[HN Gopher] Clean Streets: People taking San Francisco's trash i...
___________________________________________________________________
Clean Streets: People taking San Francisco's trash into their own
hands
Author : avyfain
Score : 79 points
Date : 2021-11-19 23:07 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (missionlocal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (missionlocal.org)
| pwthornton wrote:
| One of the things that causes littering is a lack of trash cans
| or a lack of non-filled trash cans. Not all littering (or
| throwing recycling in the trash) is done out of pure malice. If
| you make it easy for people to throw trash out, they generally
| will. If you make it hard to throw trash out, many will litter.
|
| Stronger fines and other enforcement would help, but the first
| thing is to make sure that you actually have accurate places to
| throw stuff out (or have the culture where people bring stuff
| with them and throw out at home, like some non-American
| countries). This article mentions how the streets got really bad
| during the pandemic when the city stopped doing certain things.
|
| SF, NYC, and other cities with trash problems could significantly
| solve this just by having more trash and recycling cans and by
| changing them more often. You'll notice how much cleaner DC and
| its surrounding urban areas are than SF and NYC and that's
| because they have a bigger commitment to making it easy to not
| litter and they do more cleaning.
| dorianmariefr wrote:
| That's what I wanted to do when I was in SF: put trash bins
| everywhere
| tafda wrote:
| Worse than that, SF has tried removing trash cans on a theory
| they're and attractive nuisance. An absence of trash cans works
| in Tokyo, not so much in North America:
|
| https://missionlocal.org/2021/03/newsoms-experiment-to-get-r...
| refurb wrote:
| This seems self defeating? They removed the trash can near my
| corner. Sure, people used it for personal trash and often
| dumped unwanted items next to it.
|
| Getting rid of it seems...to make things worse? People still
| dump their trash, it's just more spread out now.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Same James Thompson as astronaut.io[*], by the way. Also designed
| much of the UX in Palantir's products.
|
| [*] http://astronaut.io/
| baybal2 wrote:
| I advice HN readers to go, and to participate.
|
| Besides actually cleaning the streets, it brings very big
| spotlight to the problem.
|
| And in some rare cases, if activity like this may go viral, some
| people in charge of public sanitation might remember of the shame
| enough to do their work.
| nbardy wrote:
| There are bureaucrats making 6 figures sitting around and doing
| nothing for 40 years now. I don't think shame is going to get
| them into action. Shame would be what they feel looking around
| their city. They must be used to it at this point.
| kjksf wrote:
| When the city and the state stops taking 50%+ of my money, I'll
| start cleaning the streets (or, more likely, will pay for
| someone to clean them).
|
| San Francisco 2020 budget is ~$13 billion
| (https://londonbreed.medium.com/san-franciscos-budget-how-
| it-...)
|
| This is the money that is supposed to pay for cleaning the
| streets and many more things.
|
| For comparison, Austin budget is $4.5 billion
| (https://www.kvue.com/article/money/economy/austin-city-
| counc...)
|
| What you see is unbelievable corruption and incompetence of
| city government, not the lack of money for cleaning the
| streets.
| baybal2 wrote:
| That's the point. Don't let people just close eyes on this.
| ikt wrote:
| why does the local council not employ people to clean the
| streets?
| macinjosh wrote:
| They do. The government is just ineffective at its job.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Yet, the constituents keep re-electing the same people.
| ikt wrote:
| It's very odd, here in Australia they're very effective at
| it, very rarely do I walk past garbage piles.
|
| I guess people in San Francisco just don't care enough to
| really push the council to solve the problem?
| OJFord wrote:
| Isn't it that they're also saying 'it's too expensive to
| live here, keep taxes low' or 'it's too expensive to live
| here, I won't, I'll consume things and leave rubbish and
| them go home [and pay tax] elsewhere'?
| starwind wrote:
| That's what happens when people just vote for their party for
| local government--politicians don't have good ideas or
| successful policies cause they don't have to to stay in
| office
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How do local SF elections work? Are they partisan? If so,
| aren't the primaries where the real action is, often with
| plenty of choices?
| _dain_ wrote:
| it's a one-party state with significant control by a few
| wealthy local real estate oligarchs.
| _dain_ wrote:
| this is a city that puts up billboards telling junkies how to
| "safely" shoot up heroin
| bbbhahah wrote:
| this is a city that pays criminals money not to fucking kill
| people
| blunte wrote:
| You're not going to stop a junkie from shooting up (without a
| comprehensive, life-changing program). So barring that, you
| might as well teach them how to be more safe so they don't
| end up in a hospital spending your tax money for emergency
| care... or worse, dead somewhere and likewise then consuming
| public funds to deal with it.
|
| [added] Since this is such a controversial topic, I would
| recommend reading about Portugal's approach to solving drug
| problems (hint, it has been quite successful():
| https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-
| po...
| nbardy wrote:
| I'd welcome Portugal's approach, but it is very different.
| San Francisco doesn't prosecute dealers, and encourages
| open drug markets and camps on the street by funding and
| encouraging the behavior with permanent enabling, no path
| towards rehabilitation, and lack of law enforcement on the
| dealers and the non-drug crimes the commit.
|
| Compassion and understanding of drug use issues is a
| different world than enabling spiraling dens of despair.
| DantesKite wrote:
| You can stop a junkie from shooting up by imprisoning them,
| or better yet, putting them through drug rehab.
|
| Everything else is not a solution and only exacerbates the
| problem.
|
| There's nothing safe about staying addicted to drugs.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > You can stop a junkie from shooting up by imprisoning
| them, or better yet, putting them through drug rehab.
|
| Those responses have been tried for many years, with very
| poor results. Also, it's not clear that there is anything
| criminal about the vice of drugs, and thus taking away
| their freedom would be highly unjust. We take away
| people's freedom for bad behavior or because other people
| are uncomfortable.
|
| Based on the little I know, what does help people is
| giving them access to social services. I think several
| American cities are pioneering bringing the services to
| the person - when authorities are called, they don't send
| police or only police, but people who can connect the
| person to various agencies.
|
| Apparently this approach results in a much higher rate of
| service use (which makes sense commercially - if someone
| had to wait in long lines and fill out dozens of forms,
| and then face long delays for service, you wouldn't have
| many customers. If someone showed up, when need the
| service, and offered it on the spot, you'd sell a few
| more). And those people gain more stable lives and are
| able to better care for themselves.
|
| We can see plenty of wealthy professionals turn to
| damaging behavior under great stress. Imagine how they
| would do if added to that stress is having no roof or
| reliable food, the loss of safety, the loss of any
| credibility - even enough to get basic jobs, the
| harassment, etc. But then them: 'We'll take care of the
| shelter, food, etc., and here are classes to help cope
| with your other problems without using drugs', and I can
| imagine they would have a much better chance.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Wait until you find out about drug abuse in prisons.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| There are drugs available in jails and prisons.
| Incarceration does not solve addiction and worse it
| groups troubled people together.
| blunte wrote:
| Putting a junkie in prison will indeed stop them, for the
| time they are in jail. But once they get out, they will
| return to the life they know. And then you're back with
| the original problem, but you've now also spent a ton of
| money to imprison them.
|
| Obviously there's nothing safe about being addicted to
| drugs. But there are certainly methods of drug use which
| have wildly varied risk levels. Same for other things -
| drinking alcohol, eating unhealthy foods, etc.
|
| Portugal is the best example of how to tackle the drug
| problem. There are many articles, but here's one:
| https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-
| in-po...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Putting a junkie in prison will indeed stop them, for
| the time they are in jail
|
| Sadly, no. The junkies I knew, back when I knew junkies,
| were terrified of rehab, not of prison.
|
| One of them told me, to justify behavior that was
| mystifying to me, "I can still use in prison".
| _dain_ wrote:
| portugal does arrest drug users, and drug dealers. the
| users get treatment and the dealers get punished, neither
| of which SF deigns to do.
|
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1451913061380476932.ht
| ml
| _dain_ wrote:
| but it also sends the message that shooting up heroin is
| tolerated, even encouraged. it's like the people running
| the city have completely giving up on expecting any kind of
| standards of public decency or even upholding civilization
| itself. they gave up on collecting trash, they gave up on
| arresting thieves, they gave up building houses, they're
| considering whether to give up teaching calculus. nothing
| we can do! we'll just manage the decline into
| thirdworldization, be careful not to overdose while you
| drug yourself into a stupor.
| nkrisc wrote:
| > but it also sends the message that shooting up heroin
| is tolerated, even encouraged
|
| So what? An addict is going to shoot up whether it's
| tolerated or not, and non-addicts aren't going to take up
| heroin because they say a billboard. If you really want
| to end it, it's going to need to be a lot more
| comprehensive, expensive, and expansive than the presence
| or absence of a billboard.
| _dain_ wrote:
| okay, how about we put up billboards saying
|
| >When you smash a window to rob a store, be careful not
| to cut yourself on the glass. Wear thick gloves.
|
| after all, a billboard is not going to stop a burglar, is
| it? and if we're going to have burglaries, it's better
| that the burglars don't injure themselves while
| committing their crimes, because after all it will reduce
| the burden on hospitals. it will also protect the store
| owners from liability!
|
| I'm not a nietzchean but I start to sympathize with how
| zarathustra must have felt when he saw those pathetic
| last men, bleating about "harm reduction" as they huddled
| together for warmth.
| minitoar wrote:
| Is there an epidemic of burglars injuring themselves I'm
| not aware of?
| tekproxy wrote:
| Just move. California doesn't deserve you. People there
| think you can only use carrots and sticks are immoral.
| _dain_ wrote:
| oh I don't live in CA, I just know people who do
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Addiction is a physiological disease. Burglary is not.
| You cannot compare them just because they are both
| crimes, as they have different causes. Those that burgle
| choose to do so (and yes, their circumstances may lead
| them to do so, such as poverty) but those who are
| addicted cannot really choose, their body demands that
| they abuse the substance.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The local public library has a sign that says obeying the
| law is required in the library.
|
| I asked the librarian if there really was a problem with
| the library being a law-free zone. She shrugged saying
| "what can I say". Personally, I doubt that a sign would
| dissuade the types who go to the library to commit
| crimes.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Why would you put up those billboards? What's the intent?
| Is there an epidemic of burglars bleeding to death in the
| streets? Sure it makes a good analogy, but it has nothing
| to do with the reality we live in. We don't live in a
| hypothetical world, so it's appropriate to consider
| methods that are specific to the realities of the world
| we really do live in.
| yeetman21 wrote:
| Would allowing nature to take its course and having them
| die really be that bad? It is better for society for them
| to not exist (in a peaceful manner ie not outright jailing/
| worse) or for them to exist and harass innocent bystanders?
| Think about it this way, if they did not exist, and you had
| the power to create them, would would willingly/
| purposefully create them? They are taking up resource that
| could be better spent else where such as investing in
| education or infrastructure or even tax breaks for the
| middle class
| _dain_ wrote:
| I'm the GP poster but I don't agree with this social
| darwinist crap at all. I bet you would never apply this
| logic if your own kids fell into drug addiction. it is
| not "nature" taking its course here, it is a sick, stupid
| society that tolerates the proliferation of mind-altering
| poisons and then shovels vast amounts of public money
| into useless fake "rehab" charities run by politically-
| connected grifters. there are people out there getting
| rich off all this misery and it isn't just the dealers.
| dang wrote:
| Please keep this sort of generic flamewar comment off HN.
| It will only lead to hell.
| yeetman21 wrote:
| Sorry, will not happen again
| dang wrote:
| Appreciated!
| ketzo wrote:
| which is an important, proven way to save lives.
|
| responsible treatment of drug addicts =/= the government
| somehow telling people to throw trash in the streets.
| tshaddox wrote:
| How are those things related?
| m0llusk wrote:
| Why would you think a serious problem is necessarily simple to
| solve? Money for maintenance and cleanup is limited. San
| Francisco has legions of homeless, troubled, and then a big
| layer of irresponsible rebels on top of all of that. The idea
| that one of the greatest accumulations of irregulars and
| undesirables would be simple to clean up after does not
| correspond at all to the real scale of the problem. How many
| thousands of unhoused live in your city?
| nbardy wrote:
| San Francisco spends $100k+ per homeless person. We have the
| resources it's about how they're used.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| They do a pretty good job in the areas where there are tourists
| and businesses in all but the busiest times. No so much in
| residential areas.
| refurb wrote:
| And "steal" union jobs?
| bbbhahah wrote:
| Not surprising from a city that literally pays people not to
| shoot people with guns. Fucking literally.
|
| San Francisco is a total socialist 3rd world shithole.
|
| Founders: Do NOT move here. All the VCs are pedophiles and globo-
| homo chi-coms anyways. You don't want or need their money.
| another_story wrote:
| In Taiwan the locals, usually the elderly, sweep and clean near
| their own houses or the parks where they congregate. Some do it
| as part of a neighborhood group, while others clean parks and
| areas near temples for religious reasons. Good way to build
| community.
|
| On another note, let people read without pop-ups please.
| _jal wrote:
| I used to clean up near my front door, but it became
| overwhelming.
|
| I live in a "bad" part of SF, by choice - I have a huge, cheap
| apartment. Until about 5 or so years ago, the homeless
| situation was not that bad around me. There would be periods
| where people with problems would be around, but generally it
| wasn't a big deal. I'd clean up around my and my downstairs
| neighbor's doors, and a bit wider if needed. Some of the folks
| that used to live on the street here would also help keep
| things clean.
|
| Then the cops decided we are good place to funnel campers.
| Inevitably, dealers followed, and the street went to hell.
|
| I won't go in to all the ins and outs, I can become very boring
| on this topic. Suffice to say, when you have a local small
| business that considers piles of garbage a competitive
| advantage, sweeping out my bit of sidewalk became pointless.
| computerphage wrote:
| Well, I'm actually fascinated and wish to hear more. How did
| you figure out that the cops were funneling people?
| Teever wrote:
| He probably sees police trucks show up and unceremoniously
| dump homeless people and their belongings on their street.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| It wasn't until I rented a floor of a house (and garage and
| front yard) in SF (Outer Sunset) last year that I really
| noticed the problem in North America with personal
| responsibility and keeping streets clean.
|
| I'm constantly picking up litter from my tiny front yard,
| sidewalk, and curb. Cigarette butts are the worst and I bought
| a small electric leaf blower to help deal with it quickly. It
| wouldn't be as much of an issue if everyone took care of their
| own front property as well, instead of leaving litter and
| letting it blow onto mine. Also doesn't help that people see a
| full garbage can at nearby fields and just place their waste
| next to it instead of bringing it with them.
|
| I think the big problem here is that there's no inertia to keep
| the place clean.
|
| I recently ran into a great youtube video* about how Japan
| stays clean (spoiler: it's about personal responsibility from a
| young age). When kids have to clean their own classrooms and be
| held accountable by their peers, they grow up with good habits.
| When I lived in South Korea, it wasn't as spotless as Japan
| despite a similar education, but not as bad as North American
| cities.
|
| I would absolutely support littering enforcement officers, paid
| by large fines (in addition to community service), constantly
| roaming areas. Not sure how practical it would be in lower
| density areas like Outer Sunset but I can see it working along
| any commercial strips, or downtown.
|
| * - https://youtu.be/BOGMkgnc2YY
| xibalba wrote:
| > I think the big problem here is that there's no inertia to
| keep the place clean.
|
| Huh? Isn't the big problem the litter-ers and their
| littering?
| refurb wrote:
| Singapore is sparkling clean. Like walk down a back alley in
| the center of the city and you will not find trash. It's
| almost creepy.
|
| It's mostly certainly not due to civic mindedness. Join the
| Singapore subreddit and examples abound of locals throwing
| trash everywhere and generally being dicks.
|
| It's clean because the government has a pool of cheap labor
| they can use to constantly clean.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I spent some time in Ogden, Utah. It was amazingly clean.
| It was very nice to experience.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| I gave up cleaning the trash in my apartment courtyard as
| certain neighbors took it as an invitation to dump ever
| increasing amounts of trash (including entire kitchen sized
| trash bags) knowing "someone" would pick it up. Sometimes you
| just can't win.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Similar here just north of SF, I find it to be a bit of a
| community psychology thing. I found it the same when I lived in
| Japan (though wherever you go there are always those few
| houses, or that one park...)
|
| It's not official but a lot of us take trash bags out on our
| walks and hikes too. I like to save up the really out of reach
| stuff for new years day. It's a nice way to start the year and
| kinda fun to go MacGyver on those really long-neglected beer
| bottles under blackberry bushes. Close in feel to geocaching...
| patrickyeon wrote:
| And it's a good model I think, to take some responsibility for
| public property. Not just "your sidewalk", as in the sidewalk
| that touches your private yard, but also "your street", "your
| town center", and "your local parks". I'm not interested in
| hearing about if it's "your job" or "your trash", if there's a
| situation you are unhappy about, and you can directly impact
| it, why not do so?
|
| I live in Oakland, CA, just off a major street. When I moved
| into this place I got annoyed at the litter on the street,
| until I eventually just started picking it up. The first day, I
| filled a trash bag travelling just 100ft along the sidewalk. A
| week later I would fill a trash bag every two or three laps of
| the entire street. Now I think I fill one trash bag per week.
| And I just _feel better_ looking at, walking, or biking down my
| street, and I 've gotten good conversations with neighbours to
| boot.
|
| Culturally, right now, people will keep on littering on
| American city streets, and you and I aren't equipped to change
| that. It takes surprisingly little effort to carve out a
| considerably improved space though, and I find that when I
| consider it a gift to my neighbourhood and a constant task
| fighting against entropy (rather than something that can be
| "finished"), it's easier.
|
| ("you" in this context is a general "you", and not meant to be
| singling another_story out, of course)
| yostrovs wrote:
| I pick up litter when out in nature, because I don't think
| anyone but me will pick it up. In a city like San Francisco
| there's a multi-billion dollar budget and a sanitation
| department that tax payers pay for so that they won't have to
| do it themselves. It's ridiculous to pay taxes and then be
| told to clean street trash if you don't like it.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yup. There are doggie bags on my pack despite the fact I've
| never owned a dog. There's also a larger trash bag in the
| pack in case I encounter larger stuff and am in a position
| to bring it out. (I only pick up larger stuff if I'm not
| going to be making much more use of my poles. Otherwise
| it's just too much of a pain handling a trash bag and my
| poles.)
| m0llusk wrote:
| This idea that a lot of money is involved therefore every
| imaginable need must be fully covered is extremely
| dangerous and unreasonable. Just one example of how this
| goes is residents have pushed the City to take
| responsibility for trimming of all street trees which used
| to be the responsibility of property owners. The result is
| a lot of trees either ignored or hacked to death by
| untrained workers in a hurry. Large amounts of money are
| not infinite amounts of money and still have to be
| carefully managed in order to get good results and make
| reasonable trade offs.
| nbardy wrote:
| Hes not asking that "every imaginable need be fully
| covered".
|
| He's asking for the well funded sanitation department to
| do their job.
| m0llusk wrote:
| And yet that is completely unrealistic. The City
| currently funds weekly teams clearing out all the most
| troubled areas and that costs a fantastic amount up front
| as well as competing for increasingly precious landfill
| space. Defining the job of public works to be picking up
| all the trash that veritable armies of homeless generate
| does not make that job possible. You are absolutely and
| undeniably using your imagination to balance a
| spreadsheet that is a complete mess and that is not
| working and will never work.
| OJFord wrote:
| In Canada they clear the snow/ice from the pavement in front of
| their own house. I've since heard it's (in at least some
| areas?) required though, which ruined the image a bit.
|
| (And sort of odd isn't it? Instead of taxing you and providing
| you with this service, we'll require you to do it? Seems
| inefficient.)
| sevilo wrote:
| if someone slips in front of your house because you failed to
| clear snow from the sidewalk I believe you can get fined or
| sued
| jeromegv wrote:
| It's highly dependant on cities. It's not happening at all in
| Quebec for example.
|
| Toronto is probably the poster child of that idea but it is
| actually going away. The city decided they will plow the
| sidewalks themselves starting this year. While you were
| "required" to do it, tons of people wouldn't do it and
| enforcement wouldn't be consistent. This would leave you with
| dangerous sidewalks where the people who need it the most
| (disabled, elderly) would be stuck walking in the street
| because the roads for car would be perfectly plowed.
| exhilaration wrote:
| This is true in most of the U.S. as well. If you've got a
| sidewalk in front of your house, you'll get a fine if you
| don't clear the snow 24-36 hours after the end of a
| snowstorm.
|
| A workaround is to buy your home in a neighborhood without
| sidewalks.
| spoonjim wrote:
| That's a terrible workaround, now your neighborhood is non
| walkable.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood that has no
| sidewalks and it's very walkable.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > A workaround is to buy your home in a neighborhood
| without sidewalks.
|
| ...or where it doesn't snow.
| rkk3 wrote:
| This isn't new, in SOMA and other neighborhoods they have had
| different associations you pay into for years for someone to go
| around and clean the sidewalks and ask some of the homeless
| people to move at 7-9am.
| bbbhahah wrote:
| Fuck San Francisco. Fuck California.
|
| Most of the SF city politicians should be executed for their
| covid war crimes (amongst all the others). SF Mayor London
| Breed's boyfriend was arrested by the FBI for _drum beat_ bribery
| WRT to ... wait for it.... FUCKING CLEANING UP TRASH:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/01/31/san...
| keville wrote:
| https://missionlocal.org/2021/03/newsoms-experiment-to-get-r...
|
| Linked in the article, too. While it's not the only source of the
| problem, it's still a big reason people get tired of looking
| around for a can in SF and just toss their litter.
| imglorp wrote:
| Same point with public toilets. People will eliminate their
| waste; it's up to the community to decide where they will put
| it.
| itisit wrote:
| Hear me out: trash cleaning robots...
| [deleted]
| Zababa wrote:
| I don't understand. I often hear about people making $200k, $300k
| a year in that city. I know that it's not everyone, but I think
| there are lots of people like that. Why is this problem not
| solved by the market? That may make a good YCombinator project,
| go to San Francisco-based tech companies, ask them (or the people
| in them) to give you money to clean the streets. Is this because
| there is no cheap labour in San Francisco?
| saulpw wrote:
| Great question. Maybe markets aren't a functional solution to
| problems of public commons? I can't think of a community
| problem where a market-based solution even helped, let alone
| solved the problem.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I can't think of a community problem where a market-based
| solution even helped, let alone solved the problem.
|
| While I agree that the market isn't the panacea and God it's
| portrayed to be, I didn't understand the GP that way.
|
| Your point goes much too far the other way. Most of most
| community problems are solved by 'free' markets, including
| food (most food is bought and sold in the market), much of
| transportation (cars, planes), shelter (most homes are owned
| by private parties), etc.
|
| I think the interesting question is, where is the market good
| at, and what are other tools good at?
| shlurpy wrote:
| Food and shelter clearly aren't solved by the free market,
| or malnutrition and homelessness wouldn't be so prevelant.
| It just moves the problem to someone or somewhere else, and
| has to be augmented by public funds to keep the problems
| from exploding. And transportation isn't even close to a
| free market... when is the last time you traveled somewhere
| entirely on private unsubsidized infrastructure? You can't
| even leave your driveway.
| refurb wrote:
| I can't remember the details but Google tried to create free
| WiFi across all of SF and eventually dropped it due to the
| problems of getting everything through city hall.
|
| Imagine that shit... Google gave up.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Imagine that shit... Google gave up.
|
| It's not really hard to imagine though?
| https://killedbygoogle.com/
| closeparen wrote:
| If you're willing to use money to solve the problem, you move
| to the suburbs. No sense paying property taxes to a
| municipality that squanders them and then paying the equivalent
| of property taxes all over again for a private company to
| actually do what the government was supposed to.
| jijji wrote:
| Its sad that 1) so many people just throw trash on the steet, 2)
| there is no law enforcement preventing this behavior, 3) the city
| isnt paying any people (in my area the prisoners do it from the
| jail) and then 4) that it has come down to the residents to come
| up with their own pool of money to pay for this... every week you
| read stories of the human feces on sidewalks, public urination,
| needles left on sidewalks, public drug use, all this is without
| law enforcement action to stop it. Its up to the leadership of
| elected officials to allocate money and make decisions to stop
| this type of behavior, but from most of what I have read about
| the subject it seems that the elected officials want to condone
| and even encourage this type of plague going on in san francisco.
| Its up to the voters to vote for the right people to make these
| changes, but I would never want to live like that or in that type
| of environment personally. I think thats why you see an exodus of
| families leaving san francisco. (I lived/worked there for a year)
| qweqwweqwe-90i wrote:
| This is a also a city with a multibillion dollar budget and
| some of the highest in the country.
| jijji wrote:
| I'll be honest in my area I'm out in a suburban part a
| Florida about 50 miles outside of Tampa and people who are
| not from the area who are caught doing drugs and homeless
| people and all this kind of stuff what happens is the cops
| they tell them I don't want to see you in this county anymore
| and then what they do is they bring them to a road called
| county line road and then they drop them off there and if
| they come back they get arrested... so you just don't see
| homeless people and all that kind of stuff out where I live
| because I'm being serious that's how the cops are out here
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > people who are not from the area who are caught doing
| drugs and homeless people and all this kind of stuff what
| happens is the cops they tell them I don't want to see you
| in this county anymore and then what they do is they bring
| them to a road called county line road and then they drop
| them off there and if they come back they get arrested...
| so you just don't see homeless people and all that kind of
| stuff out where I live because I'm being serious that's how
| the cops are out here
|
| This is pretty well-known in a lot of places. Around major
| cities, the police will send the persons into the city.
| Then the suburban people say there must be something wrong
| with the city, with all these problems. Personally, I'd
| rather be the community that takes care of the people that
| need it.
|
| > doing drugs and homeless people
|
| I don't equate the two. Even doing drugs is just a vice and
| now frequently legalized, and I'm sure the locals do plenty
| (without needing to know the locality). But to the extent
| that the drugs are illegal, being homeless certainly is
| not. There is nothing wrong with it or illegal about it.
| Some homeless people do bad things, and so do some people
| of every other group, including HN readers, rural locals,
| and wealthy people in big houses (and measured by total
| cost to society, there's no doubt which group does more).
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > in my area the prisoners do it from the jail
|
| From a relatively well-known perspective, that is essentially
| slave labor. The argument is this: The Constitution's 13th
| Amendment, which banned slavery, made an exception for
| prisoners. The obvious path, which many believe was taken, was
| to arrest many of the same people who were enslaved and use
| them as slave labor. And after segregation was ended in the
| 1960s, the US government's 'war on drugs' began the era of mass
| incarceration, which resulted in the former victims of
| segregation going to jail in large numbers.
|
| There are arguments for doing it too, and picking up trash
| isn't hard labor. However, we need to think about who ends up
| picking up trash for a minor infraction, and who gets a warning
| and is sent home (I now nothing about your county in
| particular).
| blunte wrote:
| I just don't understand why throwing trash on the ground is
| tolerated. There is virtually no argument for why someone should
| need or be allowed to throw or leave their trash on the ground.
|
| Most of us manage to get clothes on before we leave the house
| each day, and that's a lot more complicated than just putting
| trash into a bin (or god forbid, carrying it until you reach a
| destination which has a trash bin). So there is no excuse for
| littering.
|
| I would impose very strict penalties for littering - namely
| forcing the one who is caught littering to spend two hours every
| day for a week, or even a month, walking the streets (and beaches
| or riverbanks or parks) and collecting trash.
|
| If an alternative punishment must be provided, they could instead
| sit on the spot where they littered for a day, holding a sign
| which says "I'm a poorly trained human, and I throw my trash on
| the ground."
| refurb wrote:
| People are shitting in the streets, shooting drugs in the open
| and shoplifting with no consequences and you think SF is
| willing to impose severe penalties on littering?
| nbardy wrote:
| If only we had littering laws SF would be such a beautiful
| place...
| dilap wrote:
| Lot of people with serious mental health and substance abuse
| issues on the streets of SF, at least when I lived there (moved
| away about 6 months ago).
|
| Beyond trash, the streets actually had a lot of shit and piss
| on them, too. I think it's hard to really understand just how
| bad it was unless you go there. I'd watch movies and they
| didn't seem real to me because the streets were too clean.
|
| To me it seems like an obvious failure of the government, but
| perhaps it does reflect a popular sentiment of the dominant
| culture, that people's individual right to live a life of
| misery in squalor on the street trumps any other concern. I
| dunno.
| mromanuk wrote:
| How law and punishment works: You can put death penalty for
| littering, but if you know you can get away with it because
| nobody is watching (and you don't care about it), you will
| continue doing it. The opposite a smaller fine but with good
| monitoring (where you know that you will get caught) is better.
|
| Even better is getting the idea inside people's brain. "I don't
| litter, because this is how I am". There is a book titled "Made
| to stick" where they expose the case of Texas and the problem
| they had with littering. A campaign was made "Don't mess with
| Texas", basically everyone should police anyone who doesn't
| comply with this don't litter attitude. This was done by
| appealing to the ideal of what a Texan should be, through
| clever advertising and marketing. Never been to Texas btw :)
| throwawaysea wrote:
| > I just don't understand why throwing trash on the ground is
| tolerated. There is virtually no argument for why someone
| should need or be allowed to throw or leave their trash on the
| ground.
|
| It comes back to the policies around law enforcement adopted by
| SF. Since it is effectively the epicenter of progressive
| politics in the world, there are a lot of radical policies in
| play. One of them is "restorative justice", which claims to
| make criminals / law breakers less stigmatized and more able to
| constructively reintegrate into society. Personally, I feel the
| motivations are sincere and have good intentions behind them.
|
| However in practice, that framework of restorative justice has
| been warped into something more like an us versus them
| narrative, where those who break the law are viewed as helpless
| victims while those who seek to enforce the law are viewed as
| oppressors. I think this is partly because of the divisive
| nature of American politics in general, and partly because of
| the extremist language used by some activists who support these
| policies.
|
| While I agree there is no excuse for this, and it shouldn't be
| tolerated (alongside open drug abuse, shoplifting, defecating
| on the street, assault, armed robberies, burglaries, and so
| on), the reality is that the politicians elected in SF and
| people like Chesa Boudin (the District Attorney) are very much
| all-in on restorative justice. In effect, they've
| decriminalized most crimes. And unfortunately it is a two-tier
| justice system where law abiding taxpayers are subject to the
| penalties of the law, while criminals are somehow not subject
| to penalties.
|
| As far as I can tell, the only practical way out for SF is for
| constituents to wholesale reject fringe progressive politics
| and return to moderate politics that is closer to the Clinton
| or Obama era left. However, I don't view that as being very
| likely despite all the complaints, simply because the voice of
| activists is louder and more feared than other voices.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > simply because the voice of activists is louder and more
| feared than other voices
|
| Maybe it is more persuasive and appealing. If it doesn't
| appeal to you, that doesn't mean the only explanation for
| everyone is volume and fear.
| DantesKite wrote:
| Singapore generally has very clean streets, but the price is
| very high fines.
|
| I like the idea of a $1000 fine or community service spent
| cleaning up trash.
| refurb wrote:
| Singapore has _plenty_ of people littering. They also have a
| massive army that is constantly cleaning.
|
| Yes, if caught (unlikely) you will be severely punished. But
| that's not the reason Singapore is so clean.
| blunte wrote:
| I'm not convinced that a fine is going to change someone's
| behavior. It may put them in a regretful financial bind, but
| it's really a short-term pain. Spending a week cleaning trash
| is definitely something they will remember! (and for sure
| they will complain to friends and family who will then maybe
| be less likely to litter themselves)
| bugzz wrote:
| I feel like a $1000 fee would be something most people
| would remember and complain about to friends and family...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| So when the person you tell to do community service says,
| "No", then what?
|
| SF has no willingness to actually punish crime. The cops
| won't show up to stop shoplifting, bike theft, or any number
| of other crimes, and now you think there's going to be a
| trash patrol that is going to actually do something?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > So there is no excuse for littering.
|
| The real question isn't the obvious, but what we find when,
| discovering that the obvious isn't working, we dig deeper.
|
| Do you live in a community with these problems? Try speaking to
| the people there; you may learn a lot. They aren't fools who
| have never considered the issue; they are intelligent, mostly
| well-meaning human beings who nevertheless find themselves in
| this situation.
|
| I'm not talking about the obvious, so please avoid pinning on
| me the anti-obvious ('I support litter!'). The obvious in this
| case is an obstacle, preventing us from seeing and addressing
| the reality.
|
| > I just don't understand why throwing trash on the ground is
| tolerated.
|
| Tolerated? Come around some neighborhoods and not tolerate it.
| Who said the problem is our toleration?
|
| > I would impose very strict penalties
|
| This is an understandable reaction to bad behavior, but it
| doesn't work. Humans aren't so easily pushed around and it
| becomes a tool for harassing innocent people (e.g., minor drug
| possession offenses).
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > throwing trash on the ground
|
| This is only part of the issue. I've been picking up trash for
| years while walking or hiking in the outdoors and have observed
| a lot of different situations and setups that are really
| common:
|
| - Pocket design on clothing isn't designed to allow easy litter
| insertion, exactly. A lot falls out of coats, jogging pouches
| when people think it's secure. Open wrappers from things like
| candy or granola bars have this banana-peel splaying effect
| that can help them to practically leap out of pockets while
| being stuffed in.
|
| - Animals like local corvidae can spread litter like crazy.
|
| - Wind, especially on garbage collection day, or around outdoor
| events
|
| - Some hilarious amount of litter is meant to stay there
| because someone really does intend to come back and get it
| later. From water bottles left by runners to legit trash left
| by well-meaning people who really will be back soon, and then
| feel angry and confused about how they are perceived when they
| find that another do-gooder picked it up
|
| - Vehicles, from garbage trucks to other work vehicles headed
| from site to site...man, some of the trash vortices I've seen
| :D
|
| The inexcusable people you mentioned, I guess, are easy to spot
| and often easy to clean up after because they'll put their
| trash in the bag before hucking it out the car window, so you
| can use their bag to hold other trash as well. Or at least it's
| thrown in the same general area, and amounts to a couple
| bottles.
|
| If they are drunk/high you can often get their names and stuff
| really easy too. Starbucks cup, receipt...wallet...oops they
| forgot that lol. Stage a gentle community intervention if so
| inclined, nobody necessarily needs the police involved.
|
| But emotionally if someone has just had it with rules and abuse
| of rule systems for control purposes, if they perceive that
| they have been unfairly treated by society, I find that those
| are the litter bugs people worry about. But I can also
| sympathize...
| spoonjim wrote:
| The animals thing is huge. I have a backyard with 8 foot
| fences and clean out 3-4 pieces of food wrapping every day
| from my backyard, hauled in by various animals.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Are the people littering mostly civilians or drug addicts?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Are drug addicts not 'civilian'? Are they citizens?
| convolvatron wrote:
| what an odd question.
|
| the real hardcore street addicts really don't do or buy
| anything but sit in a heap on the sidewalk for hours at at
| time.
|
| do you mean that casual users just get so ... crazy .. that
| they feel compelled to throw trash on the street just for the
| thrill?
|
| the homeless (often drug using) do certainly contribute to th
| e problem since they do go through the trash and gather stuff
| they think they might be able to sell or use.
|
| but somehow I don't think that's what you're asking
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Are the people littering mostly civilians or drug addicts?
|
| Mostly civilians who are not also drug addicts ("civilians"
| and "drug addicts" are, of course, overlapping sets.)
| tcollier wrote:
| I was a Patreon supporter of Clean Streets and was pleased with
| having cleaner streets in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, these
| guys just closed shop. Here is the email I received on Oct 23:
|
| > Alas, Clean Streets is closing up shop.
|
| > You may have noticed the falloff in times and quality the past
| couple weeks. [Redacted name] lost his main cleaner and has not
| been able to adequately replace him.
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