The last time I was walking in SF was in 1999 when I visited Wells Fargo for an interview. The hotel was several blocks from their offices and all I smelled was urine as I walked there. Since then I have driven through the city several times (as quickly as possible) after flying in to SFO on my way to points north of the city. Unbelievable collections of tents along the streets - not inexpensive ones either - and skid row types hanging their laundry and lounging about. Just a mess.
Where I come from, if you have the $ for a $24M condo, you probably have significant political clout. Why haven’t the folks who bought the ultra-expensive property in that town put their foot down and demanded action? Do they have private entrances and thus do not care what conditions on the street are? It is paradoxical, but since I have few reasons to visit the area - I don’t care either.
Most of the third world operates like SF.
The cities have a wealthy class of 1 percent of the population or so—and everybody else lives in dire poverty.
Many of the wealthy like it that way—it reinforces their feelings of superiority.
We are drifting into the Indian (India) caste system—where the wealthy never have to deal with the lowly masses.