Comment by fosk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fosk | Hacker News Reader

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I am frankly tired of hearing this non-sense. NYC is more expensive than SF and it is very much a vibrant place.

For a decade SF complained about tech and actively drove companies away, because they wanted “their culture” back.

Fine, then tech organizations left after covid (and their money left too), and now SF complains that tech organizations are not supporting the city anymore with their money and their employees, and you get entire areas of town (ie: Fidi) which are empty and small business are struggling. Who exactly do you think was supporting the outrageous spending and programs of San Francisco? Artists playing the piano in a bar, or hundreds of millions of dollar in taxes paid by tech and its employees?

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Now - finally - we get to see “SF culture” in full force without technology organizations and their employees: meth-addicted zombies with violent outbursts, tents everywhere, human poop and needles, salmonella outbreaks, go ahead and complete the list.

Nobody wants to live in a place like this: not the artists, not the families, and now not even tech workers. There are plenty of great cities to go to, why would anybody move to San Francisco and deal with these quality of life problems?

Wait, I'm complaining the tech money left? Artists playing in piano bars... what kind of artists are you talking about? Clearly, not the ones I am.

I agree there are some terrible policies and parts of town are struggling (and addicts too). But there were huge problems in the 90s as well (in SF an NY). Frankly, NYC is a MUCH bigger place with Manhattan alone being twice the population. But please, if you don't like it LEAVE!

Nobody likes poop or needles, nor drive-bys and side-shows those are symptoms of law enforcement and the city not giving a F#ck... but the tenderloin wasn't some beautiful panacea 25 years ago either, nor the mission, nor the dog patch. All of those places were hipster-gentrified and drove out people who did give a damn. Bringing money doesn't mean that a WETF attitude and boring consumerism won't make the place worse than you found it.

If you want to raise kids, go to the avenues or the marina or a suburb somewhere. Yes, it's horrible expensive, but why does the world owe you the lifestyle you want and the house you want in the place you want for cheap? Why does everyone else have to change the way they live for you? Because you got a FAANG job? I feel more for the people born in SF.

BTW we always called the Fidi "wine country" for the obvious reason (people drinking wine on the corner)... and that was 25 years ago when at least strip clubs could afford the rent.

> but the tenderloin wasn't some beautiful panacea 25 years ago either, nor the mission, nor the dog patch

The dogpatch was a waste land 10 years ago, it got redeveloped thanks to new money and the new tenants that were willing to pay $$ to live there.

The problem of San Francisco is not tech (which gives resources to the city, and which every other city would do anything to have) or the lack of artists.

The problem is San Francisco is the utterly incompetent leadership that fails their citizens at every level (supervisors, mayor, school board, DA, police, etc). Technology was an incredible opportunity for this town to become world class, and now they got nothing to show for it.

How about we refocus on the real problems that are affecting this town? The tenderloin doesn’t have to be this way, the Fidi was thriving up to 2018/2019. The alleged lack of artists is at the bottom of the pile.

A world class city like San Francisco can and should do more to guarantee that no kid steps on poop or needles. Take a step back please: this is a very low bar, and these are problems that every city in the world doesn’t have. So what’s wrong with this place? Why is San Francisco a poster child for disgraceful and incompetent leadership? Why can’t it remove poops from the street with a budget of billions of dollars. What is wrong with this town?

These are the problems that we should be focusing on.

yup, its time to go to other cities like austin.

If you want the perfect place to live look for a red state but a city thats moderate and large.

You get sweet sweet low tax rates, usually affordable housing, good jobs, political extremists are more rare since liberals aren't too powerful and the conservatives basically lost their previous dominance.

Red states with large moderate cities are the place to live in the usa.

Low taxes, less crazy people, good living.

If your city is dominated by one political side completely its basically time to run away.

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