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^^^Well western cities have year round mild weather and have a no turn back policy, along with the highest concentrations of social services. The western cities don't necessarily "create" an outsized number of their own homeless or mentally ill, but they do accept them when cities like New York give them one-way bus tickets.
The west is still incredibly socially liberal...much moreso than the E Coast (and the middle of the country/SE is definitely not even part of the conversation, still). It remains the appeal of the W Coast for people of all backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. That free spirit. It's also why tech/innovation in general is a much bigger thing across western cities than cities of other regions of the country.
People outside looking in and not understanding...the west creates today's billionaires (capitalism) and offers a home for the homeless and downtrodden or those looking to restart their life (liberalism). It is still the epitome of what makes this country great.
There are plenty of cities in the West that turn their homeless away. You have too much of a rosy view of the western US. Most people here are rather hardass when it comes to class issues. Most people in western states seem to despise the homeless and illegals, unfortunately. Gay rights seems to be the only "liberal" issue that Westerners are truly committed to, and that's just because Christianity is less prevalent out here.
The homeless "magnet" theory is largely a myth. A few years ago, a Portland cop shot a homeless man to death simply for sleeping under a bridge. This is not Shangri-La.
And not all Western cities have mild sub-tropical weather - many of them have scorching summers and the inland mountain cities all have very cold winters.
I think the West is similar to the rest of the country on most issues, and more classist and libertarian than the rest of the country on average, or at least on par with the South.
There are plenty of cities in the West that turn their homeless away. You have too much of a rosy view of the western US. Most people here are rather hardass when it comes to class issues. Most people in western states seem to despise the homeless and illegals, unfortunately. Gay rights seems to be the only "liberal" issue that Westerners are truly committed to, and that's just because Christianity is less prevalent out here.
The homeless "magnet" theory is largely a myth. A few years ago, a Portland cop shot a homeless man to death simply for sleeping under a bridge. This is not Shangri-La.
And not all Western cities have mild sub-tropical weather - many of them have scorching summers and the inland mountain cities all have very cold winters.
I think the West is similar to the rest of the country on most issues, and more classist and libertarian than the rest of the country on average, or at least on par with the South.
Pretty sweeping statements without any backup whatsoever. "Gay rights is the only issue triumphed out west because it's less Christian out here?" I mean, that statement alone discredits everything else you say.
"Most people are rather hardass when it comes to class issues?" I do believe I pointed out that at least in SF, where I have more local experience (I can't speak for the whole west or elsewhere), the people are fed up sometimes with the amount of homeless, and it's not really for lack of compassion. It's understandable that people would get frustrated living in an environment that smells of human feces and urine on a daily basis around much of town (I probably see a guy take a hot steamy dump right on the Market St sidewalk in front of many people every couple of months while a publicly paid for and maintained restroom meant for this issue is never any less than 1-2 blocks away...so yes, putting up with that is a fact of SF life that's paid for with $200M in annual local property taxes and that's a rather "unique" problem in this country). But I've also lived in other cities with 10% the homeless "problem" that SF has where the citizens gathered up pitchforks and threatened to burn city hall if the "problem" wasn't dealt with. So while SF residents do complain that there's often a double standard with the law and their taxes go to enable the problem, essentially, most people are very cool calm and collected relative to the scale of the issue. And like I said before, the sheer amount of social services dealing with the homeless, mentally ill, AIDS inflicted, drug addicted, etc is super super high in SF and a few other west coast cities...these places are staffed with locals. So as a rule, the population that helps these people is indeed higher on the west coast than elsewhere. This situation/mentality extends all the way up to Vancouver in Canada, but not to San Diego or Orange County.
The homeless "magnet" theory is a myth? Care to backup your claim then that all of the west coast cities have abnormally high homeless rates because of some flaw in their own system rather than taking on an abnormally high amount of homeless from elsewhere? Also, SD and OC don't have a lot of homeless. Coincidentally they are the "red" areas of the west coast, so you could do your own digging and then claim somehow that more conservative policies prevent homelessness, or you could easily see that these two redder areas offer almost no homeless services and have tougher laws and a population more averse to homelessness. So the homeless from these areas just wander right up the road to LA or SF.
Also - a cop in Portland shot a homeless man years ago for sleeping under a bridge. Not sure if there's more to that story, and frankly I don't care to Google that, but you make a statement based on one incident - so Portland is averse to homeless people? Let me tell you one fact: No place is a Shangri-La for the homeless. If you had to choose between Portland and Detroit or Portland and Las Vegas, what would it be? Las Vegas is known to bus its homeless out to the west coast cities (fact).
Also, to clarify, you're right, not all western cities have mild sub-tropical weather. In fact, none do. But to be more accurate, west coast cities are the mild cities, all of them, relative to the rest of the country. The coast has mild summers and mild winters all up and down. Perhaps you're thinking of Vegas and Phoenix and places like interior CA like Inland Empire that have scorching summers? And obviously places like Denver and Salt Lake City have cold winters, but none of these places I mentioned are known for their homeless populations now are they?
Actually, the City of SF alone spends nearly $200M a year on homeless services as part of its annual budget, which per capita (to SF population) is above and beyond any other city in America to the tune of multiples. If you think SF's homeless are all from SF and that nobody is caring for them, you don't know this city.
Frankly, maybe *most* people in SF aren't as liberal as they'd like to think of themselves, because vocally and on the surface, there is constant strife on why we "allow" so much homelessness with lax laws, taking in other cities' homeless, and having such a huge budget. SF taxpayers subsidize rent for many many thousands of homeless in a city effort to keep them off the street. There is no more progressive city than SF when it comes to *helping* the homeless.
The city also has the highest concentration of social services of any major city in America. And these non-profits are staffed with liberal SF locals who take major salary cuts to work there...enough such that many non-profit workers also have subsidized rent, even on top of rent control.
Combine this with year round mild weather and lax laws essentially allowing homeless to live on the streets, crap on the streets (even though perhaps no other city has as many public restrooms on the sidewalks as SF), panhandle, etc with year round concentrated tourism and a charitable local population (on top of the huge city budget), and you have a recipe whereby people, entire cities just send their homeless loved ones or anonymous homeless populations out west.
It's not so much that SF or other western cities create an insane amount of homeless themselves and then don't take care of them. Literally, it's the opposite. These cities, SF in particular, take in the country's homeless and give them *more* care than they would receive elsewhere. Frankly, it's other cities shipping their homeless out (Vegas out west included) and not taking care of their own.
Similarly, SF is still a major gay mecca, because many gays still end up homeless, abused, or hopeless and they know they can arrive in the city with nothing on their back and they will receive care, love, and support. The same is not true of all but perhaps a tiny few cities in this country. For instance, Atlanta is super gay, right? But is it building publicly funded LGBT senior housing? Does it have widespread programs in place to house people, or do guys [in particular] need to find a strings-attached sugar daddy? My experience there, the latter.
So, that's just my take. Again, I don't know if SF is truly the most liberal city in America. Only one scientific study done on this topic, done by MIT, and it concludes that yes it is. But it does irk me to great ends to hear people spit out so many soundbites, like SF is becoming a white/asian suburb, so it will be conservative [and materialistic] like Orange County one day. Or along those lines, that SF is a suburb to SJ. Some of you people need to end your jealousy that SF does indeed live up to its many reputations.
Atlanta is also 3x cheaper in rent than SF so it doesn't needed public funded housing for LGBT or sugar daddies or housing programs. SF needs all of that because a one bedroom median asking rent is 3500 dollars. Atlanta, it's barely 1230. SF is approaching absurdity in it's housing prices and it's no wonder you need a ton of housing programs and the absurd housing prices doesn't stop in SF either.
Seems like a lot of cities claim to be liberal but only in the sense that there are young people who are "liberal" who live in the city for a few years only to get married, move to the suburbs, reproduce, and become conservative (justifying it as "for fiscal reasons" or what not). I am 29 and have several friends who have done this. Just saw a pretty awful Facebook post from a friend who lived in liberal Chicago and now lives in Naperville posting about how marriage should be between a man and a woman. Bleh. Anyway, I honestly think there are only a few truly liberal cities in the country: NYC, Boston, Philly, Seattle, LA, DC, Minneapolis, Portland, and a handful of smaller less important cities.
SF used to be the poster child of liberal America but it is so monocultural these days, I don't even know what to think about it. Seems like the next OC to me, or will be in terms of demographics. The Bay Area overall is liberal though. Chicago is another weird case. I think it's sort of half and half between faux liberals and actual liberals.
Most other Midwestern cities including KC, Indy, etc are pretty fake liberal IMO.
Do you agree? Disagree? Any other cities to add to the list?
So just because his views are different than yours on that ONE issue, that means he's no longer liberal in general? It sounds like YOU are the closed minded one if you are ready to write him off that quickly over one thing, not your friend.
Pfft, what do you know? The West is Shangri-La, Xanadu and Nirvana in one convenient package. Those aren't homeless people everyone's always stepping over, they are living art exhibits displaying the superiority of "The Lifestyyyyle" everyone else on the planet is insanely jealous of - give them a dollar, and they'll even dance for you. We have everthing out here in Xan Shangri-Lavana, and you can't stand it.
So do you have to be liberal in every way to be considered liberal? I think for myself and don't always fall in line with every liberal cause, but I would definitely be considered liberal by most people. Who makes this decision about what constitutes liberal and what constitutes "faux" liberal? Is liberal considered far left or can someone be moderately liberal?
EXACTLY!!! That's why I hate terms like "Liberal" and "conservative" and even the idea of "Democrat" and "Republican" (there are moderate and conservative Democrats as well as moderate and liberal Republicans), because they are so limiting and put you in such a box; rarely is anybody who identifies with either side as cut and dry in all their political and social beliefs as the media or the people who decide what beliefs go with which labels would have you believe. For example, you can be liberal on most issues and still disagree with the idea of same sex marriage, just like you could be typically conservative and support same sex marriage. It's not just black and white with no grey areas for most folks, unless they are mindless sheep who can't think and feel for themselves and who just tow and parrot the party line on every single issue. It sounds like that's what the OP expects people to do and be.
Pfft, what do you know? The West is Shangri-La, Xanadu and Nirvana in one convenient package. Those aren't homeless people everyone's always stepping over, they are living art exhibits displaying the superiority of "The Lifestyyyyle" everyone else on the planet is insanely jealous of - give them a dollar, and they'll even dance for you. We have everthing out here in Xan Shangri-Lavana, and you can't stand it.
The homeless "magnet" theory is a myth? Care to backup your claim then that all of the west coast cities have abnormally high homeless rates because of some flaw in their own system rather than taking on an abnormally high amount of homeless from elsewhere?
What do you think is a more reasonable assumption - that the high rents on the West Coast cause homelessness because people can no longer afford to pay their bills, or that there is some massive movement of homeless people from Michigan and Mississippi because they heard that Portland, Seattle and California are awesome places to live on the street?
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