Streets in small parts of San Francisco, near the downtown, are very, dirty and occupied by unsheltered people. The environment is very surprising to some people who have not been to North America before.
In these neighborhoods, there are nice hotels/hostels that are cheaply priced and near BART or public transportation.
In the past, some EAs, not from North America, have not been aware of the above. Because SF is very expensive, and they wanted to be frugal, some have booked cheaper accommodations and then felt very uncomfortable, especially single people or women at night. This probably affected their experience of SF and the events they were going to.
Suggestions:
Check out reviews for the accommodations on line. If people mention “The hotel is nice but is in [neighborhood X]”, it’s worth Googling the mentioned neighborhood to see what is going on.
Ask friends who live in SF.
Note:
Note many Americans/locals don’t like to draw attention to the situation, because it’s chronic and ongoing, it’s intractable and complicated, the discussion involves cultural viewpoints many disagree on, and Americans often feel guilty/conflicted by inequality. As a result, many Americans or locals won’t talk about the issues much and when they do, they will talk about it indirectly.
Homelessness is very visible, but the causal relationship between the wealth in SF and homelessness is unclear. San Francisco literally spends over $50,000 per homeless person.
Homelessness is visible but touches on a much deeper problem of land constraints. These constraints of land (or housing laws/NIMBY) is a historically bizarre situation, I think there’s a small subfield in economics which argues tech’s establishment in the Bay Area, is limiting GDP/innovation by many billions of dollars. X-risk people have said this is harming X-risk.
Streets in small parts of San Francisco, near the downtown, are very, dirty and occupied by unsheltered people. The environment is very surprising to some people who have not been to North America before.
In these neighborhoods, there are nice hotels/hostels that are cheaply priced and near BART or public transportation.
In the past, some EAs, not from North America, have not been aware of the above. Because SF is very expensive, and they wanted to be frugal, some have booked cheaper accommodations and then felt very uncomfortable, especially single people or women at night. This probably affected their experience of SF and the events they were going to.
Suggestions:
Check out reviews for the accommodations on line. If people mention “The hotel is nice but is in [neighborhood X]”, it’s worth Googling the mentioned neighborhood to see what is going on.
Ask friends who live in SF.
Note:
Note many Americans/locals don’t like to draw attention to the situation, because it’s chronic and ongoing, it’s intractable and complicated, the discussion involves cultural viewpoints many disagree on, and Americans often feel guilty/conflicted by inequality. As a result, many Americans or locals won’t talk about the issues much and when they do, they will talk about it indirectly.
Homelessness is very visible, but the causal relationship between the wealth in SF and homelessness is unclear. San Francisco literally spends over $50,000 per homeless person.
Homelessness is visible but touches on a much deeper problem of land constraints. These constraints of land (or housing laws/NIMBY) is a historically bizarre situation, I think there’s a small subfield in economics which argues tech’s establishment in the Bay Area, is limiting GDP/innovation by many billions of dollars. X-risk people have said this is harming X-risk.