I actually think dysfunction in SF is not a result of European individualism. The situation is not best explained by individual vs collective rights. Rather, I think the dysfunction is deliberate and the politicians who control the city are part of a party and belief that repudiates anything European.
For example, the city of SF will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you are not from the correct demographic. There is a lawsuit where white police officers are suing the city for denying them promotions and a system of racial discrimination. What about their individual rights? Another example is how the city and state protect homeless encampments but make it difficult for regular people to build homes or other buildings. Or how homeless people and drug addicts attack and harass regular people and the city does nothing about it but it was up in arms when a former fire chief allegedly attacked a homeless person.
Individualism isn't broadly accepted, rather it seems the homeless have more rights than anyone else. This isn't individualism and shows that there is a ideology driving the dysfunction.
The idea of SF as "culturally European" was largely a piece of self-mythologizing, rather than a legitimate comparison. SF saw the rest of the US as the homeland of mindless consumerism (with the exception of their leftist intellectual conception of New York City, ironically; this being before the 2008 financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street), and the residents liked to identify with the Europe they imagined as an Epicurean socialist Utopia. It's similar to the mindset that Austin has in distinguishing themselves from the rest of Texas. Of course many of SF's culturally distinctive qualities, like the noted California-style phony overenthusiasm, are actually very anti-European.
The article specifically addresses the differences between what the Netherlands does and what San Francisco does, and why San Francisco's outcomes are much worse.
America is a federal union. The policy and spending of the federal government can't and shouldn't be applied to these hyper local issues. San Franciscans are probably the highest taxed individuals on the planet and the San Francisco government was flush with cash. Blame local government policy and politics for these issues. This is what happens when you elect literal communist terrorists (see Weather underground) into government.
There are parts of this country that can be considered paradise in comparison to San Francisco.
While it's not going to a be a popular oppinion, I do have first hand knowledge and experience and agree. As somebody who lived in SF for over five years, the last couple of years especially there is a palatable distain for Americanism and patriotism at bay area companies. I'd even go as far as some people are flat out anti-American. There is an anti-authority ideology that permeates everything and a persistent skepticism.
I commute between New York and the Bay Area, and am consistently struck by how plutocratic of a city San Francisco has become. Most social functions are held in private venues and heavily segregated by race and class. Leaving a charity event, a millionaire will casually step over a homeless person en route to their apartment. They will talk about poverty in Africa and then vote in NIMBYist politicians. A total gutting of humanity, and I’m saying this as a New Yorker.
SF is just a city, it cannot change America into a European style democratic socialist system- provided anyone in the US would actually want that and not immediately start crying about 21% VAT.
He complains that this doesn't happen in europe. What could be different about european cities... If SF were in a european country, the national welfare system would be far better and taxes would be far higher and guns would be strictly regulated.
Blaming SF for national issues is cool though or whatever local one is in.Everyone from all walks of life like to point at what they know, the current president or their town and blame them because it's easy and visible while ignoring the larger picture of the nation or world.
Most of my ire (as a non-resident) is because I am forced to sometimes spend time in San Francisco, and it is a worse experience than nearly any other city I've visited in the world, which are many, most of them in vastly poorer and more generally corrupt societies, that somehow manage to be more functional and cleaner than SF.
I traveled to SF a number of times with work 2 years ago. I'm not trying to sound like a smug social democratic European, but I couldn't get over the homelessness, the petty vandalism, the rubbish, and the overall air of menace in the place.
I don't buy this. For me, the biggest problem in SF is that it is in US. Ever when I'm in that country I feel like I'm home. The politics, the crooked police, the expensive life... I don't want to be part of it. I really love Europe. This is my home continent with different countries and different people. I love to write code and I can get a pretty decent life also in Berlin. The weather is not so nice, but the city atmosphere really feels welcoming. And not all interesting challenges are in SF, believe me.
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