That Cinemark is in the same Westfield Mall property noted above.Quote:
Originally Posted by dan_bgblue
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That Cinemark is in the same Westfield Mall property noted above.Quote:
Originally Posted by dan_bgblue
The food hall, located in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, was supported by a nonprofit that provided assistance primarily to "women from communities of color and immigrant communities." One chef, Wafa Bahloul, an Algerian immigrant, said that the "best solution" was to close down shop, the Chronicle reported.
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I just got back from 5 days in San Francisco and yes, there are some businesses that have closed, but talk of its demise is greatly exaggerated. I have a better word. Lies.
I was all over town, including the Tenderloin, which has always been a little rough, but I’m used to big city life. It wasn’t near as bad as I’ve seen before or in other cities.
I just have to say that the city looked extraordinary. It was the cleanest I’ve ever seen it, and I have been a regular visitor there since ‘98.
I’ve always been a big fan of the Haight, and it’s never looked better. Businesses thriving. Super clean. Great energy. I went to the Mission, Castro, stayed in Union Square, the North West beaches by Seal Rock and everything in between. I walked 7-8 miles through the city each day. I slept a couple of hours in Golden Gate Park.
My brother and family live there, for 12 years now, and their life is pretty fantastic.
I can’t wait to go back.
When I lived in Reno in the late 1980s I visited San Fran often when (now ex) wife’s friend went there for her business. Took Bart in from Walnut Creek (or Concord)) The walk from the train was horrible. I also dipped into the City in the 2000s and it was worse. Ubiquitous human excrement walking around business district and the waterfront. Thieves and beggars and junkies.
I went to great shows at Winterland. I didn’t stay there.
When hitch hiking thru in 1975, I spent a day and night in San Fran. While hanging at a park, down by the wharf, I was approached by a pretty girl who told me of a group of young people she was with and would I like to go to a wonderful vegetarian dinner and concert? I was on a schedule to get to central Oregon or likely would have gone. In the 1990s I was watching 60 minutes and there she was recruiting! For a fascist cult. The Moonies, I think. And the Jim Jones/San Francisco/Harvey Milk and other politicos connections are well documented.
The structure and evolution of city govt is well known by those of us who study local govt. IMO it is exactly what not to do. Not just the horrible anti housing policies but the way the way spheres of influence based on taxpayer money distributed to and supporting a particular set of ngos/other non profits resulting in each council person’s having a virtual, no geographical ward that they represent.
I have also spent significant time in the other two NW cities. In the 70s-80s Portland and Seattle were incredible. I loved Portland in the ‘70s, simple, Northwest, unassuming. The 80s and 90s saw a lot of changes but still it had excellent neighborhoods and was a premier place to live. Seattle was on its way to a world city.
So I appreciate any eyewitness testimony and I still get a lot—a lot of people here won’t ever go back anywhere near the tourist areas of these three cities. Reports from Sacramento just last week tell me of miles of urban decay coming in from the airport.
I used to meet with Republican Mayors and gravitated to the great basin and rocky mtn city representatives. We spent a lit of time anticipating the issues spreading from these cities, and they have. Either as refugees from these cities bring their politica with them, and it accompanying problems, or Ninth Circuit judges we are lumped in with hamstring our policies, or our beautiful towns that used to be so welcoming are taken advantage of by the permanently homeless and drug addled.
I spent 18 years working at city governance. I still read an hour or two a day about current issues and policies. Urban decay is not overstated, bor is it isolated to the three cities we are discussing. But the fact that Bozeman police have no time to enforce traffic violations violations because they are constantly running to police the criminals in the urban camping areas is reality. The visible blight is reality. The health hazards are reality. The violence is reality. The open drug use is reality. The story of the business owner abandoning the Missoula downtown is reality.
bigsky, it would be great someday to meet you and just talk, not only about 2 of the great things we both love and share, but coming from two different ideologies, two different backgrounds, two different generations, just sharing experiences would be a joy.
I don't disagree with you on some of the things that you say, especially as it relates to urban housing. I, perhaps, have a different perspective on the root causes and pigeon-holing that down into it's one parties fault or another. I believe it is more ideological and rooted in systemic injustices that have plagued our nation throughout its history.
I spent the first half of my life in Kentucky, the next half of my life in Chicago, and now I live in Falls Church VA, just outside DC. I have travelled extensively across this country, haven't seen it all, but a lot. Urban, rural, big and small. One thing that I have learned is that no matter where you are, the same problems plague both areas. So, I don't look at it as decay, I look at it as rot. Some of that rot rises to the top quicker in some areas than others, but it's everywhere.
We can look at urban cities and say what people say, we can do the same for rural and small town America too and lay blame, but when I look at everything at a whole, there is no beacon of perfection to strive for. It's all about what makes each person comfortable.
You share your story about being recruited by a fascist cult. I too have been recruited by numerous churches that have histories of doing despicable things.
Rot is everywhere and we as humans are incapable of fixing it.
Interesting report Stu. I know two that been recently that say the exact opposite.
I don't say that to debate anything. For me personally, I don't have a dog in this fight. California has never been on my bucket list to visit, even when it was the dream state for everyone back in the day. But I enjoy reading/hearing different perspectives on any topic.
Have had a couple of people I trust in San Fran in the past say 1.5 years. Their reports are as grim as anything reported by the media. it's bad. Obviously there aren't encampments on every single street, but it's far from the "tourist city" as most would describe one.
Now, if you're OK that there is so much human feces in your city that someone actually put up a website to track it then OK, suit yourself, but most people of course find such things abhorrently wrong.
There's no systemic injustice that explains drug addiction. There are people out there from horrible families and situations, and many from good families and situations who just got lost. There are no racial or economic barriers there.
"Homelessness" is a misnomer. This is not a housing problem, though there are certainly many challenges in being able to afford a place to live. This is primarily a problem of drug addiction and mental illness. Part of the reason there wasn't nearly as much of a problem in past decades was not b/c suddenly we have more social injustice than we did in the 1950s or 1960s or 70s. It's b/c the laws and policies have changed b/c we used to have the mentally ill committed to institutions and those with drug issues were also either jailed or forced into rehab. They weren't allowed to live on the streets.
Now we allow what is actually a pretty small number of people to grossly exaggerate their numbers and impact entire cities. In downtown lexington the few people who wander around harassing people and begging for money are well known, and most of them aren't even homeless. They are well known, the same people every time. It's not like 100s a week or month are losing their homes and just wandering the streets trying to get back on their feet in Lexington. It's the same pretty small group of drug addicted and mentally ill people over and over again.
Focus on those issues and this problem goes away.
As for San Fran, the numbers on their real estate tell the story, and will tell it even more in the years to come.
All I have to say is that I went through every heavy populated part of the city, except by the financial district, the Wharf, and the Embacadero, but many in my party visited those areas during our visit and came back with similar reports.
The last time I was in SF, I was a bit saddened by the spike in homelessness and the presence of tents. That was 2017. It just wasn’t there. I saw 1 tent in 5 days. My brother told me he could drive me to where some tents were, but it’s a problem that has been significantly reduced. Where those people ended up, I don’t know. That could be a real problem, or they could just be beneficiaries of a red hot economy.
People are going to believe what they want to believe, but I’m telling you all that besides the business closures that are still prominent, San Francisco is an absolute delight.
I will not discount a big city effect of cleaning up the town for a big event, I used to see that in Chicago all the time, so there could be that effect, but everything I expected to see, I didn’t. Everything I wanted to see, I did. Although I hardly doubt that 30,000+ Deadheads descending to the city is hardly the event to clean the city up.
Since the pandemic, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Chicago, NYC, DC (obviously), Philly, Miami, and now SF, and the city that surprised me the most was San Francisco.
I get it, though. It becomes self-fulfilling based off what you hear and want to believe. It’s kind of when I go to a town with a big church and I shiver as I go by and wonder how many boys that priest has molested, how many underage girls have been raped, and how many people have covered that up.
The difference is, I don’t have to read about those (and other awful) things, these are the real things that have happened to people I love. And me.
One more comment on the feces. It’s just not there, certainly not enough to warrant a tracker. Is it possible those trackers are just fake, for entertainment purposes only? Of course it is. People have agendas to push.
Did I see feces? Yes I did, but a little bit, and it was rare, and it was mostly from dogs. Like I said, it was a little rough in the Tenderloin, but not bad at all. Definitely seen worse in that neighborhood.
Something I’ve seen in cities of all sizes everywhere. There was no stench, no need to walk with your head down or anything else.
Again, I was expecting to see one thing and I saw something completely different. It made me really happy, because I’ve always loved San Francisco, and it validated my suspicion that people are full of 💩
Stu when I watched that 60 minutes, just a normal Sunday evening, years after my encounter, the hair on my arms and neck stood up. They kidnapped people and brainwashed them. I can’t recall if it was before or after Jonestown. Point being, both associated tightly with “The City” (don't call me Frisco.)
I lived in central Oregon during the early time of the Bhagwan, too. Worked at the Co-Op, spent
Time in a commune in a private inholding deep in the national forest.
Watched much of that deteriorate into fascism or greed or drugs or insanity. I think a lot of
This boomer insanity—it was the nuclear war specter. Self indulgence, and a revolt against traditional american mores without replacements. We were right about many things, it served to incur a self righteousness that was undeserved. It is bow three or four generations passed down, a dichotomy of self righteousness left and right.
What I think has happened to the big three PNW cities is the left’s calue got proved wrong, just as it was with those other experiments I managed to brush by, dip a toe in, but avoid. I made no mistske evoking the cults.
A good bit of this price decrease is Covid related, but a chunk of it is the disarray in public safety and drug use, homelessness and public urination and defecation in San Francisco.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sa...chart-bd1e1df3
Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenBBN
I commend to you an essay in last Friday’s WSJ entitled Bring back the Asylums. It recaps the timeline on the demise of mental asylums. Currently, the largest asylums in the US ar the Los Angelos City Jail, the Cook County Jail and Rikers. The rest have been turned out on the streets. It is a compelling piece.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenBBN
We need to bring back asylums and undo the damage done by “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
The ACLU suing over asylums pushed the Reagan admin and state govts into “the hell with it” instead of, “maybe we need to do better than the 1950s” decision they should have made. (I think the 50’s are the setting for cuckoo’s nest, a book about how to get and keep influence and power, similar in ways to rules for radicals).
Whatever the case, “storage units for humans, resembling jail cells, steel and cinder block dorm rooms, call it what you want, and camps resembling mancamps, the mandatory choice from streets, will be the expensive answer. A good first step is banning permanent or semi permanent evidence of urban camping and re- criminalizing hard drug use. The street should be very uncomfortable, jail s/b uncomfortable, and the storage semi incomfortable, with only the “first resort” “family promise” a semi comfortable situation. Here, that first response for the suddenly homeless has a set of rules that incentivize getting a job and better conditions.
The very last piece of legislation signed by President Kennedy was a bill that provided for a phase out of asylums and funding for 1100 mental health clinics across the US. The asylums were quickly closed but only a handful of clinics ever opened. It's a capsulized version of the effectiveness of the Federal Government. I wonder where the money went to build the clinics.
The state of Kentucky avoided the closure of at least one of it's mental health care facilities. I know there is a facility in Louisville, but can not remember it's name and the one I do know about has been operating since 1954 as an acute care mental health facility.
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Western State Hospital is located on the outskirts of Hopkinsville, KY.
Dan, I believe the one in Louisville is Central State, and Eastern State is in Lexington (Richmond maybe?). My wife toured Eastern State when she was in college and interviewed at Western State after she graduated. That was her passion early on, until they wanted to pay her $12 an hour for master's degree in OT.Quote:
Originally Posted by dan_bgblue
Western State is an issue her for us in Hopkinsville. People are dropped off there and released with nowhere to go. The homeless population here is growing and becoming a big issue.
I was unaware of that situation. I don't know when the situation changed as, back in the day, the "patients" were considered to be more like inmates than they were patients. They had to be admitted by a judge, a practicing psychologist, or both and they had to be given their release papers by a person with the same qualifications. It did not used to be a half way house or a drug rehab center. The "guests" that were admitted there had serious mental issues, and from talking to some of the employees way back when, they told me it was a rare event when any of them left prior to death.Quote:
Western State is an issue her for us in Hopkinsville. People are dropped off there and released with nowhere to go. The homeless population here is growing and becoming a big issue.
In or out, severe drug addiction and mental illnesses are 70% of the homeless issue. The “homeless industrial complex” would have you believe greedy capitalists priced housing out of reach. But none of these 70% have an employment history, have credit, or pass an interview sufficient to rent, much less buy even the least expensive housing. Probably only 5-9% of urban campers could qualify to rent from a property management company in Bozeman. Single digits percentage.
The Homeless Industrial Complex is not seeking Affordable Housing. They want FREE Housing. They just take every opportunity to bash Capitalism.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigsky
Oakland does not want to be left out of the homeless, drug infested, lawless. California news. They appear to be striving to be #1 for irresponsible behavior.
Recently, people have been flocking to "Fentanyl Island" a patch of land between 7th St. and Brush St. in West Oakland which Scott describes as an open-air drug market that is home to dozens of burned-out vehicles. "They're coming here for the safe and easy access to their drug of choice and the ability to also steal to support those habits, because there's no rule of law."
The homeless population in Oakland more than doubled from 2015 to 2022, growing to over 5,000, according to city data. In Alameda County, where Oakland is located, homelessness has similarly ballooned, growing to 9,700 in last year, county data show.
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This person is a San Fran native, and writer, and has a very different view on the city from Stu:
https://www.curbed.com/2023/05/san-f...=pocket-newtab
He mentions some positives, but a lot of negatives. Fundamentally if you incentivize drug addiction, homelessness and theft, you'll get them. It's not rocket science, but leftists think they are just thinking at some higher plain of existence. The problem is the people they paint as helpless misunderstood victims are thinking like normal people.
Combine this with an economy that is based on tech, which is now remote and leaving their downtown empty, and you have a recipe for long term disaster.
That is a perfect tale of dysfunctionality.
65K residents have left San Francisco since 2020
https://sfstandard.com/2023/03/31/sa...andemic-covid/
Remember though folks, you heard it here first, ALL IS WELL! in San Francisco
...
https://www.foxnews.com/media/major-...ilized-conduct
Yep, no biggie as long as you are just used to big city livin'.
Rep Kiley says San Francisco crime is 'so out of control' that employees are instructed not to drive to work
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Liberals in LA having a field day
As the City of Los Angeles struggled to reduce pedestrian deaths after its deadliest year in decades, state lawmakers have repealed jaywalking laws in the name of equity. And one high-profile prosecutor questioned whether the new rules are saving any lives.
So far this year, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, the city is on track to see a reduction from 2022's 20-year high in pedestrian fatalities. But nearly three-quarters of the deaths involved potential jaywalkers.
New York Democrats fear looming political 'disaster' over migrant crisis: 'Ticking time bomb'
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The sanctuary city idea works great as long as it is happening to someone else's city.
San Francisco business owner says media have 'no idea' how bad homeless crisis is: 'Apocalyptic'
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After 165 years of opening it's doors in San Francisco, Gumps seriously examining a move out of San Francisco and Cali entirely.
It's a sad state of affairs. I spoke to a customer today who's come to us for 50 consecutive Christmases and who won't come back because the city is in a difficult and awfully dirty condition. Our business is a business that people love and people want to come in to San Francisco, want to come visit a store, but if you can't get around and when you're trying to walk the streets you step over needles and human waste and often bodies on the streets, it makes it an unworkable business environment.
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The Martha's Vineyard response was so very classic. Probably not 2 Republicans in that entire community, but as soon as these "great unwashed masses" showed up instead of opening their largely empty homes to them they had the national guard show up and take them to a military base and off their little island paradise. They claimed they lack the resources. They are the richest enclave in the US and had like 40 people show up. They put on dinner parties for more than that. The could have easily housed 40 or so people in just their back yard guest cottages. That island is so short of food it can't handle 40 more people? 100?Quote:
Originally Posted by dan_bgblue
Has anything better highlighted the hypocrisy of the Left? They lament the homelessness and illegal immigration they have caused through their failed ideology, and their solution is to move into gated communities with private security or off to hard to reach islands and then pat themselves on their backs at their $1,000 a plate charity event for their compassion. Leaving lower and middle class America to deal with the mess.
Citizens of Marthas Vinyard (COMV) should have done what democrats everywhere do, Raise Taxes!Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenBBN
So the jaywalking laws are being re-instituted in some cities for a specific reason. Scamming bums walking in traffic and getting hit to get a payday. It was so bad downtown in one AZ city they made it a jailing offense to jaywalk and cause an accident even if the offender was hurt.
It's happening in lexington. I don't know that it's a scam but we have more pedestrians hit and it's basically homeless drug addicts just wandering into oncoming traffic. They cross regardless of the lights or flow of traffic on major roads like New Circle. Often at night with dark clothing, impossible to see until it's too late. I've watched some not even break stride and just keep walking.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigsky
High or don't care or a scam, all the same result. The city lowered speed limits in part due to those increased pedestrian accidents, but the speed isn't the issue. At any speed you can't avoid someone who just walks right out into traffic on a major road.
We went thru a similar scam issue in BG a few years ago with auto collision fraud. Gypsies were creating auto accidents and faking injuries to compound the auto damage. It was like a demolition derby around here for a couple of years. City council finally worked with law enforcement to put up traffic cameras at the most popular collision zones and citizens wised up to the tactics, and the gypsies packed up and created a war zone elsewhere.
In the context of these street people zones, tough jaywalking laws removes yet another way to finance the drug fueled jamboree.