median home: $1,126,049

NYC per-capita income: $73k

Palo Alto property crime: 22.88/1000

Palo Alto median home: $2,363,833

Palo Alto per-capita income: $89k

Chicago property crime: 32.48/1000

Chicago median home: $272,043

Chicago per-capita income: $34k

So SF has worse property crime even though it is on-par or poorer than NYC and Palo Alto.

That site is wildly inaccurate it lists 1.2% of homes in San Francisco as under 58k. https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/real-esta...

But, if you’re confusing the point, clearly median income isn’t the only factor. Palo Alto is 2,712.65/sq mi where San Francisco is 18,790.74/sq mi. It’s over the hump where you don’t get poor people begging etc. Similarly, manhattan effectively segregates the rich an poor in a way that San Francisco doesn’t, but wealth very much is a factor when comparing San Francisco to similar areas.

I think you mean disparity

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