> I simply can’t fathom how tax payers allow this to happen.

There are a lot of voters who are not taxpayers.

And a lot of taxpayers who are not voters (non-citizens).

while true, the bigger problem is the "two-party system." Democrats get voted in and do nothing or make things worse, but when election time comes around again, people'll keep voting Democrat again and again, because they're most certainly not going to vote Republican, and we've somehow been brainwashed into thinking that those are the only two options for any elected position. with no viable competition, corruption spreads and entrenches itself, and the whole region generally decays over time.

that it's the Democratic Party we're talking about here is irrelevant—this is just a natural consequence of the two-party system.

That may be generally true, but not in SF. We have open primaries. Most elections are two Democrats against each other. Sometimes it's even a Democrat vs. a Green.

I'm a bay area registered Democrat and strongly agree - no electable opposition party = political atrophy and the corruption we are seeing more and more of

There is a specific District Attorney in SF who is extremely anti-law enforcement and campaigned on it explicitly, and fulfilled his promise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin

Building a single new unit of housing in SF costs like $400,000 and takes years of cutting through red tape.

There’s far fewer homeless in the Midwest because homes are actually affordable. The poverty, squalor, heroin addiction is just as bad. It’s just out of sight.

> There’s far fewer homeless in the Midwest because homes are actually affordable.

I suspect it also has to do with that fact that if you are homeless in winter you will die.

It sounds like (maybe?) the SF mayor is tire of this and things might turn around but I doubt if one official can turn it around given the overly lax policies CA government has expressed lately. I think the pendulum has swung to far the other way now and people are tired of the petty crime, breakins, and harassment they get on the streets. It all feels dangerous, even if your personal chances of experience violence is low because most criminals know if they cross that line they might actually have to face some jail time.

There is a time delay to any voter related action.

In a transient place like the bay area, the voters also do not experience the consequence of their votes and follow along with whatever trendy compassion based arguments is around at the time, the one year they vote.

The people who run for office are not many. Most of these positions are uncontested.

That’s right, you nailed it.