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Comment by george88b | Hacker News Reader

I don't live in Sf but its city government sure sounds dysfunctional, more so than most cities at least.

SF is the NIMBY capital of America for a reason. Loads of people who can't seem to understand why housing prices keep rising while they simultaneously ensure that no new housing can be built.

For ESL:

NIMBY Not In My Back Yard; someone who opposes anything built right by where they live. NIMBYs cause a lot of things to not get done.

The FIOS (FTC) role out was objected to in certain posh parts of London because the residents objected to "the ugly green cabinets"

Apparently the second assistant nanny complained that it was hard to maneuver the giant buggy/prams around :-)

BT said ok no FTC for you then and went off and did other less precious areas

Tell me about it! In our village, FTTC has been delayed at least 2 years because one NIMBY bstard didn't want his view of the field in front of his house to be obscured by a larger cabinet. He's already got a cab in front of his house, just didn't want one perhaps 8 inches taller. That's one man holding back progress for thousands.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-ci...

Thank you for that link. I was trying to find it when another discussion about the idiocy of SF city government came up on HN a few weeks back.

Folks, it really is this bad.

One of the most dysfunctional in america.

Indeed. It baffles me when anyone tries to uphold San Francisco as a model of progressive good governance. SF succeeds in spite of its government, not because of it. Basically it is fortunate to have great weather and an abundance of wealthy educated people who can absorb the insanely high cost of living and tax structure and still have enough left over to pay their way past the lackluster public services they get for all that tax money.

Oh I can name a few more dysfunctional cities, Detroit comes to mind. Is a city dysfunctional because it fails one segment of its population? Lets face it, high speed internet is not going to appeal or be used by many in any city. Yes there are those who will, but we tend to vastly over estimate the impact the net has on those who are poverty line or lower.

Is Detroit more dysfunctional adjusted for economic condition? Because even a well-run city would be in a bad situation if the local economy declined, for unrelated structural reasons, the way it has in Detroit.

Cart, Horse

The Free Press had a long-form history about Detroit's mistakes and missed opportunities.

http://www.freep.com/interactive/article/20130915/NEWS01/130...

I like to point out "Pension officials handed out about $1 billion in bonuses from the city’s two pension funds to retirees and active city workers from 1985 to 2008" but there's a lot of other stuff in there.

Detroit had some trouble baked into the cards back in the 1950's, when they were a geographically big city with corresponding fixed costs that would have trouble dealing with any decline in population, but it didn't have to be anywhere near as bad as it was.

Yes, it is.

You got that right but I'll hold my rant for another day.

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