Jonathan Blow

I used to like SF — lived there a long time — but the problem is, I remember when it was way better than it is today, so it is very hard to like now. And personally, my life tactic has been to observe that “change from within” people almost always fail, and act accordingly.

The way to show that your thing is better is just to let the lame-ass people be lame-ass and go do the better thing, uncompromisingly. The lame-asses’ thing will fall apart and yours, if it is good, won’t. Then you don’t need to have 10000 useless arguments.

In fact this is what is already happening. San Francisco is the worst part of the entire Bay Area now. If “tech” were a drain, Mountain View would look like Hamsterdam, but it’s the opposite.

All that said, I agree with the article’s stance that SF’s decline bodes poorly for the future of the USA. For that reason, and for image purposes (probably many Americans think SF is the home of “tech”) it would be a good idea to fix it. That just seems impossible.

How has SF declined? I only spent a couple days there in 2018, but it seemed fine-- what did I miss?

Maybe you were mostly in nice parts of town (which are fewer than ever?) It is famously nasty now.

Because of homeless?

A vast increase in the number, and a stark change in the kind. It's no longer so much "hanging out in the Haight asking for change" homeless, it's now "loud belligerently muttering-to-himself dude who seems dangerous", which there was always a little of, but now it's everywhere.