Walking to Work in San Francisco
November 6th, 2023It’s not just San Francisco. California, in general, is a disaster.
One of my sons was playing Minecraft and fighting a boy from California in some sort of online player vs player arena. They became friends. This boy, I’ll call him Bob, was also homeschooled and he’s around my son’s age. Bob’s parents removed him and his two siblings from public school as soon as mask wearing was implemented during Covid.
Flash forward a couple of years.
Bob’s parents ran a small transportation business east of the Bay Area. They sold their house, and packed up their children, their dogs, their money, their tax revenue and their business assets and ran for their lives. Let’s just say that they now live in a state with more firearm freedom.
My point in telling the story is that normal, working people are increasingly viewing California as a disaster. Only so many families like the one above can flee before California won’t be able to kick the fiscal can down the road anymore.
Via: Daily Mail:
The terrifying reality of life on San Francisco’s drug-ravaged streets has been laid bare by one life-long resident who filmed her walk to work through scenes that have made the city an international symbol for squalor and despair.
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The Tenderloin district is in the heart of San Francisco and near the Asian Art museum. It’s just a few blocks from City Hall. The area also includes part of the Compton Transgender Cultural District.
Robberies are up 14 percent so far this year in the Golden Gate City where mayor London Breed last month demanded cuts of 18 percent from next year’s police budget.
Reported deaths from drug overdoses reached 620 in the first nine months of the year, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, up from 540 for the same period in 2020.
And the city stands to lose $200 million a year in revenue through its business exodus – which has seen major hotels and retailers flee the city center.
Retail stalwart Old Navy announced they would be shuttering their flagship store in the area last month, becoming the latest chain to exit the city.
Nordstrom also announced they would be closing all of their locations in the city.
In April, Whole Foods announced it was closing all their locations, with Anthropologie and Office Depot having also made the same decisions leading some analysts to predict that the city has entered a ‘doom-loop’ of permanent decline.
I didn’t really like Minnesota during that brief time I lived there (their social culture is a bit…odd), but everything I have heard about California would make me vastly prefer Minnesota if I were in a situation where I was forced to choose between the two.