Mounting Disorder in San Francisco
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 656 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Erica Sandberg joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss the deteriorating state of public order in San Francisco.
The Bay Area's most densely populated and desirable neighborhoods are being destroyed by lawlessness and squalor. San Francisco now leads the nation in property crime, according to the FBI. "Other low-level offenses," Sandberg reports for City Journal, "including drug dealing, street harassment, encampments, indecent exposure, public intoxication, simple assault, and disorderly conduct are also rampant."
With the situation growing more dire, residents are organizing to demand that the city take action against repeat offenders and strengthen quality-of-life laws. It remains to be seen whether the city will change its approach to public safety. "Meantime," Sandberg writes, "the poor bear the brunt of low-level and property crimes."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:05.5 | Coming up on today's show, our associate editor, Seth Barron, talks with one of our newest writers, |
| 0:11.1 | Erica Sandberg, who's based in San Francisco. |
| 0:14.0 | Last year, the FBI confirmed what visitors and residents of the Bay Area have come to know all too well. |
| 0:24.5 | Disorder is metastasizing in that city. |
| 0:32.1 | San Francisco is infamous for its filth, its homeless encampments. Drug use in broad daylight is now disturbingly common. Stores are closing in some of the city's historic neighborhoods. |
| 0:42.3 | And San Francisco is now the nation's leader in property crime. City Journal has done a lot of reporting recently on the growing levels of disorder in some of our nation's biggest cities. |
| 0:49.3 | Erica's work in San Francisco mirrors what Chris Rufo has reported on in Seattle and Andy Noe and Michael |
| 0:56.1 | Totten in Portland. Here in New York, though it's not quite as bad as it is in these West Coast |
| 1:02.2 | cities, there is a concerted effort to reduce the kind of public order enforcement that has made |
| 1:08.2 | the city so successful. But back to Erica, her latest piece in |
| 1:12.7 | City Journal, San Francisco's Quality of Life toll, blew up on social media last week, so we asked |
| 1:18.4 | her to call in to the studio and give us a report on the podcast. I'm sure our listeners will |
| 1:24.3 | enjoy it. Lastly, we announced this on last week's episode, but if you want to get |
| 1:29.1 | in touch with the podcast, you can email us at podcast at city-dashjournal.org. That's podcast at |
| 1:37.5 | city-journal.org. That's it for me. The conversation between Seth Barron and Erica Sandberg begins after this. |
| 2:05.6 | Welcome back to 10 blocks, the podcast of City Journal. This is your host for today, Seth Barron, Associate Editor at City Journal. |
| 2:10.2 | Erica Sandberg is a writer and noted expert on consumer finance and a long-term resident |
| 2:14.9 | of San Francisco. |
| 2:16.7 | She's been writing for City Journal recently about problems with homelessness and crime in San Francisco. |
| 2:21.6 | Her most recent piece, San Francisco's quality of life toll addresses the rise in public disorder in one of the jewels among America's cities. |
| 2:31.1 | Thanks for joining us, Erica. |
... |
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