I daresay San Fransisco will somehow stagger along without your approval, along with many other destinations across the planet which could possibly fall within your sweeping, personal judgements. After all, most large cities, not to mention nations, should and could hew along pure ideological lines.
Feh. I don’t remotely enjoy panhandlers either, much less feel automatically indebted to them, but their mere presence doesn’t render anyplace ideologically toxic. Ever travelled in a third world country? Or even a second one–though on more mature consideration, that seems a largely unoccupied, echoing slot–and been faced with uncomfortable things?
Why should SF be limited to this-that-or-the-other for anybody? And that includes the climate for gays, tourists and seekers. SF never aspired to be trendy meat market, just someplace that could and would nurture iconoclasts. Gays age, along with everybody else. What’s so damned wrong about a place that gives them a fair place to live out their lives, regardless of their transitory ‘lusciousness’?
SF is an easy, safe stroll compared to many places around the globe. Take it for it is, accept what’s there, or just move on. Would you apply the same sniffy, ideologically sniffy standards to Singapore? London? Jamaica? Caracas? etc.
Oops, is there a way to cancel a post after clicking quick reply? I decided my stupid comment about the Fresno Area Rapid Transit was not worth posting, unfortunately I already clicked quick reply. Sorry for the stupidity…(could I have just hit Back Page without typing anything?)
I like SF. i’ve been there a few times, both as a tourst and less so and I didn’t see anything I’d consider worse than I’ve seen in London, LA, NYC, Pittsburgh, Edinburgh, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Paris, Venice, Vancouver, or any of the other big cities I’ve been to…(and if you want to talk about liberal snobbery and bums and Los Angeles, oy! The city of Venice and city of Santa Monica have both had to take injunctions out injunctions against church groups for “luring bums”. These are groups based in nearbye neighborhoods/cities that are hosting free lunch and dinners for the homeless in Santa Monica and Venice, and advertising only in their own neighborhoods…
I think part of the reason you saw the bums was that a) you were in the touristy area of town and b) San Francisco has attempted to be a tolerant and somewhat bohemian place for decades. The bums are generally accepted as people with problems and they really are supported by the tourists in the same way as most of Fisherman’s Wharf. I mean they aren’t loved, but they are treated as people which is better than many places.
“If we don’t like it, then you have to live without it.” SF has no through Freeways. This kills several dozen San Francisans a year, and causes an hour delay for those who need to cross the Golden Gate to go North or South- causing more pollution and traffic. But SF thinks that freeways are ugly, thus no matter how many dudes die, and how much it incoveniences the entire rest of the freaken State- there are no through Freeways. Every other city that tried this was over-ridden by the State (Santa Barbara being one of the last hold-outs) but for some reason, the State gov’t doesn’t cram this down the throats of SF. I was hoping the Governator would, but…
“The City”. It’s not. It’s smaller than San Jose, and not even up to being a borough of a great Metropolis like LA or NYC. One fun thing- San Fransciscans that move to NYC and still call SF “the City”.
NIMBY- terrible cell phone reception because there are luddite morons who live in SF and block new cell phone towers as they think the waves are “dangerous”. Really.
Parking- SF encourages illegal parking as parking violations are a significant source of City funds.
Oh, yay, it’s baseball season again. Time for spooje and I to begin our annual fruitless name calling!
Dodgers suck! Ha! We’re gonna kick your ass again tonight, loser!
You know what I’m gonna do? I’m going to Pit all the cities I’ve ever been to that I didn’t like. Because I know you’re all dying to know my opinion on them, right? Right? First up “Goddamn I hate LA”. Tomorrow: “Goddamn I hate Columbus, OH”. Friday: “Goddamn I hate Gary, Indiana”. Saturday: “Goddamn, I hate Milan”.
I bask in the knowledge that the fact that I haven’t really spent much time in these places (except LA, it really sucks, especially the Dodgers and all of their fans) in no way invalidates my opinion. Yay for me and my unerring sense of righteousness!
I don’t quite get the OP’s beef with San Francisco. It seems to me that SF would be a paradise for someone who thinks in terms of liberal vs conservative, republican vs democrat, New York vs LA, NoCal vs SoCal, bridge-and-tunnel vs resident, buttered-side up vs buttered-side down. (Not to mention someone who misspells his own name).
Before I moved to SF, I’d never seen so many people so fixated on “scenes” and labels. Hipsters, geeks, Fillmore types, Marina chicks, Peninsula types, Castro types (with the “aging mutton” – sheesh, that’s the grossest expression I’ve heard on here in a long time), tourists, Sunset residents, and that’s even without getting into all the racial/ethnic distinctions. People will slap a dozen different labels on you once they know what street you live on, another few based on your shoes or your style of glasses, a few more based on what music you listen to, and probably hundreds more that I’m not even aware of.
And still, after a while you get the sense that it doesn’t really matter to anyone. It’s hypocrisy, sure, but it’s functional hypocrisy. Every other city I’ve lived in feels just like a place, SF feels like a person. A really, really arrogant, smug, prejudiced, and annoying person, but one whose heart’s basically in the right place and is trying to develop a conscience.
People will go on about any one of a dozen different stereotypes about you, and then go back to their group of friends, which is probably as diverse as any group of people you’ve ever seen outside of an episode of “The Real World.” Because people still “get” at some level that none of that stuff is what makes a person worthwhile. It’s whether he can get you pot.
Size isn’t the only indicator of what makes a “city”. San Jose may be larger, but it’s basically a big suburb full of strip malls; most tourists, I reckon, would consider San Francisco a city and not San Jose.
Again: cite?
And yet again…do I even have to say it?
Not that I think there’s nothing wrong with San Francisco; I just question some of these claims.
I visited San Franciso in 2002 and was shocked at the number of homeless beggars I saw in the CBD. It seemed that there was one on every street corner holding out an empty paper cup for people to drop coins into.
Do you guys know what they do with the homeless in Sacramento and the Penninsula and Fresno and everywhere else in Northern California?
They buy them bus tickets to San Francisco.
Why do you think there are so many less homeless people in New York nowdays? They put them on busses to somewhere else. A city can’t bar a busload of homeless from coming in- they can only try to ship them back out someplace else.
The homeless have to be somewhere, and you can only roust them out of their camps and ship them off to someplace else for so long. As long as cities won’t take responsibity for their own homeless, they will collect in the few places that don’t make their lives hell. If you can’t handle the sight of your own countrymen, in a scenerio that your city is likely a small part of, that is your own problem.
Anyway, I’m moving either to the City of Oakland in the next month or so. Rents are cheaper than here, and there are a lot more jobs. The film scene seems amazing- with great screenings of both new and old movies all the time. There are also a lot of smaller events I’m interested in- small bands, amature film screenings, theater productions. And I’m really looking forward to being in a more diverse environment. Not to mention Gordo Burritos, real gelato, yummy Indian ice cream in the Mission, the best thrift store in the world, and all manner of other great city-things.
If you don’t like it, hey- more power to you. I’d slit my wrists if I were doomed to live in a suburb. But in fairness I think it is a much nicer place to live, eat, work, and play than to visit- the tourist parts are outright hellish and the weather isn’t really great for holidays in most parts.
