San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

by Michael Shellenberger

After the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014, police could no longer keep meth-intoxicated speeders in jail for a few days to come down. “Now we’re not having those be crimes where people can be in jail for a couple of days to take a chill,” said Kruger. “Instead, they’re out breaking into cars and robbing people.”125 “Our guests went from twelve to seventeen percent addicted to fifty percent addicted or higher,” said Bales.126 Said Tom Wolf, “In 2015, when Proposition 47 took effect, there were 115,000 people homeless in the state of California. Today, there are 165,000. I believe that there’s a direct correlation between the two. People that would have maybe cycled through the justice system for committing smaller crimes—like running into Walgreens, filling your backpack full of makeup, and running out, because you’re a drug addict—might actually have found some help.”127 Between 2016 and 2021, Walgreens closed seventeen of its stores in San Francisco due to shoplifting.128 When a reporter in 2020 asked a clerk where all the merchandise from the empty shelves had gone, he said, “Go ask the people in the alleys, they have it all.”129 Said one homeless man recently, “San Francisco needs to stop sending the message out about the Summer of Love because the Summer of Love is over.”130