[HN Gopher] We urgently need to discuss Westfield: Emails on saf...
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We urgently need to discuss Westfield: Emails on safety problems at
downtown SF
Author : g42gregory
Score : 39 points
Date : 2023-06-15 18:20 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfchronicle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfchronicle.com)
| gingerrr wrote:
| edit: wow I can't read, apparently. or scrolled too aggressively
| when reading, either way they absolutely mentioned it.
|
| --
|
| Seems like journalistic malpractice that all these recent pieces
| trumpeting the SF downtown location closing don't _also_ mention
| that Westfield announced a year and 2 months ago they 're selling
| _their entire US mall portfolio by 2024 to focus on Europe_.
|
| https://smmirror.com/2022/04/french-based-owners-of-westfiel...
| evanelias wrote:
| The middle of the article does directly mention this already.
|
| It says "Westfield's parent company said last year that it
| planned to sell all of its U.S. malls by 2024 to focus on its
| operations in Europe." It also links to a prior San Francisco
| Chronicle article about this.
| gingerrr wrote:
| fundamental reading comprehension failure on my part, thanks
| for the correction.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Selling (elsewhere) vs abandoning to lender (SF).
|
| There is a huge difference between the two.
| gingerrr wrote:
| To whom? Yes to Westfield's bottom line, but both you and
| another commenter have replied this as if it has self-evident
| corollaries.
|
| Why is the difference meaningful to anyone who isn't the
| corporation already planning on exiting the market? Would be
| a helpful exposition to better understand what you're both
| trying to indicate with pointing out that 2 different things
| are different.
|
| edit: I'm asking bc the article doesn't really explain that
| either and I'm not sure why this means anything beyond
| Westfield couldn't find a buyer at the price they wanted, or
| thought this was the simplest/fastest way to divest
| andromeduck wrote:
| It wouldn't matter if the mall still had some anchor
| tennants and traffic was good but neither is the case.
| inimino wrote:
| selling: "we are not the right owner for this asset"
|
| foreclosure: "the current owner, the world's expert on
| making this location profitable, concluded it can't be
| done"
|
| You can argue that it's reductive, obviously that's true
| but this is the "self-evident" optics people are responding
| to. (Not the GP but HTH.)
| throwawaywu wrote:
| Selling an asset is much different than shutting down what is a
| now a liability.
| gingerrr wrote:
| Where did you read the mall is closing? The final paragraph
| in the linked article indicates things are staying open,
| Westfield isn't shutting anything down, just deciding to back
| out of repaying the remainder of their loan.
|
| It's a functional foreclosure, which divests them of their
| interest much like selling an asset would - do you just mean
| it's "much different" because of the amount of money they
| make/lose?
|
| Trying to understand the distinction you're making as it
| relates to this article and their preexisting plans to exit
| the market.
| andromeduck wrote:
| They've lost all their major tennants and defaulting on
| their loans because of public & employee safety made the
| business unviable, what makes you think they'll stay open
| even if they weren't leaving?
|
| The general area has also seen a huge wave of closures
| including pretty much every anchor tennant with IKEA being
| the only major business to buck the trend so far.
|
| This isn't a just a "business is going okay but we over
| leveraged" situation.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Progs: People should feel safe where they work. Workplaces should
| be free from violence & Harassment. Businesses that can't
| guarantee employee safety should be shut down.
|
| Businesses: Our workers are being harassed daily, several have
| been held at knifepoint. Please help.
|
| Progs: That's just an isolated incident. Crime is down.
|
| Businesses: People don't feel safe and there doesn't seem to be
| anything we can do about it so we're shutting down.
|
| Progs: Wow I guess you're just not really committed to this city
| SMH.
| q1w2 wrote:
| I agree, but safety should ideally be the responsibility of
| local government.
|
| If the city cannot provide basic safety for its citizens, then
| corporations WILL leave, and salaried residents will follow
| them.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I'm sure I don't actually understand the details but the way it's
| been presented before is that, for whatever reasons, criminals
| and those with severe mental issues are now not kept in jail or
| institutions but rather left to roam the streets. The mental
| illness policy has been around for a long time but the idea not
| to jail criminals is a bit newer.
|
| I think that not jailing criminals is related to bail bond system
| reform or something. Not an expert but I am guessing that they
| need a more realistic policy that does not automatically free
| habitual offenders. They probably need more jails and a much more
| efficient legal system. And a new mental health policy and
| massive increase in funding for institutions. As well as a much
| more effective benefits system to prevent homelessness. And
| probably much less tolerance for drug sales etc. Also the general
| economic decline needs to be righted.
|
| I guess considering the severity of all of those problems and the
| concentration in that area, it's remarkable that businesses can
| operate at all.
| andromeduck wrote:
| It's because the far left that dominate all levels of SF/Cali
| politics, including many senators, city supervisors, city
| attorneys, police commissioner, judges and non profits - don't
| believe in "carceeal justice" and so refuse to do anything
| about it.
|
| A common belief is that prison is criminogenic, because people
| who spend more time in prison tend to reoffend more often but
| this largely gets the causality backwards. This causes them to
| ignore/deny the pareto distribution of crime that underlies
| most criminal justice systems so we have a fairly sizable
| population of serial violence reoffenders that are just caught
| and released on a weekly/monthly basis until someone dies.
| ed wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230615202717/https://www.sfchr...
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| [dead]
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