San Francisco is a ****hole.

Los angeles and portland and some other usa citys have a massive homeless problem, the problem is every state is different ,eg many states have very limited welfare support for homeless people with mental problems or drug addiction issues . the safety net is hardly there for people who live on the streets .Homeless people tend to go to citys where the weather is warm and its possible to live in tents on the street. Also many big companys like amazon pay very little tax .conservative states are passing laws to allow anyone to buy a gun and carry it concealed .America is a divided country between extreme conservative and liberal democrats .

it seems to be getting worse some american city centres are almost deserted ,people are working from home, buying everything online ,urban area,s are being left to the people who live there ,shops offices are empty , some people avoid crime ridden city centres ,its safer to buy goods online, people go to the office 2 or 3 days a week.

most tech companys are laying off 1000s of workers ,the long tech boom is over

even if you look around dublin many offices are empty .

Dublin offices are much busier again Tuesday to Thursday, but certainly the impact of WFH on Tech companies, along with crazy property prices has made SF less desirable.

The homeless issue looks terrible now.

When you get to the point that people are avoiding dowtown due to crime and anti social behaviour, the local govt really have lost control of the city.

Sadly, there is likley to be further decline in SF, as there doesn't appear to be any appetite from the local governance to change things.

Its fair to say that the approach to crime and drugs and homelessness is really too liberal and predictably, has not worked and has catalysed many social and economic problems in the city.

Even the Tech bros dont want to be there. And why should they?

Why pay all that money and have to live in that squalour, with real risk to your personal health and safety.

Not to mnetion the fact that its just depressing to see every day.

It really cant do much for your mental health to see tent cities and people constantly strung out on drugs on your way to work each day.

Why would you not WFH, given the choice?

I know some parts of Dublin have some issues with drugs and crime, but lets hope we never end up anything like SF.

Huge number of shootings on the freeways around SF

I was in SF for a week last September and things have changed a little bit based on what you described.

We stayed beside Union Square and it was ok(ish). Yes it was full of zombies but they kept themselves to themselves. Even at night the area around Union Square seemed ok. However we did notice a big change as it came into the weekend. More and more homeless and stoned seemed to appear over the weekend and the atmosphere at night became a lot more menacing. There was also a corresponding increase in the amount of human sh1t on the streets at the weekend. On the Saturday there was a march from Union Square in support of Iranian women's rights, whilst on the route homeless women with drug and obvious mental health problems were lying on the streets / staring into the sky / rooting in bins. Seemed a bit ironic to me.

They seemed to have moved a lot of the homeless out of the central areas. I did walk to Oracale Park one morning and used Google maps to show me the quickest route..... not a good idea. It brought me through some dodgy areas and it was the only time I felt a bit unsafe. It was an eye opener to see dozens of makeshift shelters on the roads and paths lived in by well dressed people who obviously had jobs but couldn't afford to live any other way. We drove to Muir Woods one day and there were lots of cars on the sides of the roads outside of the city with people living in them who cycled in and out to work in the city every day.

The poverty alongside the extreme wealth is unreal. You can be Bloomingdales looking at $10k handbags whilst downstairs in the toilets there's p!ss and sh1t everywhere and strung out people lying in it. There are art galleries selling pieces of hundreds of thousands of dollars with people sleeping in the adjacent alleys.

It's a fascinating place to visit, but not a place I would bring kids and you need to be prepared for what you are going to see.

The problem is American city's are in decline they were not designed for people who work from home it can cause a spiral as crime and homeless people put off people going into city centres. Shops close down as they rely on office workers to make a profit the value of office buildings is falling as more people choose to work from home

That's the us system they spend billions on defence and nuclear weapons. While only providing basic services to homeless people

Many American city's are in a crisis while tax revenues fall and homelessness gets worse

San Francisco went downhill communally after Silicon Valley took control of politics. Most US cities are soulless crime ridden kips with drugs being the major factor in crime. The American Dream was actually a corporate logo made up in the 1950's and became entrenched in the american psyche ever since. America is a vast beautiful country with diverse landscapes but life in America has gone seriously downhill in the last 20 years. Mental illness & Drug Usage is at crisis levels across the board. Any country could could elect vegetables like G W Bush & Joe Biden into power tells a lot about America. Everything is geared around work and the Almighty Dollar and the demented pursuit of happiness which is elusive. Remember that before WW2 America was in bad shape for 30 odd years. Vietnam was the start of the american decline in terms of society. Ireland & the UK is going the same way as they looked to America for too long. America created the TV Advert and they have falsely advertised the Hollywood version of America to the entire world.

A couple of my favourite childhood movies were shot in San Francisco. 'Mrs Doubtfire' and 'Getting Even with Dad' both recorded there in 1993. I was reading that someone tried to set the Mrs Doubtfire house on fire because a surgeon who worked on trans people owned it. That is quite fitting given the movie.

My Uncle was working on a building site in Oakland, just outside of SF about a year ago. The crime is so bad there that lads pouring concrete on a building site were unfortunate enough to have a junkie with a gun come into the site and rob them while they were pouring concrete.

A lot of California is nice. I stayed out near Mountain View, about an hour outside of the city. It's a nice place. We toured the Napa Valley. Again very nice. All of California is not a sh1thole. Although the places I've just mentioned are extremely expensive places.

This may sound like partisan BS, it is not.

Rural America is honestly, blissful. Crime is practically zero, unless you see the local news paper "woman charged with assault in shop after flicking a pencil"..I kid you not. The problem with Rural America though is you are in Republican Country. Where I live there is a 50:50 split between Democrats and Republicans. Move out of the town and you are talking 100% Republican. The democrats have moved into the area from large cities i.e. Chicago, San Francisco and New York. They want to bring in "New Ideas" to local city council....locals hate them and see it as an invasion of leftist ideology.

I have sympathy for them, I don't do politics in the main. People locally understand this. This fleeing of the cities and wanting to bring the same ideologies to small rural American, that have destroyed the cities. They came here for safety and now want the same policies that cause lack of safety in cities.

Self reliance is the Republican Mantra (from what I can see) Democrats want more Governmental interference (generalisation I know).

The populations are generally homogenous in Rural America (where I am). White for the most part. Very few Black families. Mexicans get on well as they are generally hard workers. One thing that I have discussed with Black visitors is that they feel unsafe in our area, it's a perception rather than reality. This is probably brought about by the lack of other black families here.

Politics aside.

When I was in san fran, they told me they bus homeless people from northern states to San Francisco as it’s warmer in the winter.

Is this why theses a large homeless population?

If Dublin is a shithole, id really fear for the rest of the country!

D1 is rough and certain other areas, but the majority of dublin, especially south east dublin, is lovely.

I am sure there are also plenty of nice areas in SF that arent downtown.