San Francisco has a homeless problem because it invited such. I guess it's total coincidence that the most liberal cities in the US also have the highest incidence of homeless population. As long as it remains a profitable and easy lifestyle, homelessness persists. Change those variables however you want and the problem goes away. This is not to say there are not those who are homeless due to bum luck. In many cities, this is the majority. Not so much in San Francisco where homelessness is a true profession.
I don't know if there's a more recent version of this document, but pages 16-17 of http://www.sfgov3.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=4... claim that 61 percent of SF homeless were living and working in SF before becoming homeless. An additional 15 % are from nearby counties (Marin, Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Contra Costa), so at most a quarter of the homeless population could be said to be attracted there. Only 13 percent of those who moved to SF claim they did so because of the services there.
While undoubtedly, people move to places that are better for them, this is a minor effect, as the homeless tend not to have the resources to move around a lot and most people prefer to stay places they are familiar with. Either way, it's a shitty argument to make... homeless services should be provided regardless of whether or not it attracts people because it's the right thing to do. Perhaps the argument that should be made is that less of the financial burden should be placed on the city (i.e. more money from federal and state sources).
> The gap is so stark that some of America's bluest cities are located in its reddest states. Every one of Texas' major cities -- Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio -- voted Democratic in 2012, the second consecutive presidential election in which they've done so. Other red-state cities that tipped blue include Atlanta, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Birmingham, Tucson, Little Rock, and Charleston, S.C. -- ironically, the site of the first battle of the Civil War. In states like Nevada, the only blue districts are often also the only cities, like Reno and Las Vegas.
From the article, since many people seem not to have read this far:
It doesn’t—not even close. “San Francisco is not by any stretch of the imagination the homeless capital of the United States,” says Jeff Kositsky, executive director of the nonprofit Hamilton Family Center, which provides housing and social services for homeless families. “We don’t have any more homeless, either families or single adults, than other cities.” The latest available numbers bear out his assertion: According to federally mandated “point-in-time” homeless surveys—city-specific audits conducted every other year on a single night in late January (and an admittedly controversial metric that many experts insist undercounts the true number of homeless people)— San Francisco had 6,436 homeless in 2013, out of a population of 837,442. By comparison, other large cities with exorbitant costs of living fared even worse. Washington, D.C., had a greater number of homeless, 7,748, out of a much smaller population of 646,449. Honolulu had 4,712 homeless out of a population of 374,658. Closer to home, cities like Los Angeles (34,393), San Jose (7,567), and Seattle (8,949) all tallied more homeless people than did San Francisco, though those numbers represent countywide, not citywide, totals.
I don't doubt this is true due to higher cost-of-living, improved services (and therefore more accurate counts... homelessness is severely undercounted in many places) and the trend that more liberal cities tend not to have the suburbs within city limits (or conversely, cities without suburbs within city limits are more liberal...)
That article does not seem to claim that point in it. Maybe I just missed it. But I checked all usages of high, population, city, and cities, so if the point is made in that article is is done so with different enough language to be difficult to find considering the article's length.
Edit: That all means I am calling bullshit on that being a citation for that fact (or 'fact' depending on your view of it).
The Manhattan Institute's mission is (I paraphrase) to make selfish rich people feel less guilty, so I would be wary of any claims made by the article.
That article is atrocious as any kind of source, it's clearly an opinion piece.
I'm asking for an actual study comparing homeless rates of liberal cities vs conservative cities. Also a list of which cities are actually liberal vs conservative would be nice.
> as long as [homelessness] remains a profitable and easy lifestyle
In what ways do you believe this to be true? There are NO homeless people who are in that position because they felt it was more profitable or easier than getting a job and living in a house. This is the same insanity that insists that people on unemployment benefits are somehow living an easy life, feeding cynically off the state, rather than trapped in poverty.
The article also dismisses most of your other points. In particular, noting that San Francisco has a minimal homelessness problem compared to such liberal cities as Washington DC or New York.
Not to mention that stigmatizing obesity is not going to solve the problem. What is this, grade school? "haha, fatty-fatty-fatty!" Maybe some empathy and support would go much further in helping the obese to conquer their problems.
In fact this post on HN is not only an interesting article but also a test of the author to see how drupal behaves in heavy load so that he can write another article ;-)
There are some situations where an organism can evolve overnight to exposure to an antibiotic. See Inducible Extended Beta lactamase resistance in E Coli. HOWEVER. Bacteria evolve just as any organism does via random genetic mutations that may or may not lead to resistance. It's Darwinism on the cellular level. The vast majority of antibiotic resistance occurred regardless of exposure. There is a segment of society that wants to blame humans for every problem it seems.
This person reminds me of a lot of people I went to medical school with. Very smart, and yet, not very realistic. He outlines a scenario that is endgame.. when in fact, we are seeing cyclical events. We saw the emergence of penicillin resistence in S. Aureas, then methicillin resistance. we moved to quinalones, and sulfa and we see resisance develop there.. OF COURSE it does. The antibiotics don't cause resistance.. Natural selection is the process going on here. There are random mutations that occur regardless of antibiotic exposure. We do see antibiotics cause resistance such as in inducible extended beta lactamase resistance.. (I have a patient currently with E coli resistant to everything but Colistin) but the overwhelming process..it's still good old fashion natural selection that Darwin made us all aware of. We really don't need to panic.. we just need to keep fighting the fight..because it won't ever end, unless we give up. Relax. When I hear people claim it was wanton use of antibiotics that caused all of this.. I wonder if they ever read a word about biologic evolution. Right now, there are organisms out there that are already resistant to antibiotics that haven't been developed yet. How can we blame humans for that?
> * We saw the emergence of penicillin resistence in S. Aureas, then methicillin resistance. we moved to quinalones, and sulfa and we see resisance develop there.. OF COURSE it does. The antibiotics don't cause resistance.. Natural selection is the process going on here.*
[...]
> When I hear people claim it was wanton use of antibiotics that caused all of this.. I wonder if they ever read a word about biologic evolution
Natural selection describes the shift in characteristics of a population due to some environmental pressure which favours individuals with specific characteristics. How they acquire those characteristics is largely immaterial, be it through random mutation, sexual reproduction, viral transduction, etc.
So yes, natural selection is the process by which the resistant bacteria outcompete the vulnerable ones, and thus become the dominant population. But the reason that occurs in the first place is because of the environmental pressure induced by the antibiotic.
antibiotics do not cause resistance to form. resistance occurs due to natural mutations. these are going to occur regardless of exposure to antibiotics or not. The antibiotics simply select out the resistant organisms from the auger. It was shear panic when S. aureas developed penicillin resistance decades ago. methicillin was the solution. Now we have methicillin resistant staph aureas. This is nothing to panic over. it simply means the battle is never won and we'll require ongoing research on new antibiotics. To say we have lost is just not true. This is the way life works. he also ignores the possibility of human evolution. We can develop resistance to bacteria as well.
I have to chuckle at the thought of forcing the wealthy to pay other wealthy a minimum income. Or is the 'wealthy' excluded from the definition of 'every adult'. What a complete waste of time and paper.
