And maybe California as a whole and apparently my hometown of Seattle is going into the crapper. Of course I’m talking the modern day progressivism not Bull Moose politics. And this is not meant to be an indictment of general Democratic ideals but the ultra left-wing part of the party like Warren, Sanders and AOC. It seems like when the Progressives are in charge for a long time and are fairly secure in running a state or city, we see the same results:
People taxed into emigration. So basically those with money and assets leave for greener pastures taking their greenbacks with them.
High crime. Imagine that when you defund he police and go soft on things like vandalism and theft, you get more crime.
Homelessness. Why are there so many homeless in LA, SF, Seattle, etc. Studies say it is the lack of affordable housing. I contend that many (but not all) of the reasons for the absurd rise in housing prices are due to progressive rules on building such as cost of permits, required ineffective use of property (such as required parking in limited space) among others. Some blame the inability for the city to physically grow such as in Seattle or San Francisco but that is not the case in Portland, Los Angeles and Denver. Note I don’t know enough about New York City to know if they have a homelessness problem (or how progressive or moderate they are in city government) but I do know that homelessness cannot just be blamed on large cities - Dallas has a population of 1.3 million but less than 4500 homeless. By contrast Portland has a population of about half that (650,000) but almost twice as many homeless (7500). The issues of homelessness are complex enough that depending on how this thread goes, it may need its own thread on the relationship between city politics and homelessness populations.
Some cities policies are extremely cruel towards homeless people. Some cities policies are not. It shouldn’t be surprising that homeless people tend to find their way to places in which they’re not treated so terribly.
As for the other issues, I don’t accept the premise. I don’t accept, at least not without strong evidence, that crime is higher in cities with very liberal political leadership than cities with less liberal leadership. In my understanding, crime is generally a lot worse in red states than blue states: https://www.axios.com/2023/01/27/murder-rate-high-trump-republican-states
I blame NIMBY-ism for housing problems - the way to reduce housing prices, and increase housing stocks, is to build more housing. Single family zoning should be rare if not banned entirely, IMO.
Nobody wants to see the value of their investments go down. But one of the unintended consequences of modern economic theory is they have in large part artificially propped up the value of real estate, at least many of the mortgages. They are talking out of both sides of their mouths. “Reduce housing prices” is one of the key attributes of a bunch of insolvent banks going bye-bye, as they should have. Nobody wants to purchase huge tranches of worthless mortgage backed securities, this is not news, so it fell upon the Federal Reserve?
Naturally, there are no entry level jobs or careers that will pay anything close to what modern housing costs, even at zero interest rates. There probably never were, but for a brief period government backed mortgage loans provided an opportunity for home ownership to millions after World War II.
I don’t see Warren, Sanders, and AOC having much effect on the day-to-day situation in San Francisco or LA.
“People taxed into emigration” can keep chasing the rainbow to their low-tax destinations.
As for theft, shoplifting, and other such crimes, progressive policies, when poorly implemented, are a factor. Not the only factor, but a factor.
San Francisco recalled its ideologically driven district attorney last year for this very reason.
Does that mean San Francisco, LA, etc. aren’t ultra-left cities where the means of production has been socialized, incomes equalized, all housing managed managed by collectives and coops, and everyone takes it it turns to act as sort of supreme executive officer for the week but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs? I’m shocked.
(speaking from socialist Europe)
No.
This just is not true. It is a conservative belief only and not reality:
In reality, the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence, while the regions Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher than New York’s. On a regional basis it’s the southern swath of the country — in cities and rural areas alike — where the rate of deadly gun violence is most acute, regions where Republicans have dominated state governments for decades. - SOURCE
So you’re saying San Francisco’s increase in crime after the police were defunded AND the increase in leniency on crime is just a coincidence?
I’m going to suggest that instead of talking in huge, uncited generalities, you make your single strongest case, being as specific as possible with the strongest cites you can bring. As it is, your points are both uncited–and, in at least one case, contradictory. People with money are leaving, and at the same time, people are paying so much for housing that people without money can’t afford housing?
Name the most conservative city in America. There’s homelessness and shoplifting there. QED.
The thing is - the rich aren’t really leaving. If taxes were a primary issue, you’d think they’d be the first to leave. Likewise the NYC area - the rich love staying there despite the higher taxes.
The real story seems to be affordability of housing. The ones who can afford it apparently like being near the amenities afforded by proximity to those places. The ones who can’t afford that lifestyle appear to be the ones moving away
I think it’s called the broken window theory. The idea that areas that tolerate relatively minor crimes like vandalism, petty larceny, loitering, etc., etc. leads to at atmosphere encouraging even more serious crimes. It’s one of those theories that sounds great and really makes sense when you first hear it, but so far as I know it’s been discredited by most.
The theory gained popularity in the 80s after New York had experienced years of urban blight and serious crime problems but just a few short years before things really started to improve. You are correct, New York is a very safe urban center. I don’t know if I’d want to visit New York of the 1970s, but New York in the 2000s? Yeah, sign me up. I’d feel a lot safer there then I would in Little Rock, West Memphis, or Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
It’s a conservative talking point, and they are doing a great job of pushing it out through mainstream and social media. The truth is that San Francisco has one of the lowest rates of violent crime among major U.S. cities. The murder rate doesn’t even make the top 30.
Is there more petty crime (shoplifting, theft from cars, burglaries)? Yes. Are there more homeless on the streets, drug use and human waste? Absolutely. There’s no question that these problems need to be addressed, and we are open to suggestions. I don’t think that throwing them all in jail makes sense. I also don’t think that shipping them off to some other city (as some places are doing by sending their homeless to San Francisco) is the right answer either.
I’ll worry about the “failure” of San Francisco when housing prices aren’t insanely high because people want to live here. When new tech companies don’t want to be here. I think it will be tragic if this conservative campaign of negativity scares off tourists from coming to this beautiful and vibrant city. But as an older woman, I still love living here, and I walk through our diverse neighborhoods every day without fear.
And it is worse than San Francisco or Los Angeles?
Submitted for consideration:
Ferreira and Gyourko studied the impact of mayoral elections on crime rates in over 400 U.S. cities (with a population of at least 25,000) between 1950 and 2000. Whether the mayor was a Democrat or a Republican, they found that differences in violent crimes (specifically murder and robbery) were not statistically different from zero. When the authors divided their sample by population size into “bigger” versus “smaller” cities, they again found no evidence that cities with a Democrat as mayor had higher crime rates. Gates observed that some of the fastest increases in murder rates between 2019 and 2020 were in Republican-run cities, notably Jacksonville, FL, Miami, FL, Fort Worth, TX, Tulsa, OK, and Oklahoma City, OK.
“Mayoral Party Affiliation and Violent Crime Rates in America’s Most Populated Cities”
– Arjan S. Kochar1, Fahmid Rashid, Samuel P. Sullivan, Sarrkos K. Thunyiswa and Paul M. Sommers
Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT, USA
I’m willing to use violent crime as some sort of reasonable surrogate for other societal ills. It’s – at least – a meaningful metric.
…I’ll deal with the elephant in the room.
There are no progressive states in America. Not by any reasonable definition of progressive. Because when you say:
These “ultra-left wing” people like Warren, Sanders and AOC are not running San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle.
Universal healthcare. Black lives matter. Defund the police. Destroy the schools-to-prison pipeline. These are progressive ideals, and “general Democratic ideals” are the antithesis of that.
Do you remember what happened when a progressive DA won in San Francisco and he was immediately attacked by both centrist dems and republicans, leading eventually to his recall?
Because thats the reality of progressives in the United States of America. They barely have a voice. They barely have any power. They certainly aren’t in charge in the places you claim they are.
And we can see how progressive ideals like universal healthcare work in the rest of the world. They work just fine.
Your entire premise is wrong.
I think that talking about violent crime is missing the point. California made any theft under $900 a misdemeanor and many DAs don’t prosecute it anymore. That doesn’t affect rape and homicide but the amount of shoplifting and burglaries and car break-ins has certainly increased. THAT is what I am talking about.
Just count me with those who don’t think you’ve even come close to establishing correlation, much less causation.
A misdemeanor in California can receive a 6 month prison sentence. That is more than adequate a sentence for a theft under $900. The problem is that the police aren’t making arrests and the DAs aren’t prosecuting.