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Comment by RickJWagner | Hacker News Reader

You are being downvoted, but your post is obviously truthful.

I’ve gone to SF several times over the years for tech conferences. It started out as standard tourist excellence. Then it started rotting. The last year I went to Moscone Center, the afternoon walk back to the nearby hotel was horrific. Druggies lounging around, poop on the sidewalk, conference attendees speed marching through the maze, trying not to make eye contact.

Once back at the hotel, it was nonstop sirens after dark.

Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare.

Update: Just saw this article, SEMICON West skipped SF and went to Phoenix this year. It was a success.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/17/tech-conference-tha...

SF deserves better, much better.

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I dunno, man. The first time I visited SF was in 2001. I was stunned back then by the homelessness problem. I vividly remember walking down the sidewalk near the Transamerica building during the morning commute and seeing folks in business attire casually stepping OVER a person sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody cared, even then, because it was normal. On subsequent visits, I’ve seen plenty more homelessness, had a bike seat stolen, etc. If you had a good experience a decade ago, awesome, but you also sort of got lucky if you didn’t see any of the other problems. Maybe it’s worse now, but from the standpoint of someone who grew up near Boston (which also has plenty of homeless folks and addicts), it never seemed “tourist excellent” to me. It’s a real American city with all the standard problems.

Yeah I'm similarly confused by the idea that it was great a decade ago. SoMa, which more or less includes Moscone, has been gritty for at least 20 years and probably much longer than that.

Similar for a lot of other parts. Market anywhere between 6th and City Hall has been grimy for a long time. The Tenderloin, I'm assuming, has been the way it is for a century (since it derives its name from police getting higher pay for patrolling it). That stuff is all stumbling distance to the downtown core, tourists and business visitors.

> Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare

I used to visit SF a bunch back in the 2008-2013 period, and it was the same as you describe it now. Coming from Europe I was shocked seeing things like people in broad daylight defecating on the street, smashing a car window, stealing a purse by pushing someone over so they hit their head unconscious and bleeding, it seemed like a madhouse.

I don't think people are downvoting them for their views about the state of SF (I've never been there so i can't comment on its state.).

People took issue with them saying they don't care how it's fixed.

I don’t know about SF, but increased homelessness is related to illegal immigration

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BFI_WP_2...

May be partly related in CA as well

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/failure-...

In what way does someone thinks this should be downvoted? One source is an academic paper, and another is journalism. Are you perhaps just allergic to reality?

Probably because the paper you link doesn’t mention SF or illegal immigration and attributes much of the rise to housing asylum seekers in emergency shelters in New York, Denver, Chicago and Massachusetts.

If you’re going to talk about reality you probably should read the sources you cite.

Asylum seekers usually start out as illegal immigrants. You’re either innocent or ignorant (which is worse?), but asylum fraud occurs at a non-trivial rate as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/24/nyregion/doubts-cast-on-i...

Other cases mentioned here https://whyy.org/articles/illegal-immigrants-lie-to-get-asyl...

Regarding the sentence which introduces the newspaper, if your reading comprehension is failing you, that’s not my problem.

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