
San Francisco has more drug addicts than students enrolled in public high school - MagicPropmaker
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/san-francisco-fact-of-the-day.html
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codemac
There are less high school students in SF, period. There are less children in
general. This is due to a large number of variables I don't see being
controlled, and a severe lack of source information.

I'm much more worried about the 10%+ dropout rates.

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jacobolus
Interestingly, there are a ton more kids (especially pre-school age kids) in
my neighborhood than there were when I moved here 8 years ago.

The combination of high housing prices in Bay Area suburbs and more yuppies
willing to stay in the city has noticeably altered the demographics. There are
now fewer groups of single 20-somethings walking about, and more families.

I will be curious to see the numbers at the next census.

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dunham
Our pre-school age kid (mission/noe area), my brother's kid, and a number of
his friends all moved out of the city before they reached school age. (Some to
the bay area and other's further out.)

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aphextron
Do people actually like SF? I try to avoid going there as much as possible.
It's not even really a _city_ , but more just a place where exurbanites
congregate from 9 to 5 to conduct commerce. I've never encountered a more
soulless, hollow, and overall depressing place in my entire life.

~~~
tgb29
I've been in SF for 6 months and it's the best city I've ever lived in.
Walking is one of my favorite activities and I can get everywhere by foot. A
bus line on every street or $5 Lyft if I need to move quicker. The weather is
amazing. There's a tech-first culture with hundreds of free events everyday.

I doubt you've had a chance to explore the city district-by-district if you
think it's soulless.

There are many homeless people but they don't bother anyone and they're a
product of the city's open culture.

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freyir
Out of curiosity, what other cities have you lived in?

I've lived in few (San Diego, Boston, Phoenix, Los Angeles), visited many more
in the US and abroad for work, I'd rank San Francisco near the bottom of the
pack.

This might not be the case for you, but many people I've met who really love
SF moved here in their 20s. Any city is going to be amazing at that age --
you're young and independent and thriving on the new experiences a city
provides. Naturally, you're going to form an attachment.

Most people who move to SF later in their life seem less tolerant of its many
problems.

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jaredklewis
Getting kind of off topic, just curious (as someone who has visited all the
cities on your list as well as SF and lived in another five cities): what is
the soul of Phoenix? My impression (from an admittedly short trip) was that of
a souless wasteland where people moved from ACed building to ACed building by
ACed car. It was like the outdoors was a minefield or something.

Not saying my impression was right. Maybe there are limits on what can be
gleaned from a trip, as suggested by the parent.

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rmah
24,500 injection drug users in SF means they are classifying one in in every
36 people as a "drug addict". This amount, if true, is over 20x higher than
the national mean. Maybe it's true, but I find it difficult to believe that 1
in 32 SF adults are shooting up.

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exabrial
After visiting there last year, I think this number is believable.

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rootedbox
San Francisco has more Doggy Day care than Kid Day care...

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zdragnar
It's

San Francisco has more (drug addicts) than (students enrolled in highschool)

not

San Francisco has more (drug addicts than students) enrolled in highschool.

I'm ashamed to admit I had to follow all the way to the source PDF to figure
that one out.

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dokein
I don’t understand the second forumulation. What is (drug addicts than
students) as an entity?

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tfolbrecht
I think the parent is implying students can be drug addicts, and the drug
addict figure is a set that include high school students.

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miguelmota
The homeless population in SF is insane. The sidewalks smell like piss and
occasionally you try not to step over human feces. At this point I'm surprised
that a hot startup in SF hasn't invented an industrial grade Roomba to clean
up the sidewalks.

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bdcravens
Seems like a strange statistic - high school encompasses only 4 years of a
person's life, whereas there's no (practical) limit on when someone can be an
addict.

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weliketocode
It helps put in perspective on just how many addicts there are.

Using a number like 25000 is difficult to understand in your head.

4 years is a lot of time!

You probably see or are aware of high school age individuals throughout your
day-to-day.

Now imagine for every 1 high school age young-adult, your city also has 1.5
injection drug addicts.

I think that puts things in perspective pretty well.

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bdcravens
For a city like SF, probably more illustrative to show how many addicts there
are for each programmer or Tesla.

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131012
Comments on the website are so weird. Is it a legitimate news source?

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jdminhbg
The Marginal Revolution comments section is famously terrible compared to the
above the fold content. You can follow links provided to the source material
though.

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SilasX
Shouldn't this be linking to the the source article rather than a block post
that just quotes two lines of it?

[http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/about-
SFUSD/files...](http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/about-
SFUSD/files/sfusd-facts-at-a-glance.pdf)

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redwards510
I think the title is somewhat misleading. When they discussed this on NPR
yesterday it was "more street injection drug users" than high schoolers.

I have no doubt there are more drug addicts than high schoolers. I think you'd
be hard pressed to find any major city where that isn't true. If your
definition of a drug addict is anyone who uses drugs (including marijuana)
regularly.

