naomi

One can dream ;-)

scrubbedexpat099

History suggests nightmares not dreams.

Kooky.

petitefrancaise - some locals recommended SLU to us, others said it was basically Amazontown, too sterile, and to give it a miss.

We had to have our terminally ill cat PTS yesterday so I guess I might get to find out about Downtown for myself sooner than anticipated. I'll report back.

scrubbedexpat091

According to San Diego KPBS on a story they did in December, the top 4 regions for homeless are Seattle/King County, Los Angeles County, New York City and San Diego.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/dec/1...ss-population/

3 of the 4 west coast, 2 of the 4 in California.

Hotscot

And apparently, even though we get by, California is worst State for quality of life.

Kooky.

Isn't it often the way - places with people on silly money also have areas of deep deprivation?

When I lived in Singapore I did voluntary work with out of school youths. People think Singapore has no poverty - I visited kids who could not go to school because they had no shoes.

scrubbedexpat091

It can be a rough state for lower-medium income earners.

Same here in BC specifically the southern half of the province and Vancouver especially.

3 of the 4 least affordable areas in US/Canada are in California.

Vancouver ranks 2nd just behind San Francisco, with LA, & San Jose coming in 3rd and 4th.

Seattle comes in 8th, behind San Diego at 7th.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vanc...4hV7ryloiW01_E

Hotscot

And yet such high taxes...

petitefrancaise

I really wasn't that stunned with Seattle. It reminded me somewhat of Glasgow when I moved there in the mid 1990's - but with a load more people living on the streets.
SLU is full of expensive but not that well built apartments. It's lakeside, so views are nice if you can afford that side. One of the major employers ( not Amazon) is shifting 2k workers out to Bellevue in the next year, so expect price drops and more availability there.
The area on the hill above SLU was nicer. Capitol hill, was ok nearer the park at the top. Ballard could have been anywhere in South London.

scrubbedexpat091

Well California does have pretty decent social services for US standards.

Hotscot

True.
All welcome.
Wherever you come from.

dc koop

Statistics show that Seattle is the city of the educated. The college admission rate is 61 percent and the drop out rate 6 percent. On the other hand amongst the dumbest cities in America are Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas, Santa Ana, California with Fresno, California rated as the dumbest, lowest college admission rate, highest drop out. Amongst the ten worst American cities for crime and poor social conditions are Stockton, San Bernardino and Oakland

Hotscot

Where in Glesca were you?

Steerpike

Interesting that San Francisco is not in the top 4. Casual observation would suggest SF is the worst city in the country. I wonder if that is because San Francisco is a rather unusual demographic; the actual city of SF is a small area - just 7 miles by 7 miles, 49 sq. miles, and the population is only 880,000. It's also a 'city and county', so whether you measure by city or county, the population is very small (while the Bay Area, which surrounds SF, has a population of around 7m). San Diego, the city, is 1.42m, and San Diego County is 3.3m. I read that San Diego (county) has a homeless population of 8,576 and San Francisco 6,857. As a percentage, that's .25% for SD County and .8% for SF County. New York city has a population of 8.6m, and a homeless count of 78,676 - .9%.

I finally watched the entire video posted in the original message of the thread; I really hate the 'vocal style' of the presenter, but nonetheless it's a worthwhile watch. The Rhode Island approach is interesting; it sounds like they are able to forcibly remove people from the streets are put them into rehab programs, and it sounds like they might be working. Forcing anyone to do anything in today's climate seems politically difficult, even though they are technically breaking the law and therefor, subject to incarceration.

Living and breathing the homeless situation in SF for 10 years was enough to make me happy to leave the city for the burbs. I still love to visit, and know dozens of great locations where you don't get 'accosted' by the homeless, but it really is quite disturbing.

scrubbedexpat099

I have been to SF in the winter and it was not nice but probably not a major killer, somebody broke down a few miles away from where I live a few weeks ago and they found the frozen body half a mile away from the vehicle

NY I have also been to in the winter and wonder of they have a more seasonal number, seems to be the case in say Denver, numbers go way down in the winter. So may be dependent on when they count?