Forget those other countries. It's San Francisco that's turning into a s***hole

Earlier today, while the Trump-Putin meeting was rolling out, I was kidding around with my friend Doug Mataconis on Twitter after he joked that President Trump had probably struck a bargain giving Russia one of America’s fifty states. I suggested that if he had to give up one we should offer them California. Doug seemed to take umbrage with this, claiming that California was, “the most important, successful state in the nation.”

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It’s always good to be proud of your country, but we might be exaggerating the “success” of California just a tad here, particularly if you’re talking about San Francisco. I only specify that town because I’d seen this article from our colleague Rachel Alexander at Townhall earlier. She’s compiled a number of recent stories about just how “well” things have been going in the City by the Bay recently and, contra Mataconis, the place seems to be going to crap. And I mean that in the literal sense. One of their many problems is that the number of homeless roaming the streets is at record levels and they are quite literally defecating everywhere.

[T]he city is fast becoming one of the worst places in the U.S. to live.

The homeless problem is out of control. Experts say it “could exceed some of the dirtiest slums in the world.” There are around 7,500 homeless people in the city. Human feces is strewn across public areas. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit examined over 150 blocks of downtown San Francisco and found 96 blocks littered with feces. San Francisco’s new mayor, London Breed, observed, “there are more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here.” She says that a cleaning crew will clean up an area, but “right after they leave, maybe an hour or two later, the place is filled with trash again.”

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It’s not just the street sanitation. People living in rental units costing up to $3,500 per month are stepping outside to find rats rummaging through the trash, people smoking meth on their front steps and children playing “boat races” by floating syringe caps down the storm gutters. And all this is happening in the shadow of one of the greatest accumulations of wealth the world has ever known. The density of tech industry moguls has driven the cost of living to the point where you are considered “low income” in San Francisco if you earn less than $117,400 annually.

Don’t think that the proliferation of homeless (in a city where the Democrats are too afraid of offending anyone to do anything about it) hasn’t led to more crime. Property crime and rape are on the rise, and the city’s violent crime rate is 60% higher than the rest of the state. People paying a fortune to live there are still exposed to dangerous, filthy streets and it’s triggering an exodus. Even with a minimum wage of $15 per hour, those not extremely well off can’t afford to live anywhere near the city.

Oddly enough, one of the people reporting their amazement at seeing all the human feces in the streets is the newly elected mayor, London Breed. (She’s responsible for one of the quotes in the linked article above.) She’s certainly got her work cut out for her, but hey… she asked for the job. Best of luck, Madam Mayor. It’s time to hit the flush button on your roads.

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