| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Clean up San Francisco's streets, tourist industry pleads |
| 2018-04-18 |
| [SF Chronicle] As president of S.F. Travel, the city’s visitors bureau, Joe D’Alessandro’s job is to promote San Francisco. You’d think he’d be hyping the city’s gorgeous vistas, top-notch restaurants and glorious museums. Instead, he’s getting honest. Sure, San Francisco has great facets worthy of postcards and travel books, but it also has a worsening underbelly that D’Alessandro says he can no longer gloss over. People injecting themselves with drugs in broad daylight, their dirty needles and other garbage strewn on the sidewalks. Tent camps. Human feces. The threatening behavior of some people who appear either mentally ill or high. Petty theft. "The streets are filthy. There’s trash everywhere. It’s disgusting," D’Alessandro said, adding he’s traveled the world, and San Francisco stands out for the wrong reasons. "I’ve never seen any other city like this ‐ the homelessness, dirty streets, drug use on the streets, smash-and-grabs. "How can it be?" he continued. "How can it have gotten to this point?" Remember, this is the man whose job is to glorify San Francisco, which tells you something about how far the city has sunk. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #6 I went there 15 years ago and found San Francisco is "Bridgeport, CT with seals." Not even Providence, mind you, as their food can't compare. Today it's even drearier. You won't leave your heart in SF, but you can leave a dookie in the middle of road. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2018-04-18 16:09 |
| #5 Cleaning up the mess will be seen as an infringement on free expression of the homeless. Nothing meaningful will be done. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2018-04-18 15:27 |
| #4 When Mrs. Warthog and I were working there in the early 2000's, we routinely came across the homeless and other flotsam in the streets. Doing what we all know they do..it was bad then but seemingly confined to back streets. Now Union Square, the Rodeo Drive of SF, has them in spades. Welcome to your Sanctuary City. Back then Banana Republic was just a store, not a way of life. |
| Posted by: Warthog 2018-04-18 12:22 |
| #3 It's really too bad about San Francisco. The city is blessed in many, many ways. It has natural beauty, the bay, the beaches, the architecture, the many accomplishments of its citizens and, yes, even the fog. But the current political atmosphere and degradation make it so I never want to go there again. It's encouraging that someone in a position of influence at least recognizes the problem but I fear that won't be enough. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-04-18 12:19 |
| #2 Decivilization isn't much of a tourist attraction. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-04-18 08:41 |
| #1 That is what happens when all behavior is considered equal. |
| Posted by: Flilet Omeremble3846 2018-04-18 07:18 |