
San Francisco: The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. - miked
http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s/1
======
pelle
The biggest problem in San Francisco is not the city government nor the
government workers but its the voters.

SF is a city of really well meaning people who will sign any petition when
they leave Safeways and vote yes to every single idiotic ballot issue.

What this means is that every single interest group gets people to vote them
funding.

Of course the people voted in are all of the same political flavor so rather
than having devils advocates amongst the commissioners you get each of them
pushing for spending on their particular special interest groups.

Unless the voters start voting no to these idiots and ballot measures I don't
see anything changing in SF in the foreseeable future.

~~~
dkarl
San Franciscans have the same problem Mike Huckabee has: they're naive. They
want to believe that anyone espousing the same moral values as them must be
honest and trustworthy. They want to believe that acting with good intentions
produces good outcomes.

This thinking is worthy of an eight-year-old. _This is why we love children._
The innocence, the wonder. _This is why growing up is painful._ You do
something with good intentions and end up breaking something or hurting
someone. You meet someone who seems nice and believes all the same things you
do, and they lie to you and steal from you.

Nobody connected with any deep religious or artistic tradition should need to
be so naive. Believing in evil is compatible with mercy. Believing in betrayal
is compatible with trust. Believing in waste, inefficiency, and rent-seeking
is compatible with a determination to apply the resources of government to
improve people's lives.

~~~
kingkawn
I dunno, i think this is too reductive, putting all the blame on a unique
aspect of San Franciscan character. It sounds like the ballot system there
allows for this kind of chaos, and so of course it ensues. It would happen
anywhere. It might not always have the same generally lefty bent that San
Fran's does, but otherwise I think its bad governance structure, not bad
people.

~~~
pelle
While governance and a flawed ballot system are definitely a big issue, the
real reason it has been exploited the way it is is that there is no real
opposition in SF. And that I'm afraid is because of this particular aspect of
San Francisco group think.

------
jsm386
Don't worry - San Francisco has a solution to all their problems, DC's
_limitless pot of stimulus gold:_

Standing among racks of freshly dry-cleaned clothes in the Bayview, Mayor
Gavin Newsom today touted San Francisco's early grab at federal stimulus
dollars which have put 1,200 unemployed city residents to work - including
sprucing up dirty clothes at Laundry Locker.

But there are, um, a couple of wrinkles that Newsom wants to iron out. The
program, part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, provides $5
billion nationally to fully subsidize the hiring of unemployed workers. But
they must have at least one child under age 18, leaving out many jobless and
childless San Franciscans. And the money is due to run out in September 2010,
meaning the newly hired could soon be back in the unemployment line.

Newsom said he's headed to Washington, D.C. next week to lobby House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi for an extension of the money and to include people without
children. He said he wants to see 2,500 or even more San Franciscans hired,
and that the majority of California's $1.8 billion pot is still sitting
waiting to be grabbed by cities since so few are participating.

"This is limitless. It's just a matter of who draws down the money fastest,"
Newsom said. "We discovered a pot of gold in the stimulus money."

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=53313&tsp=1)

------
grandalf
A few comments:

\- SF's massive spending on the needy would seem to attract more needy people,
so the point of comparison to the rest of the bay area could be misleading. SF
also has a more consistent climate than the rest of the bay area, useful if
you're homeless and sleeping on the street.

\- Whole sections of the city are overrun with homeless people (tenderloin,
golden gate park near Stanyan) such that passers by may be attacked, etc. I am
aware of 3 people who have been attacked by homeless people.

\- The MUNI system is decent, but there is little enforcement of fare
violations. Not sure if this is really a problem.

\- The mom and pop restaurants in SF are the best I've tried in any city,
including New York.

\- The level of tolerance in SF is fairly remarkable. You can dress however
you want, men can wear nail polish, etc., and nobody bats and eyelash. One
should not underestimate the importance of this sort of tolerance.

\- I agree that rent control is a big problem. It's just bad policy and
unfortunately it plagues lots of big cities.

\- I don't know why there is a housing project in Hayes Valley. It's hard not
to feel poor in SF if you earn over $100K Per year, and so one can imagine how
it must feel to actually be poor.

~~~
hugh_
_You can dress however you want, men can wear nail polish, etc., and nobody
bats and eyelash. One should not underestimate the importance of this sort of
tolerance._

Ah, but try wearing a "Bush/Cheney 04" t-shirt and see what kind of reaction
you get. One should not underestimate the importance of this kind of
intolerance. Who cares about wearing nailpolish when you'll be ostracized for
having political opinions which anywhere else would be perfectly mainstream?

~~~
grandalf
You are absolutely right about that.

I think the homeless and gay populations reveal that SF has an above average
amount of tolerance for differences (in general, but with heated disapproval
by vocal minorities) but that certainly doesn't mean that if you choose a SF
resident out of a hat and show him a GWB t-shirt, that he won't reveal himself
to have utterly un-nuanced (even boneheaded) views on topics such as the
differences between the parties, relevant details of the Bush administration's
policies, even things that he ostensibly supports like gay rights, clean
environment, and nationalized healthcare.

I think the bottom line is that there are some very dumb people who
thoughtlessly parrot what they perceive as "enlightened" views, who couldn't
explain why if asked... essentially "dittoheads" of the left.

Note: I'm a libertarian (small L) so I find fault with a lot of ways that
people reason (or more often bleat) about political issues.

------
mml
Having made an attempt to live there, and having then left, here is my
summary: San Francisco is a city populated entirely by 2 kinds of people:
adult children, and public servants/long-term welfare cases.

that's about it. people who are, or become grownups move away in disgust that
such a wildly beautiful and rich place is such a sewer at the same time. sad
really.

~~~
geebee
I'd agree if you didn't use the word "entirely." I grew up in the south/west
half of San Francisco, which is still, remarkably enough, populated largely by
families who struggle, with eyes wide open, in the same way that most middle-
class families do (their incomes would appear to be high, but the cost of
living means that they're not all that different from someone making a third
of that salary in a less expensive city).

I have two young children here, and I've started to watch the beginning of the
exodus (there are many families with small children in SF, even the trendy
parts... they generally start to leave when the first, and especially the
second, hit school age. Space, schools, all that stuff).

Many of the people who stay in SF have extended family here. There are also
the people who love it, but my wife and I have a new theory - the people who
express unqualified love for SF will probably leave. Its the ones who mix it a
grim recognition that, for whatever reason, they'll never get to check out of
this place - those are the ones who will still be here in 30 years. Hell, my
parents have been complaining about it since I was born.

You know, welcome to the hotel san francisco, if not hotel california.

~~~
yters
Ah, I see why SF attracts so many homosexuals, cost of living is much lower
when you don't have to provide for children. So, homosexuals both get a nice
living area, and all the heterosexuals who form families and might look down
on their choices are filtered out. Best of both worlds for them.

~~~
neilk
That's a weird way of looking at it.

1) The cost of living is still outrageous even for couples without children,
and the gayest areas are among the most expensive. SF attracts homosexuals due
to the culture and history.

2) What does raising a family have to do with "looking down" on anyone? All
the parents I know in SF raise their kids to be as gay-friendly as they are.

Also: you are aware that some _kids_ are gay, right? Most of them figure it
out very early, it's only homophobia that makes them suppress it until
university.

You're right that there is a political side effect of de-prioritizing
children, since most gay or lesbian couples are childless. But that's also
fueled by the high concentration of childless professionals in SF. It is a
snowball effect that will accelerate until the city's unlivable for people
with children.

I just don't think it's a conspiracy. One might argue that the real conspiracy
is gentrification, where family-friendly neighborhoods are swept away to
provide yuppie housing.

~~~
yters
I don't think it's a conspiracy, just the result of a couple variables.

At any rate, #1 supports my point. Since they are the most expensive areas,
they'll be even less likely to host families. On the other hand, if gay people
tended to live in low income areas, that would invalidate my hypothesis.

#2 doesn't really cause problems for my argument either. I suspect that if
anyone is going to be gay-unfriendly, it is going to be heterosexual couples
who have children. Especially if they have a large family they likely belong
to a religious tradition that considers homosexual sex to be immoral. So, if
most people, invariant over whether they have families or not, make an effort
to be gay-friendly, I still suspect a random sample of families vs singles
will turn up more gay-unfriendlies.

Finally, childlessness may also cause people to choose homosexuality. Most
people want sexual intimacy, but they don't want the risk of having children.
They can use a bunch of unreliable methods to avoid producing children in a
heterosexual relationship, or they can take the easy way out and choose a
homosexual relationship.

------
anigbrowl
Some good points, but a whole lot of outright bullshit as well.

 _San Francisco can't point to progress on many of the social issues it spends
liberally to tackle_

Oh really? Maybe you should take a look at the healthy San Francisco program,
which basically arranges medical insurance for the indigent. That works. I
like to grumble about Muni, the public transit system, but the fact is that it
covers the entire city, is (mostly) available around the clock, and every
vehicle is GPS tracked so you can find out when the next one is coming. I've
called in problems on a bus by phone before and had an inspector board the bus
a few stops later to resolve the issue.

Although many of the criticisms in the article are individually valid, many of
them are divorced from context, eg not considering the facts of state
politics. There are a bunch of things that need reforming in San Francisco,
but this article is hit piece rather than serious journalism.

There are two free weekly newspapers in San Francisco. For years the Bay
Guardian has been the standard bearer for grumpy hippy activism (and by
'grumpy' I mean an interest in basic fiscal rectitude). The SF Weekly, by
contrast, has done much better out of promoting entertainment and lifestyle
with some human-interest stories sprinkled in as news; indeed, for several
years they've had a policies of not even offering endorsements at election
time or putting any resources into election coverage. Now both papers have
seen a calamitous drop in advertising, both classified and display, and have
shrunk from tabloid to magazine size. And the SF weekly is desperately
churning out what it regards as hard-hitting journalism in a bid to stay
relevant, after years of coverage that amounted to little more than 'LOL
politics'.

~~~
defen
> Maybe you should take a look at the healthy San Francisco program, which
> basically arranges medical insurance for the indigent.

Maybe that increases the number of indigent? Why, in one of the richest, most
beautiful cities in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are
there large numbers of feral humans roaming around? Why are entire
neighborhoods off-limits to law-abiding citizens?

~~~
bkudria
Feral humans are people too.

Can you explain to me why only rich people ought to live in cities?

~~~
defen
I'm definitely not talking about poor people. I'm talking about people who are
literally incapable of living in a civilized society. People such as:

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/02/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/02/BAPF1ATVOU.DTL) (multiple random stabbings
on Muni and the streets)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ramos> (Triple drive-by gang murder
against people he erroneously thought were in a rival gang)

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/24/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/24/BA681APQCR.DTL&amp;feed=rss.bayarea)
(Murdered a pizzeria employee apparently because she didn't like his beard)

That guy I saw defecating on Haight Street (ok, maybe that one was my fault
for going to the Haight).

BTW congrats on item 10^6 :-)

~~~
burnout1540
I could cherry pick some senseless violence stories from any large American
city. They don't prove anything.

While I do think San Francisco is poorly managed, it's naive to think that its
homeless problem is caused solely by bad governance. It's a combination of a
lot of different things: the hippies that turned into deranged homeless
people, the strong lure of California for those down on their luck, the strong
drug culture, the very consistent temperatures, the size of Golden Gate Park,
etc.

~~~
sshumaker
...Not to mention that Giulani bought bus and train tickets for huge numbers
of homeless in NYC and sent them out West....

------
gnosis
_"It's time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and
arguably the worst-run big city in America. This year's city budget is an
astonishing $6.6 billion — more than twice the budget for the entire state of
Idaho — for roughly 800,000 residents."_

That comparison is so disingenuous. They're comparing a _city_ with one of the
highest costs of living in the country to the second poorest Western _state_?
The cost of living in SF is about double that of Idaho. The median value of a
home in SF is $656,700, while in Idaho it's $138,190. So why the
"astonishment" at SF's budget being _only_ twice that of Idaho?

Then there's the population issue. The whole of Idaho has 1.5 million people,
while SF alone has 0.8 million. That's a huge concentration of people in one
city. Compare SF to Boise, the largest city in Idaho: SF has 4 times the
population. That kind of concentration of people brings lots of problems just
by itself.

I'm not saying SF doesn't have problems. It clearly does. But this particular
comparison isn't exactly the fairest they could have come up with. How about a
direct comparison between the budget of SF and, say, NYC?

~~~
arebop
It is a poor comparison, because the services provided by the state of Idaho
and the city of San Francisco are so different. The author should have
compared the sum of budgets of all cities in Idaho, or better yet found cities
that are individually similar to San Francisco in ways other than spending
(such as San Jose or Jersey City).

I think you're wrong about population and density though. I'd expect that the
huge concentration of people would lower per-capita infrastructure costs and
enable other economies of scale. Comparing San Francisco to New York City, we
find that NYC, with 8.3 million residents [1] in 305 sq. mi [2] has budgeted
$43.4 billion for FY2010 [3]. San Francisco has 47 sq. mi [4], so it's much
less dense and yet spends over 50% more per capita.

[1] <http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popcur.shtml> [2]
[http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/landusefacts/landusefactsho...](http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/landusefacts/landusefactshome.shtml)
[3] <http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/sum1_09.pdf> [4]
[http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:pRkHCezT76IJ:www.ci.sf.c...](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:pRkHCezT76IJ:www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/mainpages_page.asp%3Fid%3D15216+%2Bsite:www.ci.sf.ca.us+square+miles&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
ahi
Density lowers per capita infrastructure cost, but it also decreases tax
revenues per capita. High density cities have to support the infrastructure
used by commuters but can only capture a little of their tax value. During the
day DC's population nearly doubles so they have to provide infrastructure for
1,000,000 people with a tax base of 600,000.

~~~
ghshephard
...Except for the fact that in California, with the inability to increase
Property Taxes quickly (Thank you Prop 13), an inordinate amount of revenue
actually comes from commercial taxes (Sales Taxes being a large one). As a
result, counties engage in a game of _discouraging_ residential zoning, and
encouraging commercial zoning. I'll find a citation. [Edit -
<http://www.caltax.org/MEMBER/digest/feb2000/feb00-4.htm> \- See: What are
some of these side effects? ]

------
billybob
Fascinating article. Perhaps it's a lesson in what happens when you lack
political balance? It's been fashionable in the last few years to talk about
cooperation between the major parties, but to me, it's the scuffle between
Right and Left that produces a government that isn't too crazy in either
direction.

If a sizable number of Libertarian Nutjobs were there to fight with the
Socialist Nutjobs, they'd probably be better off.

------
iron_ball
NYC has good city government and one of the worst state governments in the
nation. Guess it could be worse.

~~~
kingkongreveng_
NYC government is high cost and plagued by unionization.

~~~
baguasquirrel
Why are people modding this guy down? I know people who are employees in the
NYC system, and despite being the underlings, _they_ complain about the
unionization.

The MTA, for example, apparently has more management/support than they have
actual engineers working to fix things. If you went to a public school, you
would have definitely heard a good number of top teachers and administrators
complaining about both the BoE _and_ the teachers union.

NYC's system is _much_ worse than you'd think, but they've had two business
and efficiency mayors in charge, back-to-back, trying to fix these things.

------
jhancock
There are plenty of poorly run and corrupt city govs. A few I've had close
exposure to: Atlanta, D.C., Miami (most of south FL), Jacksonville FL (they've
had a highway construction project running for over 20 years!!), Savannah GA.
SF can simply get in line for the crown.

------
rmason
Much as I hate to diss my poor suffering state all you need to look at is the
five terms of Detroit mayor Coleman Young if you want to see poor leadership.

Time magazine said he is 'singularly responsible for the demise of Detroit'.
San Francisco's leadership could be better, a lot better but it has a ways to
go before they reach the level of Detroit's mayors and city council.

Here's a sample from a council meeting less than a year ago
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqOSNI7l0bQ>

How many of the San Francisco's mayors or council have been imprisoned for
selling influence?

------
sophacles
Oh man, thats funny. I know very little about SF, other than it has lots of
"causers". Seems to me they keep voting for this terrible managment, so there
are plenty of causes to rally for/against. Seriously half of those examples
solve one problem (sending the causers home with a "we fought the good fight"
feeling) only to create 2 more cause-able problems (e.g. the old-folks-
home/mental hostpital overflow -- cause A: save the old people from criminals,
cause B: mentally ill are people too, they need homes).

~~~
zephjc
_I know very little about SF_

Pluses: It's a gorgeous city, the people are generally nice, the weather in
the whole Bay Area tends to stay pretty close to perfect year round, lots of
cultural variety, lots to do and see.

Minuses: the parking sucks, the traffic sucks, the myriad one-way streets
suck.

In short, its a great tourist destination, but you probably wouldn't want to
live there.

~~~
hugh_
That's a rather generous description of the downsides of San Francisco.
Parking and traffic suck in a lot of places, and the one-way streets aren't so
bad once you get used to them.

The two worst problems of San Francisco are still the filth (both the rubbish-
in-the-streets form of filth and the human form of filth) and the ridiculously
high cost of living. The first means that you can't walk down the street for
more than a couple of minutes without some weirdo either pestering you for
money or trying to sell you drugs. The second means that having a reasonably
nice place to live (say, a three or four bedroom detached house with a
backyard -- the kind of modest middle-class dwelling that most modest middle-
class families inhabit) is completely out of reach for all but the super-rich.

San Francisco is a great place to be at a certain stage in your life, but
unless you do become super-rich it's an awful place to stay.

------
defen
This is because results don't matter under liberalism, only intentions.

edit: Well there are lots of reasons, actually, but I think that's one of
them. I think the article makes a really profound point in passing:
"Government is now paying the tab for services that used to be undertaken by
families, churches — or, frankly, no one."

Now, I'm sure some of this can be attributed to the fact that San Francisco
attracts a lot of out-of-towners, because of its beauty, history, jobs, etc.
But I think part of it is also due to the ruling liberal ethos of radical
individualism, where everyone must be free to do as he wishes without
constraint (as long as he doesn't infringe on anyone else's right to do the
same). Such radical autonomy must invariably involve the rejection of social
obligations. After all, no one chooses into which family to be born, and most
people don't choose the church they will grow up with, either. Follow this
logic to its conclusion and all you're left with is democratically elected
government, expressing the "will of the people".

------
jwecker
"The intrusion of politics into government ..." Yeah, I know they're not
exactly the same thing, but that statement still made me laugh.

~~~
pchristensen
I think that could be better said as "intrusion of politics into _governance_
"

------
teuobk
So, what's an example of a big city in the US that's run exceptionally well?

~~~
geebee
I read in the economist a few years ago that Atlanta is run well. Though they
were comparing it to New Orleans.

~~~
kingkongreveng_
Atlanta is a reasonably well run city. It gets cited a lot as a black city run
by blacks that's a good place to do business.

------
asolove
Miami?

~~~
pelle
I moved from SF to Miami and the government is surely corrupt here as well,
but not in the same way and scale as SF.

~~~
robk
Miami has strong opposition inside the town's political factions (new Cubans,
old Cubans, retirees, etc). As far as I can tell, SF has only "radical" and
"more radical" groups.

~~~
pelle
Oh absolutely. Miami's corruption is of the old school type with groups
battling it out over who gets a piece of cake.

Actually there is some race factions in SF as well, mainly with the african
american and chinese groups who seem to compete a bit for lucrative positions.

Ironically the lack of real difference of opinion in SF is what enhanced the
failure of the city. An opposition no matter how corrupt has the incentive to
call out the corruption of the other party. If all are on the same side there
is no such incentive.

------
Apreche
Uh, Detroit?

~~~
daniel-cussen
Perhaps it's better run considering they have much less resources in the first
place.

~~~
roc
I don't know much about how SF is doing, but I find that highly doubtful.

San Francisco seems to be complaining about waste and bureaucracy. Those
aren't healthy things.

But Detroit has been suffering massive crime, drug violence, depopulation,
failing city services, depression-level unemployment, steadily falling
revenue, skyrocketing illiteracy, public safety problems presented by the
rotting infrastructure, plummeting graduation and has been flirting with
bankruptcy for _years_.

Most of those problems were recognized problems _decades_ ago, and have only
worsened.

~~~
daniel-cussen
>But Detroit has been suffering massive crime, drug violence, depopulation,
failing city services, depression-level unemployment, steadily falling
revenue, skyrocketing illiteracy, public safety problems presented by the
rotting infrastructure, plummeting graduation and has been flirting with
bankruptcy for years.

Of these, only flirting with bankruptcy and failing city services are things
for which city hall is responsible. The rest are not things city hall can
solve. Compare it to soccer. The goalie is there to stop the other team from
scoring, _but is in no way responsible for his/her team to score goals._ You
can't win with just a good goalie. Likewise, a lot of what you described are
problems the citizenry, and not city hall, are responsible for. I challenge
the best city hall in the world to go see what it can do in Detroit; that
place is a disaster anyway.

The quality of City hall is orthogonal to most of Detroit's problems, but not
to San Francisco's.

~~~
roc
Most of the other problems, the ones which I agree are not _direct_
responsibilities of the mayor and council, have grown as symptoms of those
failing city services.

If you can't get your street plowed or your trash picked up, you move. If your
kid isn't safe walking to, or being in school, you move. If there are no jobs
in the city, you move.

The more people move, the less revenue the city gets, the more blight it
acquires, the less incentive businesses have to stay in the city. Then _they_
move. The blight accelerates and exacerbates the problem of keeping those
places from becoming havens for criminals, drug dealers and vandals.

Did you know there isn't a single grocery store chain in the city of Detroit?
Yeah, the Eastern market and a few community gardens are stepping up to fill
the void for their neighbors. But even with those, there remains a very real
and serious protein problem that's only solved by leaving the city.

So, is the city directly responsible for things like the unemployment rate and
drop-out rate? No. But year after year _after year_ they've ignored these
problems. Refused change. _Literally_ shouted down people who have raised
these issues at council meetings. Let their hatred, bigotry, sense of
entitlement and corruption waylay any and every attempt to turn things around.

So, no. They're not directly responsible for kids dropping out. They are
however responsible for having essentially ignored the problems in schools for
the last few decades as the graduation rate has sunk to 25%. They are
responsible for being so incredibly inept that the entire system was taken
over by the State.

If I'm responsible for a division of programmers and our output is so
consistently bad that higher-management needs to step in and address the
problems - while it may not have been my personal responsibility to get code
written, clearly I've not been doing a good job.

------
ad
"In Houston, the exact opposite of San Francisco, I assume you'd get shot"

switch that to 'small town texas' and I would agree. Houston proper tends to
vote to the left, not to mention we have our own budget problems now.

~~~
jdrock
Houston "proper" is a fraction of the City of Houston. (I assume you mean
inside the loop.)

~~~
ct4ul4u
I would assume he meant the legal boundaries of the City of Houston, which is
what the term "proper" usually means in that case.

~~~
jdrock
Actually, most people in Houston tend to refer to the area inside the 610 loop
in a way like the oc did. People outside 610 do not vote to the left.

~~~
Femur
I disagree with your hyperbole. I live in Montrose (very 'in the loop') and
generally vote Republican. Much of my family lives in Spring (a suburb outside
the loop) and vote Democrat/Green.

Houston is generally a more conservative city than SF. Overall, I feel that
Houston is generally well run.

~~~
stcredzero
I also live in Montrose. A lot of Houston is well run. Public Transportation
is a laggard, however. I spend half of my time in Minneapolis, and despite
their using the same physical equipment, their public transit system is 5X
better than Houston's.

I think the reason, is that in Minneapolis, it's considered a vital part of
the city infrastructure. In Houston, it's a concession to the poor people.

------
schwit
US federal government? DC government?

~~~
elblanco
The DC government, while still terrible, has vastly improved in the last
decade, so much so that it's not even recognizable. This is reflected in the
city as well, which in very large swaths are not even recognizable compared to
10 years ago (in a good way).

~~~
kingkongreveng_
I don't think the actual government improved. The city turned around, but
that's just because loads of crack heads finally died off, many gangsters are
permanently incarcerated, and then yuppies moved in and pushed up property
values.

------
patrickgzill
"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure
government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners
and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in
these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230

(yes I will probably get down-voted on this one)

------
peregrine
I don't know if the Author has ever been to Milwaukee...

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viggity
I know this is schadenfreude, but I love this. As I see it, a city of people
with backwards values is getting its just deserts.

Unfortunately for me, when the city eventually goes bankrupt, I'll probably
end up footing the bill via my federal taxes.

~~~
spamizbad
Kindly elaborate why San Francisco has "backwards values". I bet you think
it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub.

~~~
evgen
> I bet you think it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub.

Actually this is an accident; San Francisco's reputation as a tech hub is due
to its accidental proximity to San Jose and silicon valley.

~~~
pg
That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason
SV is where it is.

It may well be a coincidence that SF's government is so inefficient though.
Portland has the same tolerant attitude, and their city government doesn't
seem to be inefficient.

~~~
evgen
> That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason
> SV is where it is.

Right. And the "atmos" of Boston is why the high-tech hub around route 128 is
where it is, having of course nothing to do with its proximity to a couple of
world-class universities... The "Bay Area" may help sustain SV, but San
Francisco proper is a pretty small part of that -- it is a hub of night-
life/clubs, an overly pretentious literature and arts scene, and a completely
dysfunctional city government. SF is a fun place to live for people of a
certain age, but as the better known city in a large metropolitan region it
gets far more credit than it deserves for the "atmos" that gives the region
its flavor.

~~~
pg
As in Boston, the atmos of the Bay Area is probably the main reason the
universities here are so good. Universities planted in Boston and the Bay Area
thrive. Those planted in cities that are bigger and richer, but have the wrong
sort of culture, don't do as well. E.g. NYC vs Boston, LA vs SF.

~~~
evgen
You keep conflating San Francisco with the greater Bay Area. This mistake was
my central point. San Francisco proper is a small part of the Bay Area. It has
a more storied history and is the more widely-known, but it is far from being
the most significant city when it comes to defining the culture and norms of
the area. SF gets the press, but Berkeley, San Jose, and numerous cities up
and down the peninsula contribute just as much to this tech hub as San
Francisco.

~~~
pg
When the universities' reputations were established, SF dominated the Bay
Area. Till suburbia spread down the peninsula in the 1950s, what we now call
Silicon Valley was mostly agricultural land.

San Jose's population in 1940 was 69,000. SF's was 635,000.

~~~
evgen
Shockley did not come to the bay area for San Francisco, he came to be close
to his ailing mother in Palo Alto. From Shockley Semiconductor came the
traitorous eight and Fairchild and from this cluster came most of what we now
know as silicon valley. Hewlett and Packard both came from Stanford, etc.

SF may have dominated the bay area for quote a while, but none of the seminal
events that can be pointed to as the seeds of what became silicon valley have
a very direct link to what you and everyone else seems to consider the San
Francisco "culture." The marine geography that makes San Francisco a great
anchorage and led to a strong naval presence in the area probably had a bigger
impact on silicon valley than anything you can point to an as a uniquely "San
Francisco" impact on the valley.

~~~
pg
The critical moment in that story was not when Shockley moved back to the Bay
Area, but when the traitorous eight decided they wanted to find a way to
remain here, even though they couldn't stand working for Shockley anymore. Of
the eight, I believe only Moore had family here. The rest wanted to stay
simply because they liked it.

