The city's troubles are in large part due to a mindset that seems to pervade life and that I encountered in schools, where I was a high school teacher. In a nutshell, adults are afraid to offend, while children seem trained to be offended
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2023 09:25 AM by OptimisticOwl.)
I lived in California's CV (which is VERY conservative and much like south Texas) for about 5 years and then moved to San Francisco for about a year.
There are parts of SF that are breathtakingly beautiful. The city offices remind me of Paris... with homeless people taking dumps everywhere. I was struck by the picture in the link of the homeless man sleeping on the street with his ass hanging out. Something that was a very common scene as I walked from Embarcadaro to North Beach. Don't even get me started on what I saw on Market Street or Castro. Truly unbelievable... and a big part of my job was handling customer complaints... not to mention staff complaints. I don't think I can even begin to exress how insane some of the 'slights' were. Homeless would literally walk into our centers and take baths in our bathroom sinks... make themselves 'lunch' at our tea stations, and then take a handfull of our bottles of hand sanitizer and drink them. They slept in our door entrances... and broke into our 'lab' boxes to steal jars or urine, hoping that we somehow forgot and put some medications into the boxes. Homeless would get memberships at Planet Fitness and use the showers like a laundromat... running anyone else off. A tiny (like 200sf) crappy 1br 4th floor walk-up was $4,000/month... gas was $6/gal when it was $4 everywhere else (which was still $1 more than most other states) and a QPC meal from McDonald's was $15. (some) People got offended at literally everything, while most people there were just so busy trying to live their lives that they had no time for such stupid things. As bad as the adults were; children were the worst... They had learned to be offended, but lacked critical thinking and prioritization.
(05-23-2023 10:35 AM)Hambone10 Wrote: I lived in California's CV (which is VERY conservative and much like south Texas) for about 5 years and then moved to San Francisco for about a year.
There are parts of SF that are breathtakingly beautiful. The city offices remind me of Paris... with homeless people taking dumps everywhere. I was struck by the picture in the link of the homeless man sleeping on the street with his ass hanging out. Something that was a very common scene as I walked from Embarcadaro to North Beach. Don't even get me started on what I saw on Market Street or Castro. Truly unbelievable... and a big part of my job was handling customer complaints... not to mention staff complaints. I don't think I can even begin to exress how insane some of the 'slights' were. Homeless would literally walk into our centers and take baths in our bathroom sinks... make themselves 'lunch' at our tea stations, and then take a handfull of our bottles of hand sanitizer and drink them. They slept in our door entrances... and broke into our 'lab' boxes to steal jars or urine, hoping that we somehow forgot and put some medications into the boxes. Homeless would get memberships at Planet Fitness and use the showers like a laundromat... running anyone else off. A tiny (like 200sf) crappy 1br 4th floor walk-up was $4,000/month... gas was $6/gal when it was $4 everywhere else (which was still $1 more than most other states) and a QPC meal from McDonald's was $15. (some) People got offended at literally everything, while most people there were just so busy trying to live their lives that they had no time for such stupid things. As bad as the adults were; children were the worst... They had learned to be offended, but lacked critical thinking and prioritization.
And they want the whole country to follow their lead.
I think I would need at least a 10X increase in wealth/income to even consider moving to a blue- city. And I have liver in border communities, rural communities, medium cities, Mexico, and Houston.
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2023 01:03 PM by OptimisticOwl.)
(05-23-2023 12:57 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I think I would need at least a 10X increase in wealth/income to even consider moving to a blue- city. And I have liver in border communities, rural communities, medium cities, Mexico, and Houston.
I made double my salary from the CV and it wasn't worth it. I moved to Missouri and then Texas for about 70% of the salary in SF and was much better off.
A family of 4 earning 105k was living below the poverty level in SF. True fact.
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2023 01:16 PM by Hambone10.)
(05-23-2023 12:57 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I think I would need at least a 10X increase in wealth/income to even consider moving to a blue- city. And I have liver in border communities, rural communities, medium cities, Mexico, and Houston.
I made double my salary from the CV and it wasn't worth it. I moved to Missouri and then Texas for about 70% of the salary in SF and was much better off.
A family of 4 earning 105k was living below the poverty level in SF. True fact.
I am always shocked when I see what passes for a million dollar (or multi-million dollar property) in SF, or NYC.
Maybe one way to solve the immigrant crisis is not to pay their rent for them.
(05-23-2023 01:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I am always shocked when I see what passes for a million dollar (or multi-million dollar property) in SF, or NYC.
Maybe one way to solve the immigrant crisis is not to pay their rent for them.
If you had seen some of the structures built out of scrap materials at some of those homeless camps, you would swear that these hard working immigrant construction workers were simply doing under a bridge in SF what they did back in Mexico or wherever.
Seriously, some of those structures were quite impressive for what they had to work with. They looked very much like the stereotypical 'ghetto' in 3rd world countries.... Instead of walls made of mud, there were walls made of pallets and plastic panels. I saw one where they had turned plastic bottles (the ones with no 'deposit' on them) filled with water for insulation... and then made into a wall.
(05-23-2023 01:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I am always shocked when I see what passes for a million dollar (or multi-million dollar property) in SF, or NYC.
Maybe one way to solve the immigrant crisis is not to pay their rent for them.
If you had seen some of the structures built out of scrap materials at some of those homeless camps, you would swear that these hard working immigrant construction workers were simply doing under a bridge in SF what they did back in Mexico or wherever.
Seriously, some of those structures were quite impressive for what they had to work with. They looked very much like the stereotypical 'ghetto' in 3rd world countries.... Instead of walls made of mud, there were walls made of pallets and plastic panels. I saw one where they had turned plastic bottles (the ones with no 'deposit' on them) filled with water for insulation... and then made into a wall.
I once flew (private single engine plane) into a rural area in Mexico, and when we arrived, the one runway was covered with shacks and other makeshift habitation. I was not appreciating the ingenuity at that point.
What happened after that is another story.
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2023 01:44 PM by OptimisticOwl.)
(05-23-2023 01:38 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote: I once flew (private single engine plane) into a rural area in Mexico, and when we arrived, the one runway was covered with shacks and other makeshift habitation. I was not appreciating the ingenuity at that point.
