Hong Kong was (probably still is for now) a world class city for the rich and the free and now is on path to become a hell-hole for both.
Cities swing through a pendulum of up and down. SF might be going to ruins but it'll be back. It might have to reach rock-bottom first before re-inventing itself though.
That said, the city does not have visible homeless or crime problems of most large US cities, partly because you can legally get a coffin for $300/month.
Why not? Are there support systems to give people shelter and reduce the need for crimes of desperation?
> Tokyo could be the rare example of a once expensive city that successfully managed the difficult political process of removing planning restrictions in order to achieve affordable housing.
They didn't achieve affordable housing as a result of a clean slate. In fact housing in Tokyo was insanely expensive during the 80s. It wasn't until zoning restrictions were changed in the 90s that prices came back down. It's about the laws, not about having to contend with old buildings.
I don't know what your profession or situation is, but if you can line up a job you can pretty easily get a work visa (it's much less binding than US work visas). Japanese corporations are known to have pretty brutal work culture so that's something you ought to be aware of when searching, if you seriously pursue it. Hope it's interesting food for thought :)
I have no doubt there are racists here, especially in the rural areas. But I also have no doubt that the same holds true for places like California and Washington. You may be keeping yourself from experiencing areas of the country that you may love and would love you back.
What about the fact that, nation-wide, many Americans don't have access to good jobs? Especially people without college degrees, but not even limited to that. This is an economy-wide problem. The federal government could probably do something to better address that than a city government.
How about that we generally fail at mental health care, or health care in general? The former is clearly applicable to many homeless folks who are visibly suffering. The latter is a huge cost for many people, drives many personal bankruptcies, etc.
But I also place a lot of blame on state policies too - CA Prop 13 is a cancer on the whole state, incentivizing land owners to fight tooth and nail to prevent progress. I'm glad that Scott Wiener got elected, though, as he's been making solid progress at the state level to rectify these issues.
The roots of these problems are not broadly federal in my opinion and, while they certainly can help, there's a lot of work to do at the city and state level that are achievable with a small number of dedicated people - if only they cared.
Neither would I just blame the sorry state of US cities on inadequate mental health care - while healthcare broadly certainly should be better, I'm in Japan where mental health awareness is relatively speaking in the stone age compared to SF, and that hasn't resulted in the level of human tragedy you experience viscerally by existing for 5 minutes in any of the US's major metropolises. Part of the reason for that is I can get my own apartment without roommates 15 minutes from the center of Tokyo for $600/mo, largely because the local government here actually does things to make it livable (and it's not just here, it's practically everywhere besides US cities).
Allowing construction will alleviate pressure on the system as a whole, but, perhaps due to a failure of my imagination, I'm not seeing ways in which it won't cost something. I think it's worth it, mind you, I'm just not seeing how to make it $0.
In 2020 SF, even the upper middle class struggle to pay for housing. If you, as a first step, allow the housing stock to double, twice as many people can afford to live in the city, and life in SF becomes much more accessible.
Sure, there will always be people out of luck needing some assistance. But it should dwindle down to a smaller core when there are places to live.
Personally, I don't believe in government run housing. It's better to help people with rent money etc. But of course, none of this will ever happen in SF, so my opinions don't matter.
I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”.
They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years).
Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.