To be sure, reports out of SanFran aren't good. I've never been to Denver, but, OK...maybe legalization hasn't been good for that city.
But many of the larger Cities which I've visited recently, including Manhattan, Chicago, and Anaheim, don't look like war zones. Every city has it's bad area, and to be sure DeBlasio has overseen a general decline in NYC vs prior years. But NYC remains WAY better than it did in the 1970s/1980s.
City living may not be a Deplorables' cup of tea, but to paint with a broad bush like this guy does without any basic research hurts his claim and his cause.
ha - “...broad bush...”
I work in Manhattan and it's a wonderful place to be. I have never seen human crap on the streets. Most of the violence is between bad people in neighborhoods you never need to visit.
The restaurants are fantastic, music venues are incredible (I have tickets to five concerts in the next few months and may go to more, depending on who comes to town) and the people generally leave you alone, which I like (overly friendly people weird me out).
And for a city, it's very clean. There is no comparison between NYC and San Francisco.
There’s a lot of truth to what you say. The reporting on San Francisco (close to me) is somewhat hyperbolic and overblown.
But, there is no doubt that the bums and druggies have spilled out of the notorious districts (Civic Center, Tenderloin) into other parts of the city that were once very clean. And the free needle program has caused 2 MILLION needles to litter the streets every year.
I moved to SF in 1973, then moved to the suburbs. It is definitely a lot worse than it was 46 years ago.
Also, there is no denying the incipient typhus epidemic in Los Angeles. A person in CITY HALL caught the disease from fleas there.
On the island of Oahu, the homeless situation is absolutely remarkable. Typical scene: A housing development of million dollar homes, where across the street, on the beach, you have a tent development of homeless and all the litter that accompanies it.
Last year, in Seattle, I was shocked to see tents on sidewalks and in the grassy areas near highway onramps.
We have our homeless issues here in Boston, but our problems are nothing compared to the stuff I've seen out west.
So true. Last time I was in NYC I was impressed at how nice the Times Square area was, compared to written accounts of how bad it was in the past. San Francisco has its bad areas, but much of it is nice. The worst areas of SF are better than the nicest places in other cities I've visited. Every city has bad areas, but not every city has nice areas. I'll be visiting NYC again in the future.