There is out of touch, and then there is Time Out of touch. Believe it or not, Time Out magazine declared the 2021 San Francisco to be the best city in the world.
You might know San Francisco as a city in crisis in a state in crisis in a country in crisis. San Francisco bestowed on the United States its political machine, and the machine is a lemon. Its protégé Kamala Harris walked onto the national stage unchallenged, and the voters are unimpressed. The golden boi Governor Gavin Newsom fought for his survival in a too close for comfort recall election in what should be an easy Democrat state. San Francisco District Attorney, and the son of Weather Underground terrorists, Chesa Boudin is likely to face his own recall, and so is the city’s disgraced Board of Education.
That’s because the city is a hot fentanyl-addled mess. Violent drug addicts are taking over public spaces, stores are closing down because thieves walk in and empty the shelves into large trash bags, and public schools were on remote for more than a year. Public transit is unusable, businesses are fleeing, residents are fleeing, corporations are fleeing.
But all local authorities seem capable of doing is virtue signal and build bike lanes, but I repeat myself.
What did Time Out find in San Francisco aside from tossed syringes? The parklets!
Hundreds of beautifully crafted parklets that now make the city feel like one giant street party (plus the kind of weather that allows for outdoor dining year round).
The parklets were supposed to be temporary dining amenities built into the parking spaces that allowed customers eat outside during the shelter in place regime. The weather by the City by the Bay is rarely conducive to outdoor dining — it gets chilly and foggy in the evenings. As for “one giant street party,” well, it depends on who you ask. With so many residents leaving, many parts of the city feel deserted.
None of it is the biggest problem with parklets. Erica Sandberg explains:
Empty parklets across the city are becoming magnets for transient people. A large percentage of those experiencing homelessness suffer from substance-abuse disorders or psychological illnesses. Rory Cox, CEO of Yubalance Fitness and founder of San Francisco Small Business Alliance, says that frightening incidents are occurring. For example, when one business owner asked a person not behaving rationally to leave the parklet, the person sprayed him in the face with pepper spray; the business owner spent five hours in the emergency room. Used syringes are frequently found inside the structures.
In addition to repeating the local mantra that people in San Francisco are nice to each other (I mean, I’ve seen meaner), or are pleasantly quirky (I’ve known bigger conformists), Time Out explained that San Franciscans are “leading the way” because they are progressive:
Progressive politics. This former hippie enclave came first in the ‘progressive’ category – with 73 percent of respondents describing it as such – and second in ‘sustainability’.
San Francisco-style progressivism is perhaps unsustainable given how the city is now averaging two drug poisoning deaths a day, and how, in any event, it has long had the lowest number of children per capita in the Union. So if Time Out described the town as “most likely to be called ‘accepting’,” it stands to reason that San Francisco is perhaps too accepting — of its corrupt Mayor, and the woke Board of Supervisors, and all other elected officials who should be facing a recall, but for some reason are not.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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