Attendees
Xiaofei, Ken, Emma, Ankur, Gordon, Alpha, Mingming, Jason, Nikhil, Martin
Moderator
Discussion Topic
Today, San Francisco is the best city for innovation with some of the world’s highest quality talent, capital infrastructure, and startups. However, there are increasing challenges in crime, drugs, homelessness, and many other areas impacting the region. How did we reach the current state? What can we learn from how great civilizations have managed (or failed to manage) their urban centers in the history (or present). Going forward, how can we make San Francisco more livable, and have a better community?
Introduction
Village is a diverse community of people who are genuinely curious about understanding the world and the people around them better. We get together once a month for moderated discussions on important issues such as sustainability, health & wellbeing, and education. In our last dinner, we discussed Technology and its impact on the past, influence on the present, and how we think it will define our futures (read the post here). This month, we met to discuss a topic closer to home: is SF a livable city? Specifically, we discussed our individual experiences in SF and made comparisons to other cities Forecasting Club members have lived in (Singapore, Toronto, Chicago – to name a few). The goal of our meeting was to determine how we as individuals can help make SF more livable, whether through more community engagement, voting, or other strategies. In this post, we’ll take you through each of the main questions we discussed, along with the views expressed by our group during the discussion.
Polling the Forecasting Club members – is SF a livable city?
SF is the most livable city in the world: 0 votes
SF is more livable than most major cities in the world: 1 vote
Reasoning:
To the individual who voted for this, he interpreted the poll to compare SF to other cities in the world without benchmarking against specific factors such as level of development or general wealth of the nation. In his view, when compared to other major cities in developing nations such as India or Indonesia, SF’s problems pale in comparison.
When narrowing the list of comparable cities to only those in OECD countries, his vote changed from “more livable” to “less livable.”
SF is on par with most major cities in the world: 4 votes
Reasoning:
Difficult to weigh the livability of cities against each other - sure SF has some severe challenges but other major cities that have similar constraints have challenges that SF doesn’t have (i.e. Chicago and gun violence).
SF is less livable than the average major cities in the world: 8 votes
Reasoning:
Given that SF has some of the most innovative companies and forward thinking and most experimental people, why does the city not reflect that? The overarching view from the group who voted in this direction was that SF is not living up to its potential.
One of the main examples folks in this group pointed to was the recent recall of the Board of Education and the District Attorney in SF - given that the school board and DA were voted in by progressives and acted in ways that aligned with progressive policies, it’s surprising to see the backlash from the community of voters who are overwhelmingly progressive. If the government and the voters are aligned in political ideology, why are these things happening?
A few concrete examples that people pointed to included:
Housing shortage
Disparities in education in terms of private vs. public (and difficulty of getting students into the best public schools)
Crime and recent uptick in anti-asian hate
I would never move to SF: 0 votes
Are there cities we can look at (either historically or current) that can teach us something about what makes a city livable?
City 1: Rome (Historical)
There are a few parallels between Rome and SF. In SF, there’s so much wealth and innovation, but most of that is owned by a minority of the community. Most of the patrons of this innovation are not even in SF but in the rest of the world (i.e. most of Google’s users are not in SF but Google employees in SF benefit the most from this usage). When looking at Rome, we can see similarities. Only 10% of the people in Rome had a vote, 90% of the people living in Rome were slaves. For this 10%, the city was a utopia – crimes had barely any consequences, there was an abundance of resources available, etc. This is similar in SF. For the top 10% of SF, the city may be perfect – these people will have access to private education, healthcare, and safe housing, making it possible for them to avoid the challenges of the city that deeply affect the other 90%.
The lesson from Rome is that we should measure the quality of a city not based on the quality of life for the upper echelon of people within that city but rather based on the quality of life for the lowest class of citizens.
City 2: Singapore (Present Day)
Taking the framework of evaluating the livability of a city based on the quality of life for the lowest class of citizens, some of our community members felt Singapore was a quintessential example of livability. In Singapore, there are concerted efforts to keep the homeless community off the streets - there is ample public housing available supported by public money and social welfare organizations. Homeless citizens are typically not homeless for very long, as the public services usually pick them up and take them to shelter quickly (the motivation behind this is uncertain: it may be to keep of a facade of a utopia and hide these people from the view of the public, it may be altruistic, or something else).
On education, one member pointed out that Singapore sends the best teachers to the worst schools, in an effort to improve outcomes of students who have been placed into worse public schools.
However, the challenge with looking at a city like Singapore is that the underlying constraints are quite different from SF - there is a single ruler, there is a different philosophy of governance and law (i.e. drugs are punishable by death), etc.
One challenge with SF is that there isn’t a single voice that can make decisions, leading to operational difficulty of implementing policies and making changes quickly in the way that we see a city like Singapore make decisions.
In his interview with the NYT recently, Chesa Boudin highlights the tension between policy-making at the DA and law enforcement by the police - and points a finger specifically at "structural flaws" in the way SF government and voting are designed.
NYT: "There has been a lot of friction between your office and the police. Do you believe they’re trying to undermine you?"
Boudin: "Some police officers, absolutely. The police union has been out to get me since before Day 1."
Before Boudin’s election, the San Francisco Police Officers Association funded fliers calling Boudin “the #1 choice of criminals and gang members.”)
Read the interview here.
What has been the root cause of some of the main challenges in SF (homelessness, crime, and lack of high quality public education)?
View 1: A combination of influx of private wealth and lack of regulation (or over-regulation in the wrong direction) to manage this influx.
For example, a lot of cities have gentrification but have rules and regulations to manage the pushing out of communities through laws that mandate certain levels of affordable housing to be built. In SF, due to Prop 13 (example of over-regulation), housing prices continue to rise and there remains a shortage because buildings are legally not allowed to be above a certain height, exacerbating the effects of gentrification in the city.
Some members of the Forecasting Community suggested that on a micro-scale (one family replacing another), there may not be much impact. But when looking at this on a macro-level, one culture / community replacing another culture / community, this can lead to animosity and slew of other challenges (crime and homelessness included).
View 2: Primarily policies that have had negative consequences.
One policy that people pointed to included the decriminalization of theft under a certain amount, which has led to people calculating the amount of their stolen goods to ensure that they remain below the threshold.
Another example people pointed to was the fact that public schools are funded through property taxes, which in wealthier areas will lead to much better schools than areas where tax revenue is lower such as the East Bay.
Accountability > Funding. The California budget per pupil is much higher than most of the region, but it’s hard to implement decisions and make changes quickly. Coupled with a lack of accountability, the system falls apart and we end up with high spending and bad outcomes and a general feeling of immobility.
View 3: A general lack of concern and motivation to act on social issues from the community of SF (largely driven by high turnover of the SF population).
Within the Forecasting Club community, many people did not see themselves staying in SF for the long-run. Even though there needs to be more motivation among the citizens of SF to vote and take action to help improve social policies in SF, maybe people do not care because they’ll be gone by the time they have kids or have another life event such as buying a home that would cause them to be impacted by the challenges in SF.
This movement of people coming to SF to build wealth (whether monetarily, experientially, culturally, or another way) and then leaving before they are impacted by the challenges of the city creates a cycle of inaction.
What can we do to help make SF more livable?
View 1: Learn and engage more with local politics in order to influence policy changes.
One thing that most VFC members agreed on is that our group could do a better job of understanding local politics in San Francisco and engage more with the community in order to have a solid foundational knowledge of what the actual state of SF is.
“The only rule in life is to avoid going bust” - if we leave SF and give up on the city, that’s like going bust in gambling. The more time and effort we put into engaging with the local community and politicsThere , the longer the game can be played and the better the outcome will be.
Being a more empathetic and cognizant citizen can also do wonders for the community - people who are less affected by local politics should avoid taking strong anti-progressive stances (i.e. complaining about building height increases in their neighborhoods). In a word, avoid NIMBYism!
View 2: Things will work out for SF just by way of the universe - “darkest before the dawn” mindset.
Some members pointed to historical examples of U.S. presidents who came in in states of deep despair within the nation and the nation was able to recover after hitting rock bottom (FDR, Reagan were called out specifically)
Other members refuted this and pointed to cities that were not able to make major comebacks after going through years of downward spiral (i.e. Detroit).
View 3: There may not be a way for us to make SF more livable, and we should have a backup plan of where we should live if SF doesn’t work out.
Closing Thoughts
Coming out of the discussion on SF livability, our group felt that we could do a better job learning about local politics and engaging in more civic discourse in order to stay educated on topics related to San Francisco and improving our city. That being said, we’ve compiled a list of resources for people who are interested in understanding more about some of the most pertinent issues related to SF’s livability:
On regulation of housing and new construction:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B01M8IWJT2&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_0MNK7KEPSV19XEPSFCDV (essential reading to understand the history of the Bay Area's housing stock and the laws at all levels of government aimed at segregation and limited construction)
https://www.propublica.org/article/when-private-equity-becomes-your-landlord
Is London Breed too soft or too hard?
Learning from other cities
How other cities try to attract residents (environment, technology, taxes):
How Miami Became the Most Important City in America: https://on.ft.com/3L7UqHs
Paris greening plans:
London cycling plans:
Priced out of Paris: https://on.ft.com/3JfAxgd
Let us know what you think about:
What can we as residents and/or voters do to interpret the regs and pursue progress? What is progress?
How to strike the balance between rent control and landlord profitability? Eg. security of rental properties for residents through longer leases?
How to improve the homeless' lot without becoming a mecca for the country's/world's homeless?)?
Interested in joining us for our next Forecasting Club dinner? Apply to Village here.