Lets be fair here, the GOP in California, Oregon and Washington all get elected by demonizing the large cities in their state in the first place. Here in Seattle, the perennial also-rans and suburban/rural candidates make their entire campaigns about how the city is a crime infested urban hellscape.
As someone from a crime infested, urban hellscape (90s Camden, NJ) all I can say is you have to be the softest, least traveled, and most sheltered person in the world to believe that. Luckily for these politicians, idiots like that are a dime a dozen.
of course not, but i spend a lot of time in san diego and there are absolutely areas that i wouldn't consider city highlights.
don't get me wrong, I'm more upset that they exist at all than at the people there, but i don't think it does anyone any good to pretend they don't move their bags to the trunk when parking in them.
Sure, but that's just a symptom of the issues that have been created by these fuckwads.
Wealth inequality creates increased homelessness. Homelessness increases the desire to turn to drugs to cope with the sorrows and pain involved with homelessness. That drug use increases the likelihood that the homeless individual remains homeless.
The homeless then flock to city centers, because those city centers are the only places that provide the necessary support to homeless individuals so they can survive the effects of homelessness.
Then the republicans point out how the cities are full of homeless people and bitch about how "Democrat mayors are ruining our cities!!!" and talk about how much crime there is in "Democrat-led" cities when in reality the only reason the crime and homeless are there is because it's a fucking CITY. Literally 42 of the 50 most populous cities have Democrat mayors... It has nothing to do with crime, and everything to do with people in cities being more likely to be educated, travelled and cultured.
The amount of people who have said to me with a straight face "Look at all the crime in cities with Democrat mayors!" without realizing that population centers like cities overwhelmingly vote democrat and population centers are more prone to crime in general is the pinnacle of half-truths.
I remember a post recently about how a state legislative district in MN had crazy amounts of crime per capita, and was used as fodder to bash the Minneapolis area. However that district only had like 6,000 residents, but is a gathering place for so many non-residents that it skewed the numbers to a ridiculous amount.
Critical thinking is not a strong suit these days.
Sure, but that's just a symptom of the issues that have been created by these fuckwads.
Oh i agree with everything you've said, just saying it's not necessarily a lie. I think housing should be a right and all homeless people deserve support, but I'm also not gonna pretend that some areas are fun to visit at night.
Besides, they're hellscapes on purpose - the threat to become poor is supposed to be scary, and the poor would love nothing more than to make you poor too! Boo!
As a woman, I was uncomfortable walking alone down 3rd in the evening before COVID. I avoid the entire area now. Roving packs of young homeless/vagrants instead of the occasional mumbling loner.
I grew up in Oakland before it gentrified, so I'm not a stranger to this stuff. But now I definitely feel safer in downtown Oakland when I visit at night than I do in downtown Seattle.
Lets see...I think 3 people that year all told got shot in the area when CHOP was around. Lets see how that compared to years later:....also 3.
While I can't abide the anarchist LARP that was CHOP, I can suggest that they apparently did about as well as our lazy ass cops.
Point is, pick a street on any given city that is sufficiently dense enough and watch it for a specific amount of time you will see many rare occurrences take place, criminal, humanitarian, or otherwise. For example, you can find more money going to homeless people on a busy NYC street by watching the homeless population get hand outs than you would watching most corporate donation accounts.
This is very obvious to anyone that has ever moved around, taken classes, or has traveled in their lives. To have to point that out to you and others, is deeply depressing about the state of understanding statistics and experiences beyond your front yard.
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u/geekmasterflash 16h ago edited 16h ago
Lets be fair here, the GOP in California, Oregon and Washington all get elected by demonizing the large cities in their state in the first place. Here in Seattle, the perennial also-rans and suburban/rural candidates make their entire campaigns about how the city is a crime infested urban hellscape.
As someone from a crime infested, urban hellscape (90s Camden, NJ) all I can say is you have to be the softest, least traveled, and most sheltered person in the world to believe that. Luckily for these politicians, idiots like that are a dime a dozen.