The situation in LA

[Cheesefiend36]

www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/us/los-angeles-mayor-race.html

I've been reading with interest that LA has had a terrible time of it since Covid and new anti prison sentence laws which has seen crime go up. I follow somebody who was in LA for a holiday last week and vowed never to go back after seeing the amount of poverty, homeless camps in tourist places, crime rates and a general feeling of not being safe. Lifeless bodies on the side of the road is apparently the norm with no body batting an eyelid

LAPD have recommended that tourists stay away because they can't keep them safe

Is anyone there right now or has been recently that can share their experience?
So much wealth there, how can this be happening?

@Wintersonata

Maybe plenty of well off liberals don’t really support Defund the Police but if by supporting it they annoy Republicans then it’s worth supporting. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

That’s the whole problem. The axe you choose to grind doesn’t impact you one iota in the real world.

I’m surrounded by well-off liberals who went completely silent once Biden was in office. They don’t notice or care that things are going to shit for middle America. They can afford the gas prices, they have great healthcare, they can afford to be more concerned with annoying others than about the impacts of these policies in the poor. Most just eff off to their sailboats and second homes when times are tough. Whinged all through covid about people not following the rules but traveled nonstop themselves. But the BLM signs left in the yards made them feel like they were ok.

And these are all folks who rose out of the middle class and into very comfortable lives then bought into the idea that being liberal assuages them of any guilt for their hypocrisy and excess consumption.

The people impacted by these polices are not usually Republicans. But you go on supporting whatever irritates others without respect to the fallout.

@MissMinutes24

I feel that I need to query a few inaccuracies in your posts and apologies if these were not your questions/ posts that I'm attributing.

California IS typically considered to be a "Democrat/ Left" state as they have voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate since '92, nearly 30 years.

As for the state of "Democrat cities", the majority of urban areas are in "Democrat / Left " areas of the country. Rural areas tend to be overwhelmingly "Republican", so there are very few cities that would be considered "Republican" for this reason. Additionally, mayors typically run simply as a candidate and not on the side of a political party per se.

Finally, Bernie Sanders is most certainly in support of gun control.

I'm not sure where you are getting your talking points from, but please do a bit of research yourself first.

Urge her towards searching for info under Clare’s Law

Ignore last post, wrong thread 🙈

@unname that could be part of it. I think we underestimate over here how different attitudes are towards welfare and health services in the states. I remember a conversation with an American who was baffled at the concept of being happy for my taxes to be spent on other people’s healthcare. When I said I’d just be grateful it wasn’t me needing the healthcare they called me a communist 😆 They told me they were raised to believe that if you want something you have to work hard and pay for it so why should anyone be given something they didn’t pay for. This was someone I’d consider to be my typical equivalent (eg profession, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age) across the pond.

I also expressed dismay at lots of people drink driving and one guy shrugged and said ‘I’m white and I have a nice car, I won’t be stopped’ after getting in his car for a four hour drive having boozed all day

I listen to Perez Hilton’s podcast with Chris Booker and they were both talking about how wild it was ( they both live there) Perez keeps talking about moving away, and how people are just walking into supermarkets and stealing and no ones stopping them, so some chains are just closing

In KUWTK, they visit skid row and talk about the shocking homeless epidemic. Shocking.
Not somewhere I’d be keen to visit !

And now males can self ID into female estate. Another thing the press are keen to keep on DL. It’s dystopian

@PurpleIndigoViolet

I wonder if part of the issue in US cities like LA is the fact that they are so car-based. Which means that the rich and middle classes can on the whole drive from one part of the city to another and avoid coming face to face with the worst of it. Which means they don’t really confront and acknowledge the scale of the poverty and inequality day to day, and so there isn’t any urgency to tackle the problems.

Whereas in cities like London pretty much everyone walks, uses the Tube etc, and so everyone isn’t quite as disconnected from each other, and there’s some level of social cohesion / community. Though obvs London is very far from some utopia!

Excellent point. Cars are great at insulating people. I knew someone who’d lived a couple of years in Carolina, he said even if you wanted to walk you couldn’t as housing estates were built with no pavements!

I was shocked when I visited San Francisco a couple of years ago. I saw someone shooting up in front of me, a high women screamed at and chased my partner and I, there were high people floating around like zombies everywhere, shit on the street and massive tent cities. And we stuck to the safe parts, god only knows what the dangerous parts are like.

I do remember thinking I don’t know how anyone affords to live in the US unless they’re really rich. You have to tip everyone excessively for everything, pay for all your own healthcare, and pay to run a car from a young age so you can drive everywhere.

Sorry @unname, I’d meant to tag @PurpleIndigoViolet

I have a brother who has lived in the States for over 30 years. He says that one of the biggest problems is with health care. Even with insurance, you have to be pretty wealthy to access it and it's not always a good standard. He also says that when people can't afford to pay their health bills they literally just leave home with a suitcase, buy a tent and live in a tent city. And before anyone starts worrying about our NHS going the same way can I just point out that it's not an either our NHS or the American system? They have a brilliant system in Belgium and another brother who lives in Spain has had wonderful free treatment there, too.

a high women screamed at and chased my partner and I

Something similar happened to me in Miami. Another city with a huge homelessness and drug problem.

[quote Thisgroupneverceasestoamazeme]@unname that could be part of it. I think we underestimate over here how different attitudes are towards welfare and health services in the states. I remember a conversation with an American who was baffled at the concept of being happy for my taxes to be spent on other people’s healthcare. When I said I’d just be grateful it wasn’t me needing the healthcare they called me a communist 😆 They told me they were raised to believe that if you want something you have to work hard and pay for it so why should anyone be given something they didn’t pay for. This was someone I’d consider to be my typical equivalent (eg profession, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age) across the pond.

I also expressed dismay at lots of people drink driving and one guy shrugged and said ‘I’m white and I have a nice car, I won’t be stopped’ after getting in his car for a four hour drive having boozed all day[/quote]
"They told me they were raised to believe that if you want something you have to work hard and pay for it so why should anyone be given something they didn’t pay for."

That was how most of us Gen X and above were raised. But everything was different - you could survive on a much lower income that it seems like you can today. Health insurance, (not the same as healthcare) was very cheap, also if you didn't have a job that provided it.

The world around us has changed really rapidly and I don't think you can get ahead here as easily as you could 20 years ago. But if you were already established and surrounded by others who are also established when things started changing it would be very difficult to even notice the shift.

@wantanotherdog

I have a brother who has lived in the States for over 30 years. He says that one of the biggest problems is with health care. Even with insurance, you have to be pretty wealthy to access it and it's not always a good standard. He also says that when people can't afford to pay their health bills they literally just leave home with a suitcase, buy a tent and live in a tent city. And before anyone starts worrying about our NHS going the same way can I just point out that it's not an either our NHS or the American system? They have a brilliant system in Belgium and another brother who lives in Spain has had wonderful free treatment there, too.

I really don't buy that anyone ever did this because of healthcare bills.

Nor that people like me with jobs that cover our health insurance cannot access good healthcare.

And before anyone starts worrying about our NHS going the same way can I just point out that it's not an either our NHS or the American system? They have a brilliant system in Belgium and another brother who lives in Spain has had wonderful free treatment there, too.

I can't agree more. Same with Scandinavia. Let's look at what other countries do well and copy them, instead of slavishly trying to ape the USA - and in this case aping one of the worst parts of the USA.

But the government is selling it off specifically to the US. Who would love to get their hands on it.

Trump is what he is but Biden is pathetic as are all the people in his government. The Lefties have have take over the asylum and thanks to them LA has become what it is. They voted for him! Trump wouldn’t have stood for all this but they kicked him out & this is the result. As I said he is what he is but he got things done & didn’t put up with all this nonsense. If we’re not careful & let the lefty liberals get a foothold we will end up the same here! You have been warned.

unname my immediate family live in LA

My family and friends have mixed feelings. Family are not white friends are from mixed backgrounds (thinking about it few are white)

I think that many people don't realise just how much money is spent on the police in the USA. Many states have their police force armed up so well they could be classed as a small army. Also the amount of police floating around is massive. People call them out for the least little argument. 'De funding the police' is to reduce unnecessary spending and put it into prevention.

@FanGirlX

a high women screamed at and chased my partner and I

Something similar happened to me in Miami. Another city with a huge homelessness and drug problem.

I’m not disagreeing with the state of things. But this reminded me of the time a presumably drunken man hit me across the chest with his arm and yelled “fuck you people.”

It was 1994 and in Oxford. I looked all of 15 and was just walking down the street.

He was probably 65 and walking with another well dressed man around the same age.

@Corcory

I think that many people don't realise just how much money is spent on the police in the USA. Many states have their police force armed up so well they could be classed as a small army. Also the amount of police floating around is massive. People call them out for the least little argument. 'De funding the police' is to reduce unnecessary spending and put it into prevention.

Local police forces in the US are primarily locally funded. There is no “many” or “most” paintbrush that fits.

Watch that video someone posted above of the Philadelphia streets and think about what kind of resources it would require to keep a city of that scale that even quasi-safe from its own citizens. Never mind the budget required to deal with constant terror threats, human trafficking, organized crime prevention in any major international city. I doubt most of us can fathom the scope of it.

www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html

In 2016, police departments serving cities with populations exceeding 25,000 employed an average of 16.8 officers and 21.4 total personnel for every 10,000 residents.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/16/california-santa-cruz-homeless-extreme-weather

Found this which gives some stats on homelessness in California.

With LA it's not a single city in the UK sense. If you placed it on a map of London the boundary of LA would stretch from Oxford to Brighton!

I don't think London poverty is anywhere like how bad it was in the pre 97 days of cardboard city.

English poverty now is more in the small northern towns rather than the shiny big cities. But no one from outside visits those.

Many states have their police force armed up so well they could be classed as a small army. Also the amount of police floating around is massive. People call them out for the least little argument

@Corcory - yes, the police are armed in the US.

But there are multiple forces within each state (all armed).

Each city or incorporated municipality has its own force. They police their own municipal area, have their own uniform colours, cars, various ranks. There are the State Police too. They are the ones who pull you over when you're speeding on an Interstate. Municipal police forces are paid for by taxes and fees levied on the communities they serve, in general by consent of the taxed, or at least consented to by a vote of the majority of residents. State income taxes and other taxes pay for the State Police.

"People call them out for the least little argument" is an assertion you are going to have to provide evidence for.

I don't know what you mean by "the amount of police floating around is massive."

@28feb, what a load of claptrap.