At the very least, you could easily make an argument that a rising tide does not lift all boats; i.e. many people are personally not benefiting much from the tech-boom in the area. On the other hand, if your stance is that our collective goal should be to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people; then we want more people to move to the city have prosperous lives to fulfill the new roles available here. In that scenario it's hard to keep income inequality from expanding.
It seems like thusfar the city council has done a good job at striking a balance; MHA (mandatory housing affordability) is a level-headed way to redistribute some of the gains that tech has brought to those who are less fortunate. However, our current city council is much more left-leaning and I'm worried that their stance towards growth is far more "progressive" and anti-business.
Should people really be entitled to live in an expensive city that they cannot afford? Cities like Manhattan or SF have sort of taken a stance on that and it favors the prosperous. I'm not sure how I feel about the matter; but I certainly do not want us to dampen our potential future potential by encouraging businesses to set up shop elsewhere. We need more initiatives like MHA and fewer like the business head-tax.
I'm not from the area, but the sheer amount of anger and enthusiasm that has fueled these protests suggests that the city council has not been striking an appropriate balance.
Happy middle class people don't tend to riot and try to start new societies.
I find it eerie that you're excluding from the equation the tens of thousands of homeless people in those cities. The right question is "to what lengths should we go to give people the ability to live with a roof over their heads?" The bay area has answered with "very little", where most people are barely offering human empathy to the homeless.
Gosh how can you be so jealous of people you're willing to destroy their stuff. It's the same kind of xenophobia that fuels anti-immigrant rhetoric. People upset that those moving to 'their turf' happen to do better than them.
I do believe that we should support the homeless populations of our cities; but if you're familiar with Seattle's homelessness problems in particular, you'll know that the city has essentially thrown literally hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem to little effect.
I don't believe Seattle should follow a path of growth-at-all-costs and ignore the social problems the city has; but the city council here is staunchly anti-business, and that carries a risk-too, like the original commenter said—take growth for granted and you can end up like Detroit. In that situation, no one prospers, and everyone suffers; which we definitely don't want. It's a fine line to walk. That's all I'm saying.
The other interesting comparison here is the varied response to this and the Malheur National wildlife refuge occupation.
Part of this probably evolves from the fact that Liberals are introspective and willing to challenge their beliefs to their own disadvantage in a way that the GOP never has been; but it's genuinely confusing and the party does not feel unified.
I think this is about as useful as saying "homelessness is caused by loitering". We're confusing cause and effect. Try living on the streets for a few years where people treat you worse than shit without developing some mental illness or abusing drugs to deal with the stress and loneliness. If you think that the cause is mental illness and drugs and throwing money at it mostly does nothing, why do you think San Francisco has by a long shot the highest rate of homelessness in America?
Please do not spread lies. SF does not have the highest homelessness rate in America. Eugene Oregon has the most homeless: https://www.security.org/resources/homeless-statistics/ , followed by LA and NY.
They do if you want the people who serve your $5 coffees and $20 meals to be able to live within a reasonable distance. I like to think the people gentrifying them out don't want to push them out, but I'm not sure most of them even realize they're responsible for the huge homeless population. They moved in for the well-paid jobs and pushed the people who lived there out. The pushed out don't always have somewhere to go or a way to get there.
They're not really consistent at all but their messaging and party policing has been more strict
>What does the left stand for >for a long time liberalism was about free speech but now we want to regulate speech with safe-spaces and trigger warnings.
it's funny watching americans sprinkling around left, liberal, etc as political terms whilst defining the weird mix that ends up under the wings of the two parties. Some (self-proclaimed) libertarians & conservatives, protectionists & free market hardliners standing under the same republicans umbrella with radically clashing beliefs. Free market liberals fighting with leftists who are laughing at social progressives under the umbrella of the democrats.
>Part of this probably evolves from the fact that Liberals are introspective and willing to challenge their beliefs to their own disadvantage in a way that the GOP never has been
I'd say with growing inequality and declining social mobility it's hard for the mainstream core of democrats to really push a broader platform that the party fully aligns with, differs from the republicans and rings well with their base. They don't really roll with protectionist stances a la bernie or trump, they don't really align with unions or workers anymore as they've dropped them for an upper middle-class educated focus whilst at the same time still keeping some actual more left wing remnants under their wing that they try to suppress and retain at the same time They have started less invasions but aren't really against global force projection at all. They don't really clash with conservatives on stock buybacks, markets, banking, what have you whilst at the same time still pushing cushioning programs like obamacare to give at least a sense of direction there. So when on a lot of those fronts you're not really united or notably different from the opposition what's left? Social issues. Social equality when it comes to sex, race or what have you. So pushing those makes sense.
Trump has started the fewest invasions of any president thus far. We've had no regime changes, and no extended battles or fights. Obama (Syria and Libya) and Bush (Iraq, Afghanistan, others) and Clinton (Iraq, Kuwait) all engaged in new wars. Trump hasn't, and has in fact withdrawn America troops.
Enough with patronizing. They are not children or robots with no freewill. They have made decisions in their own lives and they need to own up to them. Not holding people accountable makes them more like children, and they are more likely to stay where they are FOREVER. They will all stay on the streets until old age and die there if you think it's not their own fault.
If you can't a afford a city, then MOVE. Guess what though, in cities like SF, they didn't.
They stayed, destroyed SF for decades, and now it is very clear... SF has made its choice... to become the home for the homeless, as a mass exodus occurs.
People are tired of shit and used needles on the sidewalk, dangerous insane people roaming everywhere, extremely expensive food and living, all while the leadership pats itself on the back for being woke. Enjoy your post-apocalyptic shitty.
I can answer this, I lived there since 2005 until this month.
The problem is once you stop enforcing the law it creates incentives for all kinds of people to try it out. This created a diverse population of people who are living outside, from mentally ill, to seemingly normal young people fixing bikes in their tents, to dangerous drug addicts that won't hesitate to stab you.
The problem is there is a law and it is not being enforced. People take advantage of this. Thinking everybody is a poor soul that would buy housing if it existed is an extremely naive view. The homeless population is very diverse in terms of reasons they are out there. SF leadership treats all of them as if it had one solution, so of course that will not work. Some people out there want to be there. You can see they are young and don't mind sleeping in a tent. Others are just out of their minds and need intervention ASAP.
RIP SF