It’s not just economics. These cities have bent over backwards to accommodate the dysfunctional and the lawless that they’ve actually attracted them en masse, thus crating mass homeless encampments and widespread use of streets as public toilets.
Yes San Francisco is quite gutted.
It’s not as dramatic as the news implies. There are not piles of poo poo everywhere.
However the tenderloin and south of market really are covered with addicts and the brain damaged. They sit around, they deal, they fight, of course they camp. Some have stuff laid out to sell. They steal bikes. You see trannies and prostitutes and open drug use. Many are just passed out or asleep, just out there in the sidewalk. They wander into traffic. They line up at food distribution.
Property crime is bad because it’s not prosecuted. That said violent Crime is somewhat low. In a libertarian dream I can only say this is true because most San Franciscans are trying to get along and not be violent.
The richest city has become a place of extreme mental ward poverty and mansions with locked gates. The dinky middle class keeps trying to function. But they don’t vote properly. We have, time and time again, voted for this.