Because the people from overseas and the conservatives on reddit canāt seem to understand that every city has rough parts, yes some worse than others, and every city has beautiful and awesome parts. Tons of people live in these cities, normal people like all of us. Skid row is a well known homeless drug addict area for many, many years. This isnāt a new thing, but theyāre acting like the entire city is like that. Same with SF and the Tenderloin district downtown.
The reality is, there are MUCH worse crime infested cities in Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, etc. But they like to point the finger at liberal cities that have crime problems (and yes I think all cities should be much tougher on violent crime).
Acting like a small area of a huge city is representative of the whole thing while not acknowledging that the cowshit town they live in has been rotting away with meth and opiates for decades.
Because the people from overseas and the conservatives on reddit canāt seem to understand that every city has rough parts, yes some worse than others, and every city has beautiful and awesome parts.
The rough parts of Paris were not as rough as growing up in East LA in the 80s and 90s, but they were still pretty shitty
International travelers have the money to not live in those neighborhoods they pretend their home countries don't have
Can confirm, from Louisiana but have visited LA and SD a few times. Anyone saying those cities are shit holes have no clue what a Shit hole is really like
Its not everywhere. Its only in a couple areas where homeless people live. The human shit thing is so overblown. LA metro is over 500 square miles, and there's only a couple of streets where you'll find homeless shitting. The average person will never come across it if they dont live near those areas.
Conservatives get off on shitting on California in particular. Classic hateraid, don't listen to those dumbfucks. Where they live is 1000 times dirtier, more depressing, more unwalkable and most especially more dangerous than any of the CA cities and they need to sing themselves the lullaby that CA is worse so their dismal lives feel a little more rosy. LA is currently the #2 travel location for foreigners, and I doubt the OP is anything other than a right-wing douche pretending he's a foreign traveler.
And this is true of rural areas too. Don't hang out in trailer parks or church parking lots and a lot of rural/southern areas have quite beautiful areas.
What's unusual about Skid row in LA, and what makes it stand out, especially to visitors to the city, is how central it is, it's literally in the centre of the city, right in the Downtown area. Same with the Tenderloin in San Francisco.
Sure every city has it's sketchy areas, but in London you don't walk 5 minutes from the Houses of Parliament and end up in Peckham. It's very unusual (outside of America) to have such a run down area so centrally located and so close to tourist areas, and even then, places like Peckham in London might be poor and run down, but they don't even come close to places like Skid Row or the Tenderloin when it comes to urban decay.
Even in the US it's not like this always, NY has its dodgy areas, but again, you don't just step out of the Empire State Building and stumble upon them, they're not in the city centre, so they don't stand out so much and aren't noticed by visitors, who generally stay in the centre.
Fair points but can we at least acknowledge the clear and present vastness of the homeless LA has? Last count i saw was like over 60k and im sure it's far more than that. That is insane and in no way comparable to anywhere else.
Yes, LA gets dragged for problems other cities have and maybe even worse than LA but lets not act like a small city of homeless is normal. Its not. The sheer number IS unique to LA and SF so let's not do what aboutism here bc it's not comparable on a homeless level.
There's that many homeless people because they are leaving the other shitholes for LA. At its root, it's really not a problem "created" by LA by any fair measure. So it's not really fair to expect them to somehow solve it magically. They could totally "solve" it by violently cracking down hard on the homeless, which would do absolutely nothing to help with the actual homelessness, they'd just go somewhere else or, y'know, die. But I'm sure the city would look a lot "nicer" as a result.
To properly address the issue you really need to do something at a federal level, and reduce nationwide homelessness, which could be tackled in many ways I'm not about to go into. It's not realistic to expect CA to foot the bill to deal with the bulk of the homeless in the entire country, and painting it like somehow something must be crazy wrong with their cities because there's a lot of homeless is naive at best, intentionally misleading for ideological purposes at worst.
Yes I absolutely agree that the homeless population in both of those cities is insane, thereās other cities with similar problems. I donāt know what the answer is. Part of me wonders if they are almost āhomeless destinationsā due to the great weather and lenient policies. People from all over can make their way to LA, SF, SD, etc
If you were homeless would you try to find your way to some place like Montgomery, Phoenix, Chicago, Denver, etc where there may be fewer services, rough winters, or rough summers, or Los Angeles, where there are services and a temperate climate?
Homeless rates in California are lower than the UK, France, Australia, NZ, etc
I did say that some cities have worse parts than others. And I also said the homeless situation is really bad in numerous cities on the West Coast. Just like the crime and gun violence in St Louis, Memphis, Birmingham, Gary, Baton Rouge is out of control.
Having so many homeless, addicts and crazies in the streets is NOT normal. I did not see homeless camps in habana, mexico city, hanoi, bangkok all considered shitholes by US standards.
Last time i went to LA was june this year and its as bad as it was 5 years ago, if not worse. The government is not doing anything to improve, the only thing i see they do is move the camps if people start complaining. None of these camps are near politicians houses of course š
I think the difference is that those cities in Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, etc. aren't nearly as celebrated. There aren't as many tourists going to Gary Indiana with high hopes as there are visiting Hollywood Blvd or Santa Monica pier and having to bob and weave through scam artists and the guy high off his ass on something clawing at the grass and cursing at God, then getting harassed on the metro ride back. That was my experience in LA at least. I knew the tourist spots would be tacky, but I didn't expect them to be so... grimy. Hiking trails were pretty though.
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u/gobias Jul 11 '23
Because the people from overseas and the conservatives on reddit canāt seem to understand that every city has rough parts, yes some worse than others, and every city has beautiful and awesome parts. Tons of people live in these cities, normal people like all of us. Skid row is a well known homeless drug addict area for many, many years. This isnāt a new thing, but theyāre acting like the entire city is like that. Same with SF and the Tenderloin district downtown.
The reality is, there are MUCH worse crime infested cities in Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, etc. But they like to point the finger at liberal cities that have crime problems (and yes I think all cities should be much tougher on violent crime).