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Goodbye, San Francisco

Dr. Munr Kazmir
5 min readApr 12, 2023

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“San Francisco downtown as we know it is not coming back,” admitted SF Mayor London Breed in February.

Shattered MUNI Bus Shelter — Lower Haight. July 5, 2021. (Photo: Lynn Friedman)

The stabbing death of Cash App founder and tech exec Bob Lee last week sent shockwaves through San Francisco. If it could happen to billionaire Bob Lee in an otherwise safe neighborhood, it could happen to anyone.

In San Francisco, anyone could be the next innocent pedestrian fatally injured by a stranger, caught staggering and collapsing by video surveillance cameras after trying to flag down a car and ringing a nearby doorbell for help — and failing.

San Francisco has become a city where people are too afraid to help a man bleeding from stab wounds, where CNN crews reporting on street crime are robbed in broad daylight, despite traveling with security. It’s a city so rife with crime, progressive DA Chesa Boudin was successfully removed from office via an ignominious recall last year.

Crime is so out of control in San Francisco, city services are suffering — far beyond the many calls to 311 pleading for help cleaning up human excrement, garbage, and drug paraphernalia from streets, sidewalks, private property, and public spaces.

“The city has a goal for ambulances to respond to life-threatening emergencies within 10 minutes more than 90% of the time; it has only met that goal for one month since May…

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