> organized crime and persistent retail theft the way SF does

Those were in a single grouping.

I’m currently in SE Asia: factually, they don’t allow organized retail theft akin to what I’ve seen in Seattle or SF.

Their downtowns also aren’t littered with drug zombies.

I love SE Asia, spend a lot of time there. Your characterization is incredibly misleading.

There's different tradeoffs between, say, Bangkok and San Francisco in terms of what is tolerated (i.e, drugs) and what isn't.

Yes — my point was the narrow one:

That it’s very strange that SF (and Seattle) are so much wealthier and developed, but I routinely see organized retail crime in those cities — but not in much poorer countries, who maintain a stricter social order.