Seattle Is Dying (and it's not alone)

[DePaul Bunyan]

Originally Posted by Doug

Why is the homeless rate so low in TX, another large state with high inequality and warm weather but with much lower social services spending? Part of the answer is more affordable housing costs. TX must have similar rates of mental illness as west coast cities. It likely has lower levels of drug addiction.

Texas has a (markedly) lower supplemental poverty rate than California, lower unemployment (slightly), and the highest GDP growth rate among all 50 states, far outpacing California despite the absence of a tech bubble, at least when looking at the most recent 2018 data. Texas' economy is consistently growing and they have four significant metro areas, all of which are affordable and fairly diverse.

Also, culturally, if you get caught shooting up or taking a dump in public, Texas puts you in jail. There is no catch and release. Texas is not accommodating to vagrancy, politically or economically.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Look at Nevada. Similar rate to California, yet Las Vegas has quite a different climate than San Francisco.

It has to do with the culture that has developed in cities to turn a blind eye to taboo public behavior. The homeless know that there are no consequences to their awful behavior, therefore they continue to do it.

Enforce the laws and guess what happens?

Also look at Illinois. Low number and low rate of homelessness, then compare that to New York. Similar climate -- both have cold winters, hot/humid summers, similar rainfall totals.

the homeless like the abandon subways in new York. but in like a few years its going to get really bad with less jobs because or robots taking over.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by dubu

But in like a few years its going to get really bad with less jobs because of robots taking over.

No. Just no. As a matter of fact, beyond silly fear and idiotic fantasy told by the average media that needs to scare the public to make decent audience figures, South Korea would currently be the most robotized society on Earth, and there is just full employment over there.
I just quickly goolged it from your comment...

South Korea's jobless rate jumps to 9-year peak as minimum wage hike roils labor market. South Korea's unemployment rate jumped to a nine-year high of 4.4 percent in January as a hike in minimum wage led to a drop in low-paying jobs.

4.4% is an outrageous unemployment rate to them.
While it'd be heaven in my country's wettest dreams.
It makes me laughing right now.

If they go even more robotized, their unemployment rate will drop to some record low again.
Because more and more dumb robots actually mean better skilled human workforce.

[dubu]

this has to do with it also.

• Video Link

[mousquet]

^ Now that's a good guy. I like his reasoning tone.

There's just one odd thing in there...
I'm an uncle and have to mercilessly bash my nephews anytime they'd say anything racist at family meetings.
That's no problem. I am my nephews' hero (my 2 brothers hate me for that) and they will listen to me.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by JManc

I'm not sure why Texas's homeless numbers are so low because here in Houston, they are everywhere. Downtown and Midtown are overrun with them and virtually every intersection in the city has one on each median panhandling and this is a massive city. And Austin seems worse. They are more in your face.

I am pretty certain the Texas number is lower than it should be. Every large Texas city has a lot of visible homeless. The linked article from The Texas Tribune suggests the figures are derived from HUD counts. The article is concerned mostly with housing affordability and various efforts in Dallas and Houston to find housing for the homeless. The article does not delve into many of the issues that are at the heart of homelessness in Texas and elsewhere, mental illness, drug addiction, or a combination of both. It also seems to ignore the visual evidence that homelessness in on the rise in all Texas cities including Houston.

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07...ouston-dallas/

[dubu]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Now that's a good guy. I like his reasoning tone.

There's just one odd thing in there...
I'm an uncle and have to mercilessly bash my nephews anytime they'd say anything racist at family meetings.
That's no problem. I am my nephews' hero (my 2 brothers hate me for that) and they will listen to me.

I just now understood your avatar because your from france, a French maid.

but ya I know what its like having a racist person that is family.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by DePaul Bunyan

Texas has a (markedly) lower supplemental poverty rate than California, lower unemployment (slightly), and the highest GDP growth rate among all 50 states, far outpacing California despite the absence of a tech bubble, at least when looking at the most recent 2018 data. Texas' economy is consistently growing and they have four significant metro areas, all of which are affordable and fairly diverse.

Also, culturally, if you get caught shooting up or taking a dump in public, Texas puts you in jail. There is no catch and release. Texas is not accommodating to vagrancy, politically or economically.

You must not have been here lately. It's everywhere in our large cities and we're rapidly becoming like L.A., S.F., and Seattle. There's even talk now about a recall of Austin's mayor over this issue.

[tablemtn]

People are posting videos of their strolls through downtown Portland at night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcJiMpRE8qA

That... is a disgrace. The city and its leaders should be ashamed of themselves.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

People are posting videos of their strolls through downtown Portland at night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcJiMpRE8qA

That... is a disgrace. The city and its leaders should be ashamed of themselves.

We're pissed in Austin, too, but this guy in the video seems full of hatred toward people who have major problems (albeit due to their poor choices in life in many cases). What we need to be pissed about, at least in Austin, is that the police no longer have enforcement power, and our city has rapidly become a garbage dump like Portland, without much effort by the city or highway department to clean up the mess. Our city "leaders" are talking more about housing the homeless, which is a discussion that is needed, but they're not talking about cleaning up the garbage. If they are, I haven't heard anything from them. Like many Austinites, I've been contacting the mayor and city council offices, with no responses.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

We're pissed in Austin, too, but this guy in the video seems full of hatred toward people who have major problems (albeit due to their poor choices in life in many cases). What we need to be pissed about, at least in Austin, is that the police no longer have enforcement power, and our city has rapidly become a garbage dump like Portland, without much effort by the city or highway department to clean up the mess. Our city "leaders" are talking more about housing the homeless, which is a discussion that is needed, but they're not talking about cleaning up the garbage. If they are, I haven't heard anything from them. Like many Austinites, I've been contacting the mayor and city council offices, with no responses.

I hear you but I'm also pissed about the attitude of the homeless themselves. If the civic problems they caused were truly unavoidable--they do have to exist somewhere--it would be different. But so many of them seem so angry and resentful at the rest of us and, as a consequence, so antisocial in their behavior. They don't just make messes because they have to--many of them make messes to "get even" with society (that means us). In the public open space of my condo building we have maybe 4 or 5 trash cans (because there are ground floor eating places that sell take-out food and we encourage people to sit and eat and throw the trash in those cans). I've watched homeless guys go from can to can, presumably looking for bottles and cans with a cash return value, but they don't just root through the can contents. They purposely pull everything out and let it scatter to the wind, then throw the lids on the ground.

And even those sidewalk tents--around here there's an alley bisecting every block. They could pitch those tents in the alleys but they prefer to pitch them on sidewalks on main streets so people have to walk out into the street to get around them. And I've seen too many people "nodding" (I assume), sprawled out totally filling a sidewalk so people have to either step over them or go out into the street again to get around them. All of this is illegal, of course--San Francisco has a law against sitting or lying on sidewalks--but there is zero enforcement with the "collusion" of the cops, prosecutors and judges.

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

There's even talk now about a recall of Austin's mayor over this issue.

San Francisco's recently elected mayor was the most conservative candidate running at the time. She's a black woman--a Democrat of course--but during the election she gave plenty of lip service to dealing with the homeless problem and, to be fair, she's trying. So recalling her would be pointless--she'd likely be replaced by someone who would try even less. But there's really very little she can do. She's trying to build more of what here are called "Navigation Centers" which are sort of deluxe homeless shelters with a variety of services and rules permitting people to stay in them 24 hours a day (regular shelters kick people out every morning). But everywhere such facilities are proposed, the "neighbors" do everything possible to block them (lately without much success so the Mayor is making some progress there). She's also promising some law enforcement but really what can you do? Fines are futile--these people have no money. They aren't deterred by jail--in jail they get methadone if they are addicted and 3 meals and a cot to sleep on. And there's no room in SF's jails for many of them anyway.