Comment by hot_gril | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hot_gril | Hacker News Reader

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You're right. I used to work there. Hated the experience, but I can see why it's like that.

SF was always dense. At some point, all these tech companies moved in, and it became what I call a "commuter city" where a huge proportion of people there during the day don't actually live there or necessarily want to be there. It also shifted the culture, probably for the worse. Of course many living there beforehand might not like that. Yeah some people own property, but generally big business stands to gain the most from the influx, not the residents. I wouldn't be happy in their shoes either, and the only reason I wouldn't be NIMBY about it is I'd just leave. The NIMBYs basically lost; the city grew anyway.

And it comes from every side, not just a "left or right" thing. People with nice houses don't want their neighborhoods to deteriorate. Renters don't want rent to go up. Even the stereotypical SJW people against gentrification... that's NIMBY.

Also, being a dense, very wealthy area with relatively fair weather, SF is naturally a place for homeless people to congregate. Besides the obvious squalor that brings, businesses don't trust just anyone off the street. No public restrooms, no chairs in Starbucks, covers on everything in Walgreens, ID requirements to enter stuff, you get the idea. There's no obvious solution to that.

> No public restrooms, no chairs in Starbucks, covers on everything in Walgreens, ID requirements to enter stuff, you get the idea. There's no obvious solution to that.

Is this seriously the reality of SF? Never been there. If yes, that's pretty bad and degrades the city in some aspects to 3rd world place. But then again I am in Europe, many things like crazy homeless people I saw often in LA are unheard of here.

What do you do if you do multi-hour walk around the city? Or hop from one restaurant/cafe/bar to another one?

You pay for something, then you’re allowed to use the bathrooms.

Many places don't have one for customers.

That’s, in my experience, rare.

I worked there in 2016-2018 and returned several times 2020-21, and yes it's been this way.

It's not very difficult to deal with, just annoying enough that at some point you might get tired of it. I walked everywhere, only avoiding a few streets. You can find the cafés or even public seating areas that are hospitable, but it may require a little trial and error.

The one actually hard thing is finding a bathroom. Many businesses don't have one even for paying customers, unless it's a sit-down restaurant.

The Philippines has pay toilets ("comfort rooms") everywhere. I've always wondered why the US has capitalism for everything but toilets. It really makes things more convenient as people have an actual incentive to offer toilets to the public, and the prices are low by local standards.

there's actually bans against them in most states, from a student campaign in the 70s. Funny little piece of history: https://apnews.com/article/3b2787ac6c32405e8cd7aafe8789cd8e

Yep, sounds about right. If you're a tourist, though, I would say that restrooms are accessible to a similar extent as any European city I've traveled to. They're perhaps more likely to be disgusting if you're in the worst parts of the city. Decent venues stay on top of it, though, and any place with a counter to order from will have a code you need to ask for to gain access.

If you're a local, there's of course social engineering tricks you can use, like going into a branch of your bank to make a withdrawal, then asking to use their bathroom.

And the quiet part that isn't spoken of is that all these businesses HAVE to have restrooms for their employees; and if you are nice and (basically not visibly homeless) and nobody is looking, you can often get access to them "as a favor".

Restrooms are the first victim of the tragedy of the commons.

Be careful about trusting what people in this thread are saying. If you only spent a few years here to work, live in a "trendy" spot for startup kids, and mostly spend time in SOMA/FiDi/Hayes then your understanding of the city will be skewed.

In Sunset, Parkside, Richmond, Sunnyside, Glen Park, etc the coffee shops and restaurants have chairs. Many with the space have outdoor seating. Lots of them have bathrooms too - the ones that don't are for building space reasons not because of abuse. The bathrooms are supposedly for paying customers only (like much of the US) but I happen to know if you have kids they waive that restriction (blowouts rightfully generate pity from anyone who's ever had kids). I've never been asked for ID to enter a store. My local CVS does have some products behind locked covers but only a few more than my parent's small town CVS. It doesn't have a security guard. Everything is just more normal and relaxed.

That said there are areas of the city where things are much more annoying due to theft, vandalism, and so on. Walking into a CVS in Mission/SOMA vs a CVS in Diamond Heights is like two completely different brand of store. Crime has definitely increased.

“The NIMBYs basically lost” feels like it’s true in a lot of Northern California. Out in Tracy, a local lawyer (who had an office but not a residence within city limits) got a residential growth restriction on the ballot and passed circa 2000. The city took it to court, it was upheld after a few years, essentially zero residential development went on in the lead up to the ‘08 recession because the city had allowed “too many” houses to be built per the terms of the RGA restriction…

Fast forward 20 years later, the town grew substantially anyway, within the terms of the restriction. And all the problems that the lawyer and his supporters said their restriction would prevent happened. Traffic, densification (loss of “small town” feel), escalating housing prices, a majority commuter population… and much less of an escape valve to fix it all. The NIMBYs basically lost. And it has a knock-on effect, because families pushed into commuting to support themselves have to look even further out from their Bay Area jobs to find an affordable places. But the same lawyer still shows up to city council and planning commission meetings to remind everybody about how close they are to the limits on how many houses can be built this year.

Yeah, there's a sour spot where they're not planning for growth but not conserving the neighborhood either. I don't like the idea of neighborhoods becoming urban. It just doesn't work well. The urban area should be planned for density from the beginning, and they go all-out there without fighting the neighborhood for zoning permits. Make it ped/transit-friendly, and put parking on the perimeter instead of wasting valuable space on the inside. Meanwhile there's no reason a quaint neighborhood needs a huge apartment complex.

Thank you for this frank breakdown of what's going on. This seems like a good possible explanation for the testimonials I'm reading in this thread. I'm still struggling with what is espoused by those from SFO area and tech culture compared to the reality of what's going on.

If anybody is dedicated to 'social justice', to remove/resist facilities to relieve oneself just seems so far off the mark. I'm sure a lot of this is due to me not being in a city as dense as SFO, that undoubtedly has to change the dynamic. How much is this a "this is just a great place to live" issue, and how much is this a "this is a great place for easy resources if you're disadvantaged" issue?

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but in a chicken and egg way, I'm curious if a city with this much "not-here" going on, do people give money to initiatives and charities and people who ask for money/food on the street, or is it typically a city where people avert their gaze? I ask this because if resources were hard to be secured without effort, and if the city is generally expensive to reside in, the amount of those without resources should decline, right?

Where my hypothesis / thought-experiment falls apart is from what I can tell, most of California has amazing weather, so even sleeping on a sidewalk it's got to be quite hospitable and paradise-like (as odd as it feels to say)

I’m not sure I’m getting the full gist of your questions, but to one point: Yes I think people generally avert their gaze to the people and the issues, perhaps because of shame or sheer disinterest. I personally want to financially contribute to make things better, but it’s unclear how to get accountability with my spending. Giving cash on the street seems inefficient and likely to be used for the ‘wrong’ things. Organizations in the city and the city itself don’t appear to be doing much at all due to incompetence or bureaucracy.

To another: The folks living in the street are generally not the same as those in the laboring class. So indeed, those without resources working especially in the service industry are declining, and this is becoming quite an issue with cost and availability of these businesses. The people on the street mostly seem to thrive off the excess wealth the city casts off. But to be clear, although it doesn’t freeze, SF is no balmy paradise.

> If anybody is dedicated to 'social justice', to remove/resist facilities to relieve oneself just seems so far off the mark.

I don't know but would wager that it's not those people. All sorts of people live in SF, like anywhere else.

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