Mar 12 2002
Paris vs. San Francisco
San Francisco’s mayor, Willie Brown (who refers to himself in the ebonics third person as “Da Mayor”, and I’m not kidding), decided that he’d rather be in Paris than attend his city’s very first coalition meeting on homelessness, which many San Franciscans consider the city’s biggest problem.
Now, I’m a big Paris fan, but surely Brown could have timed his visit better. Not only did Da Mayor commit this stunning faux pas, but while in Paris, he actually blamed the lack of safety and hygiene on San Francisco streets on — I do hope you’re sitting down to read this — the independent press, such as SF Weekly and other free newspapers.
Brown says that people open up these newspaper boxes and scatter their contents to the winds, and that’s what the whole problem is. Newsflash for you, Willie: that’s the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is a city whose mayor gave up on even trying to solve the homeless problem shortly after taking office, saying it was insoluble. But the City still spends $200 million a year on this problem, which has only gotten worse in Brown’s reign, and is as “insoluble” as ever. According to a recent Chronicle article, San Francisco has more homeless people than New York City, which has ten times the population. Something is very wrong here, and it’s not newspapers, free or otherwise, scattered on the street.
I hope Brown takes a good look around while in Paris. I have visited that beautiful city many times over the past 20 years, and I can tell you what Paris has that San Francisco doesn’t: a fleet of green street cleaners with “Propret? de Paris” on the side, which clean up everything from newspapers to Gitane butts to empty Orangina bottles every morning. Paris apparently feels that it should spend some of its tax dollars on keeping the city streets clean for the citizens who pay those taxes. How’s that for a concept?
And by the way, Willie: no-one has ever confused San Francisco with Miami, and they never will.
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