While the interactions with or seen by willingly homeless can be entertaining at times it's a serious issue. I'm 6' 3", grew up in the NYC metro area, have stayed in all sorts of communities in deplorable conditions. Have visited West African countries with security issues and ongoing terrorist insurgencies. San Francisco stands as the only place I ever felt in real danger in certain areas. The public defecation has human feces in public places that exceeds that of 3rd world countries. But you get over that, the smells, the sickness, open drug use, dirty needles etc. but you cant get over the mental illness. Criminals are driven by financial means which means 9/10 you can reason with them if you are not yourself a criminal/gang member. What do you do when you are in the bart system and you see a knife wielder aggressively talking to themselves or to the "open" with no means of escape. The homeless there are responsible for the daily stabbings and deaths of other homeless and non-homeless. In a week span I saw more aggressively homeless persons than anywhere else in the country.
Lol I went to SF for a work trip for the first time last year, and the first thing my coworker from LA and I did was walk around Tenderloin. On purpose. All the while another coworker of ours (an SF local) would be yelling at us telling us not to go.
It's definitely not recommended, but it's also much safer than some of the other stupid places I've gone.....
i mean 10 years ago it was the friendliest city in America, then people took advantage of that and started mobbing there to do fentanyl on the street. now it's a shithole
You can search for San Franciso homelessness on Youtube and find a great number of random people simply documenting how bad it is and what the streets look like. Linking just a short one as a preview but you can find entire makeshift "documentaries" about it.
I was born in San Francisco but haven't lived there in ages. The topic has become a "hobby" of mine to follow because unlike some other city collapses like New Orleans due to weather issues or Detroit due to economic issues, San Francisco's issues and potential, incoming collapse seem entirely self-sustained by it's politicians.
They've basically got a trio of problems that are all exacerbating each other:
-Housing Costs
-Drug use
-Crime
Likely starting with housing being too damned high in San Francisco, and this forces a lot of people on the streets.
As a result of homelessness, people might turn to drugs to alleviate stress or crime to get by.
Well, sounds like crime got so bad with people actively engaging in petty theft either to get by or alternatively, secure a place with free food and boarding (aka prison) for a time that someone got the brilliant idea to stop pursuing crime as much so the prisons wouldn't be as overloaded as they were. This made the problem worse, and now it sounds like any shoplifter who doesn't steal at least ~$900 worth of wares basically cannot be prosecuted, businesses don't bother calling those cases in and cops don't bother doing anything. Now businesses are fleeing SF en masse because it's simply not profitable to run a business there.
And let's break that down for a moment: there's effectively homeless people - aka non-taxpayers - running around the city and shoplifting, thus reducing the income of taxpayers, meaning SF has a budget problem. The amount of taxpayers paying back into the city and the amounts they pay are both shrinking.
It seems like until all three problems are resolved, the city honestly cannot start healing.
And through it all, apparently there's a culture of tech companies that effectively bus their employees to the safe parts of the city isolated from the problems, so there's privileged techies who don't really grasp the problem that continue to come to the city and likely indirectly drive up pricing issues.
Also interesting: the city - which was never a slave city or in a slave state to begin with - is busy looking into paying out reparations to black citizens, with proposed amounts that would cost the city billions and multitudes of their annual budget. And not just SF black citizens: they're entertaining the idea of paying any black Californian, not recognizing the danger this invites that they may get people coming to SF just to cash out, then leaving again the first chance they get because the city is too expensive, thus putting the city further into debt. Time will tell what happens with the proposals though; they still have time to back out of all of this.
It's kind of wild to watch unfold, because the governing bodies for San Francisco just seem completely out of touch with what the city needs.
As I said, it's one thing to watch a city collapse for environmental reasons or a strong shift in economic factors that unfortunately screws their main industry over. It's another to watch a city with seemingly self-induced destruction, and as of yet, there doesn't seem to be anyone pushing to correct the problems and get the city back on course.
Thanks for the detailed reply. From my perspective I would imagine SF is losing out on tourism too. I live in Ireland and after visiting in 2008 I wouldn't bother now. Probably a lot more like me, so more money SF loses out on
You can search for San Franciso homelessness on Youtube and find a great number of random people simply documenting how bad it is and what the streets look like. Linking just a short one as a preview but you can find entire makeshift "documentaries" about it.
You can find the same for Philadelphia, but as someone who lives there it feels really disingenuous because they fail to mention that it's basically just this one particular street in a certain neighborhood whereas the vast majority of the city isn't nearly as bad. I've never lived in SF so I can't speak on that directly but I'm a bit skeptical of those types of videos
Yes, initially, but I'd also argue one needs to recognize how all three can exacerbate each other now.
Someone on drugs is less likely to be a contributing member of society and thus less likely to be able to get off the streets even IF housing is affordable.
And likewise, if you can easily provide for yourself just by ensuring you never shoplift over $900 and never get persecuted for it, where is your motivation to return to a more standard style of living? The moment you have an apartment - even if it's affordable - you're adding in additional costs to take care of with a job since you can't pay rent in stolen Doritos. As such, there is an argument to be made for setting up camp with a tent in an area with good access to a water supply, for example, and otherwise just living off theft.
All three problems are probably catalysts for each other at this point, even if it's most likely the trend indeed began at housing first.
No. Most people just go to the touristy areas, which is also where the homeless congregate. Also, one of the roughest neighborhoods, the Tenderloin, is right next to Union Square, one of the biggest tourist stops.
No. Speaking as a person who lives there. Most of the bad stuff is concentrated around the Tenderloin, which has always been a seedy area, and I have never felt in actual danger in this cityāspeaking as someone who used to live in Chicago.
But that's a pretty high-traffic area. I think this is a very important pointāmany cities have worse issues and they shovel them out of the way so no one can see them (*cough* Chicago). S.F. doesn't hide it for the most part.
Do I roll my eyes sometimes and wonder why they let the bums set up a tent at the corner of Castro and Market? Absolutely. Do I think there is a bad theft problem? No doubt. Am I mad at a lot of residents and city officials for constantly nixing more high-density housing out of some weird perception that this is Mayberry or something? God, yes.
But it's a city people love to hate, especially those who lean right. Most of the city is quite nice and I quickly find myself missing it when I am away for a time. "Shithole" is such ridiculous hyperbole.
Funny enough, it's a very walkable city (to the OP's point), but that's definitely rare in the U.S. Heck, I'd go so far as to say that's part of the issue. You're out among it, walking among it, and so you see it more than you would in a "car" city like L.A.
Edit: I feel like I should say that I have lived here for six years now and have only seen needles on the street twice. That's still two times too many, perhaps, but a lot of what you hear is exaggerated or sometimes even lies.
I live here too, and agree with all your points. But lately I'm starting to see the doom loop narrative as a good thing for our city. It keeps the city more accessible for those who actually want to be here (rent is lower compared to pre-pandemic, no crazy lines at restaurants, more space to enjoy our beautiful parks). Of course, it comes with other issues like public transit funding and decline of tourism, but I'm optimistic that those of us who choose to stick around will start digging in to fix our problems and help our city transition into a new phase.
The crime rate in San Francisco has been steadily going down since 2008. There was an uptick during the pandemic but rates are still lower now than they were then. You're being sold propaganda.
I was there in 2022 and it's still probably the only American metropolitan area I could see myself living in outside of my home. Love it and there were no problems. Even my typically worry-wart wife felt safe enough.
I live in SF. Itās fine. People are sensationalizing the most ghetto part of the city. Itās still one of the most beautiful cities in the US. Just donāt go to the Tenderloin and you wonāt see many homeless people. I have never gotten broken into and I drive in the city.
Anybody who just talks shit on San Francisco without giving specific examples from when they lived there is usually a MAGA conservative type who thinks California is some hell hole and is constantly burning down.
In fact, the Tenderloin in SF is the nicest and cleanest it's ever been. All the drug dealers are gone, all the drug users are gone, and the streets are empty and clean.
Iām not gonna lieā¦ Thereās a very small part of me that thinks that seeing a scene like that would actually make me want to stay in San Francisco
I saw a homeless pile leaking urine within two minutes of walking out of the hotel. This was 10 years ago and I imagine it's only going to get worse. I enjoyed my trip otherwise, but I have no intentions of going back anytime soon.
I visited in 2017 and it was great, sure there are homeless people but they didnāt bother me. I donāt understand why people get so uncomfortable around homeless.
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic homelessness has gotten a LOT worse.
Encountering a single homeless person never bothered me. But if you see dozens of people or entire encampments it can be very offputting for sure. Especially since drug use has gotten much worse on account of the fentanyl crisis.
My dad took me to SF in 2005, I remember asking "why are there so many people just sitting on the sidewalk?" and he said they're homeless, and I asked "but why are they everywhere?"
like we have homeless people in Toronto, publicly sleeping out on a few streets downtown, a few tent cities on the outskirts. But in SF it felt like there wasn't a single city block - not downtown, not suburb, not neighbourhood - that didn't have homeless people just chillin.
edit: upon further reflection, this is because it is fucking cold in Toronto, and not so cold in California.
Dude, Iām from Minneapolis and itās not really hard to understand why the homeless situation here is similar to what you describe in Toronto. Youād have to be an extra hard motherfucker to sleep outside 6 months out of the year here, our City will literally knock down homeless camps they find and drag you to a shelter in the winter.
Youāll just freeze to death in the summer. San Francisco is the last californiancity Iād want to be homeless in. My ass would hitchhike down to San Diego.
Sure, but SF is one of the clearest examples of how devastating it can be. Their refusal to build density during a massive job and population boom is a genuine humanitarian crisis.
It's a national issue and needs to be addressed as such. People on the other side of the country look at the problem and blame it on liberal, California policies while ignoring that the homeless guy is a veteran from Alabama with ptsd.
Well... the plan to deal with homelessness and mental illness in a lot of red states was: "give them a bus ticket to SF" for a long time. The reason the homeless stayed was because the city has social programs and a decent climate.
It really is a huge irony. I remember even before DeSantis, Florida pretty much made homelessness illegal. It's really rich to do something that easy and inhumane, and then make fun of the place that actually takes on the problem you just refused to deal with. It's like taking all your work for the day, dumping it on your coworkers desk, and then laughing at your coworker for being incompetent while bragging about how efficient you are. It's ridiculous!
It's like taking all your work for the day, dumping it on your coworkers desk, and then laughing at your coworker for being incompetent while bragging about how efficient you are. It's ridiculous!
That's basically been Republican policy since 1974.
Homeless folks in the US generally head west until they can't go any further. It doesn't help that most of the states they pass through on their way to the Pacific are super conservative and either don't provide any assistance for homeless people/the root causes of homelessness, or otherwise actively try to kick them out.
Me and my friends from Germany went to California back in April. 2 weeks of LA were perfectly fine, some shady corners obviously but overall pretty cool. The last week we spent in San Francisco... Holy shit, we shouldn't have booked downtown! As soon as the sun went down the zombie apocalypse started. We made damn sure to jump straight into our ubers each time we left the hotel.
The travel guides from 2 years ago were already outdated it seemed. Downtown was a hellhole, however the tourist spots were immaculate.
The Tenderloin is weirdly situated too. Like right in the middle of a bunch of nice areas. Simply looking at a map and seeing the various hot spots you want to visit, a tourist could totally say, āHey this neighborhood is walking distance from all of them. And the hotels are cheap!ā
Sounds like you got a hotel in the Tenderloin. Every other part of the city is nicer, and frankly, even the Temderloin isnāt as dangerous as it seems compared to the bad neighborhoods in other cities.
I went to the RSA conference in SF in 2019. Walking from the main tourist hotel area to their biggest conference center, homeless people were shitting on the sidewalk next to me during the few block walk. I've never been back. In every other city I've been, generally the tourism area is the nicest and they don't tolerate people fucking it up.
It has its good parts and bad like any major city. The homeless issue is a bit more complicated than "City bad" though. Red states literally dump their homeless in California. They made their cities hostile to homeless people and then offered them free one way bus tickets to wherever they wanted. Homeless people choose places with better weather and who won't throw them in jail for being homeless. California ticks the boxes.
When you have homeless being dumped into your city by the bus load it's gonna become overwhelming. I'm not saying the City hasn't also mismanaged things but it's not just an organic problem either. SF is already developed to near maximum levels. There isn't really anywhere to expand to.
Idk we literally just got back from San Fran and had a fantastic time. It took two seconds on google to see what areas to avoid and we didn't see anything crazy at all. I totally get that living there is a different story, but I don't get why people have to fear monger visiting places.
Yeah I went there about a year and a half ago and it was really nice. Maybe I saw some homeless people but it certainly wasn't dirty and dangerous to the point of being memorable. I left the city wishing I made enough money to afford to move there cause it was such a great place.
Their comment says San Fran and addresses the OP. The meme is about LA.
Like Hillary, and I fucking hate dynasty candidates, American conservatives have really convinced everyone the west coast is a festering sinkhole teetering into the sea from liberal policies letting petty criminals have free reign.
Most hate of LA and SF comes from two types of people, conservatives who hate the politics so only see the worst of the city in order to support their hate for liberal policies and conservatives who have never been to either city and get their opinion of each city from their echo chamber. So I guess it could be broken down to one type of person, conservative.
A few years ago I was walking around on a trip and a man in a yellow tie and yellow fedora walked past me carrying a briefcase.
Thatās it. Thatās all he had on. And there were countless tourists walking around with children. I havenāt been back since. Honestly I was more scared to death that I would step on a dirty needle and itd stab through my Converse and Iād get hepatitis or AIDS. What a sad situation.
I dunno what media I'm consuming but it is always talks about homelessness in SF, LA and other big cities in the US. Then I realized pretty much the entire country has a lot of homeless people but it is not fashionable to talk about those other cities.
It smells of piss almost everywhere in San Francisco, I've walked through some streets over there and seen yellow piss stains. And homeless dudes just whipping it out and peeing out in public in the streets
Don't tell anyone on the SF subreddit, they'll defend their $3000 per month 1bdrm apartments next door to the homeless encampment to the death "Don't want your car windows broken, just leave them down so anyone can rummage through your car at any time" is a legit thing I've seen them say. I live 30min from SF and I will avoid it like the plague.
LA and SF are best in a cars. SF is ok, just avoid downtown. Take cable cars around. At least you can walk/cable car SF. LA is a must drive city. There is no alternative.
This is clearly coming from someone who doesnāt live in SF. Iāve lived here 4 years, itās a fantastic, charming city. Thereās only, like, 2 areas to avoid, and the rest of the city is totally fine. People really need to stop making it seem like some dystopian hellscape because they didnāt do any research before booking a hotel in the Tenderloin. Every single American city has neighborhoods to avoid.
The media seriously over hypes how bad it is. Thereās one or two two neighborhoods that are quite bad. The rest is very nice. For better or worse SF is an extremely segregated city. If seeing the occasional homeless person is going to ruin your day then yeah donāt visit SF. But most of SF is very nice, walkable, and peaceful. Itās one of the few cities in America that you can actually live in relatively easily without a car. Itās biggest problem is an extreme housing shortage which fuels the homelessness problem. And bad zoning/housing policy is a key contributor to the car dominance of the United States, so itās something we all need to work on.
The media used to make it look charming. Now the media makes it look like a dirty, overpriced crazy town, where you can't park your car for 5 minutes without it getting broken into lol not sure which(if any) parts of that are accurate but thats the image I have now as someone who doesn't live there
I think that goes for any large city. You just need to find the underbelly. I live in Honolulu and it has beautiful areas and a crazy homeless population. I remember driving by a couple of homeless people having sex on the sidewalk at around 11 am by a busy road. Saw another homeless guy walk into the middle of the street and drop a deuce while I was waiting in a burger king drive thru line. Great times....
I stayed there for a week. We visited the wharf touristy shit on the NE of the city, we went to bars and restaurants on the NW coastal side, the more notorious SE side of the city. I donāt know the neighbourhood names for sure. We walked all over, saw lots of different parts of the city. I canāt remember even seeing a homeless person much less raving violent dirty lunatics people always complain about.
The second to last time I was there my family were eating at a restaurant, inside but next to a window. Weāre minding our business when some random guy outside looks at my brother and starts screaming at him making stabbing motions. Eventually some cops came by and kinda just shooed the guy down the sidewalk a bit.
We were definitely a bit nervous leaving the restaurant
For real. Anyone saying LA sucks has either never been there, or they only visited the touristy stuff.
Hollywood sucks ass, yeah. But between the weather and the food, it's hard to have a bad time in LA. And there's plenty of cool shit to do if you aren't just looking to check the vacation boxes.
The Getty, the Broad, Pink's, studio tours, Bob's Big Boy is good again(!), Griffith Observatory, La Brea, Petersen Auto Museum, and some of those malls during holiday season.
Most of that is touristy stuff and it's amazing. I think most of the bad I see are people going to the Walk of Fame. I try warning people that it's not fucking worth it. Just go to Musso's instead.
The overwhelming majority of LA hatred comes from people who have never been here once in their life and watch too many sitcoms or too much right wing news, or came here and never left the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Houston is larger than New Jersey. Itās probably easier to walk from Houston to New Jersey, then it is to walk from one side of Houston to the other. /s - kinda.
DTLA, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Torrence, Downtown Glendale, Atwater Village, most of Silverlake, downtown north-Hollywood, more and more Exposition park/USC area. LA has walkable parts, they need to be better connected but we are working on it.
Thatās the sprawl the comment two up from yours is mentioning.
European cities (and some Northeastern American ones) that developed differently donāt have the problem of needing to connect walkable zones because theyāre all bordering each other.
It can happen trying to get too and from the Arts District or something, but Im sure there are neighborhoods in every major city you would hate randomly finding yourself walk through
Santa Monica is super walkable. But I doubt a tourist knows it's a 20-30 minute ride through traffic from LA proper to actually get there and walk around
OP is full of shit. LA is very walkable. I know I've walked it.
Can you live your life (i.e walk to work, grocery store / shops, most of your friends and family)? If not walking, then a short and painless transit ride? Can you live a FULL life without owning a car?
That's the definition of walkable most people around the world are working with. I understand the US might have a different standard.
I've never been there but based on all the tv shows I've seen I'd be very very surprised if LA was considered walkable.
LA is massive and whatever you want it to be. There are beautiful coastline cities where people ride horses around, sleepy beach towns, nightlife capitals, super upscale, hipster spots, urban sprawls etc and shitholes like skid row.
Its definitely the kind of place you want to research well before you visit, but honestly anyone whoās lived here or spent any amount of time here understands this.
Like, as someone from LA, when you say LA is a shithole you arenāt even offended because its not even enough context to understand what youāre talking shit about lol. Saying LA sucks because of skid row is like saying California sucks because of LA or the US sucks because of California.
in fairness to ignorant tourists, LA as an incredible city to live in but i don't know how much translates by visiting. for me it's the food, diversity, weather, and general culture here that is worth the HCOL
chicago is a better city to visit (in the summer) because you can walk through grant park, check out a famous museum, get some great burgers and beer, go to a bears game, etc all without leaving the same area. LA has 5x what chicago does but it will take a hell of a lot longer to do it haha
Yeah, Iād agree w that. When people move here I always tell them to stay on LA for like 3 weeks and figure out what you want LA to be āfor you.ā Iāve been here for like 10 years and I feel like Iāve only scratched the surface because you end up getting stuck in bubbles because of traffic and etc. I wouldnāt expect a tourist to be able to figure all that out either.
I think a city like CHI/DC/BOS etc is a lot easier because there a lot more of a ātravel path consensusā than LA - plus the city as a whole is a lot more accessible
Los Angeles is the best city I've ever lived in. Huge variety of cultures with all of their amazing cuisines, beautiful weather, countless activities (you can surf in the morning, snowboard in the afternoon, and hike in the evening), and so many great people.
Like any city, there are downsides (cost of living and a large homeless population being the major ones), but I haven't yet found another city with the variety of people and activities equal to LA.
Florida will be better if you stay at St. Augustin or one of the other Old cities. Anything with a foundation date after 1850 is likely not a walkable city.
That's a pretty good general principle as well. Generally, the most walkable cities in the US tend to be much older, like the northeastern cities, Chicago, or even SF.
In terms of walkability, no. Pretty much the only walkable cities in the country are in the North East. In terms of not being shitty, maybe depends on the travelers expectations and preferences.
Ohio is pretty nice. I live here, and while there's basically zero public transportation outside of Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincy, there's tons of nice stuff to do in the city itself. It's a better trip if you have an event planned here, like a concert to attend or an event to go to. I'd say cleveland doesn't have much outside of music, the history museum, and the rock and roll hall of fame. There are some really nice places to eat though. I can't recommend visiting Little Italy enough, some of the best Italian food I've ever shoved up my ass.
Columbus and Cincy have fuckin jack shit to do, so don't go to those places lol.
Yeah man LA is such a shithole they should really check out the beautiful city of Boise where thereās no homeless people cause they donāt even want to live there !
Tell us....what are "good cities" in your opinion?
Here's some better advice....if you're going to travel 4000 miles to visit someplace, do a little homework. Maybe start with where you're staying and make a list of where you're going. If you are entertaining the thought of walking, you might want to plan the routes, and then MAYBE use a map program to let you walk the route virtually. Could take maybe 10-15 minutes. About the time it took the original to come on here and bitch about what they saw. Stay in a better area. Call an Uber.
This comment is about as valid as an American that goes to Europe and bitches everything isn't just like it is back home..
I wouldn't go to Russia, turkey, or Indonesia with a sack of weed in my luggage. Or a handgun. I don't walk out in the Alaska wilderness with my favorite bacon cologne on either.(I actually own none of these things)
It can be hard to estimate what sort of homework is relevant, and it takes quite a bit longer than 15 minutes to figure out what you don't know you don't know. For Europeans, the idea of tourism-oriented places not being walkable is absurd. Like coming to a city and discovering that nobody is willing to give or sell you drinking water: the place is designed for people, so of course it's going to have a way to get water. Or back to walking: the place is meant for tourists, of course it's going to be designed to account for people who didn't bring a car on a holiday.
Walking is normal. It's not something you have to plan, you can just head towards where you want to go and get there. If that has been your experience with 30 years of life and visits to 20 countries, why should the 21st country be different?
Exactly, so many countries and cities don't require this level of homework - you really can just show up and walk about... Execpt they aren't just meant for tourists, they're meant for humans, so of course you can walk around as you like!
On the face of it this is good advice, but really who thinks that going for a short walk through one of the richest cities on the planet is going to result in this kind of outcome?
Perhaps your cities shouldn't be full of this kind of stuff instead of blaming the tourist for seeing it?
You donāt really āaccidentallyā wander to the bad part of skid row. Like, thereās no reason for a tourist to be going in that direction for that long.
LA has bad parts, like all big cities, and assuming the whole place is a shithole because of it is naive at best.
Your comment is the most ignorant, blind perspective of the USA. If you think it's a city problem and not a nation-wide problem, you're either stuck in a small town with only the news to filter reality for you, or you haven't paid attention to the American capital system at all
Maybe start with where you're staying and make a list of where you're going. If you are entertaining the thought of walking, you might want to plan the routes, and then MAYBE use a map program to let you walk the route virtually. Could take maybe 10-15 minutes.
Damn this sounds like a horrible way to experience a new city. I've been thinking of planning a trip to the US for a while now. I have family over there I've never met. The more I read about how inconvenient the cities are to just get around the less excitiled I am about the idea.
Living in the UK and travelling to multiple European cities, the absolute best part about visiting somewhere new is not knowing where you're going. Getting out of the hotel and wandering off in a random direction looking for cool bars and restaurants is one of my favourite things to do.
I always knew America was very car centric, but reading other posts talking about the near impossibility of finding a grocery store without a car just makes it seem like such a backwards country.
Was going to say - we don't do that in the UK, because basically every city you can "just walk around". Some better than others of course, but we just don't have 'bad areas' in the same way. (There's some of course, that are a bit rough, but it's just not in the same league)
It's a big fucking country. I live within walking distance of literally everything I could possibly need in my life, and only keep a car because I like to visit my parents and they're over an hour drive away.
Not every place in the US is the same, and "makes it seem like such a backwards country." is such a fucking ignorant thing to say about one example from one place within the country.
Like there aren't places all over the world that are inconvenient?
Bro LA is amazing, so much nature everywhere (can go to the beach, forest, and a snowy mountain in the same day), tons of great Asian and Hispanic food, great museums and parks, vibrant nightlife, perfect weather, every single type of professional sport you could ever want to see, and lots of great people.
There is a housing crisis here for sure that is the root cause of so many of the affordability issues, but everyone pretending that the entire city is the shallowness of Beverly Hills or the destitution of Skid Row is insane considering 19 million people live in a metro area the size of a small country.
As a matter of fact, nevermind. Stay away! Don't come! It's awful.
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u/XtheEliminator1 Jul 11 '23
Easy solution Stop visiting shithole cities