As a 4th generation Californian this article really hits the mark. I spent a majority of my life in the sfbay area and moved out of there when the pandemic started and will never move back. Everyone of my friends and my Wife's friends left along with the last of my direct family as well.
It really boils down to alot of things, cost, dysfunction and environmental degradation. For me I know that life is short and I don't want to live in a crime infested dump that costs a fortune and is extremely crowded where everyone is miserable and has overreaching laws for decent people and lawlessness for criminals.
We had packages stolen off our porch, liquor bottles/trash thrown on our lawn, cars broken into, illegal fireworks being fired off almost every night(scaring our dog to where she was having serious issues), driving anywhere I saw huge piles of trash, homeless camps and shopping carts. Oh and all houses run about $1.3M for a non dump and schools are terrible. And I didn't get into the non-stop fires that have happened the past few years(which has really never happened in California before).[I lived in San Jose]
You, in what sounds like a reasonably-well off position, struggle with the 1.3M home costs, etc.
Imagine how it must be to be surrounded by 1.3M homes and multi-thousand dollar apartments when you're broke, not well paid, and can barely afford any of it? Homelessness and crime are both things that people are much more likely to resort to in a society with wildly inequal distributions of wealth than in one where everyone is in a similar place.
So we could build more jails and prisons, throw more people in them. Punish people very harshly for stepping out of line as we continue to worsen the ability of the less-wealthy/less-paid to thrive. "There's no excuse for resorting to crime," etc. Criminalize sleeping on the street so that we can toss them somewhere too.
We could build massively more. That seems much more humane. But a lot of people don't want to do that!
So we could push people out, lower the demand. That would put pressure on prices and open up housing... nobody wants to do that, though! We just sorta "unintentionally" do it by choosing not to do anything else - let the problems push people away on their own!
The crime isn't a direct symptom of government dysfunction, it's a symptom of the ever-growing divide. The government dysfunction is trying to have your cake and eat it too, but that's not actually just the government that wants to do it - tons of citizens want to both keep housing scarce and less dense and get rid of visible homelessness.
What do you think the government alone could do that wouldn't result in their being rapidly voted out by people who don't want change?
How about any punishment for theft and other crimes? Any disincentive at all? Why even bother having a theft law if it won’t be enforced? Why bother even paying for things if you can steal it with no consequences?
Sure housing costs are high, how about just stealing it instead?
> Imagine how it must be to be surrounded by 1.3M homes and multi-thousand dollar apartments when you're broke, not well paid, and can barely afford any of it? Homelessness and crime are both things that people are much more likely to resort to in a society with wildly inequal distributions of wealth than in one where everyone is in a similar place.
> The crime isn't a direct symptom of government dysfunction
does everyone have to live in SF? if you provide them with enough infrastructure, then the answer is "no". if you don't provide infrastructure then you have a problem. anyway, all of these issues have been solved around the world. the US and CA governments just need to look to other countries for examples.
It really boils down to alot of things, cost, dysfunction and environmental degradation. For me I know that life is short and I don't want to live in a crime infested dump that costs a fortune and is extremely crowded where everyone is miserable and has overreaching laws for decent people and lawlessness for criminals.
We had packages stolen off our porch, liquor bottles/trash thrown on our lawn, cars broken into, illegal fireworks being fired off almost every night(scaring our dog to where she was having serious issues), driving anywhere I saw huge piles of trash, homeless camps and shopping carts. Oh and all houses run about $1.3M for a non dump and schools are terrible. And I didn't get into the non-stop fires that have happened the past few years(which has really never happened in California before).[I lived in San Jose]
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