Can We Fix San Francisco?
IN DECEMBER, SAN Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city’s Tenderloin district, which will lead to increased police presence in the epicenter of the city’s homelessness crisis. It was a major turnaround for Breed, who after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 called for “ending the use of police in responding to noncriminal activity.” The move was criticized by groups like the Coalition on Homelessness, which called it an “expansion of strategies that have been tried and failed” that would contribute to the “instability and poor public health outcomes” of people living on the streets.
Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, called Breed’s new “tough love” approach a “big step in the right direction.” The homelessness crisis, he argues, is actually an addiction and mental health crisis; to stop it, he believes, we need to end policies that permit open-air drug scenes on public property, prevent police from enforcing the law, and undermine the creation of a functional mental health care system. Shellenberger is certainly not a libertarian, though says he appreciates the “cultural libertarianism” of his home state.
In January, Reason’s Zach Weissmueller interviewed Shellenberger, a Bay Area activist best known for his advocacy of nuclear power, about his foray into social policy, his critiques of both progressive and libertarian politics, and whether America’s cities can clean up their streets without grossly violating civil liberties.
Reason: Your new book is San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. First off, could we talk about the title for a second? It’s a little aggressive, no? Aren’t you worried about scaring off potentially persuadable people?
Shellenberger: I don’t want to scare off anybody, but I believe in truth in advertising. San Francisco and other liberal cities are sick. They have people with untreated mental illness and untreated addiction camping in parks, on sidewalks, using drugs publicly, defecating publicly. It’s a huge public health problem. I don’t just mean homelessness—I also mean the broader urban decay, including rising crime.
I also argue that there’s a sick way of thinking about these problems, which is to pathologize our system as fundamentally evil and wrong, and that that leads to terrible outcomes. The book is about San Francisco, but it’s also really about what the subtitle says, which is why progressives ruin cities. Why is it that cities that ostensibly care the
