San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

A compelling argument, crippled by incoherent centrism and dubious statistics.

I really wanted to like this book. It starts strong, and is at its best when discussing the sociology and data surrounding homelessness; I especially appreciated the perspectives of social workers and recovered homeless. I gave it 2 stars because there are tidbits that challenged my preconceptions and legitimately expanded my understanding of a nuanced issue, but there's maybe a blog-post worth of that content and the rest is simply not worth reading.

There was the potential to be phenomenal had the book stayed within the scope of homelessness, but the latter half takes a bizarre and scatterbrained detour to justify the book's inflammatory title by explaining how progressives “ruin cities.” Shellenberger reaches so hard to make causal connections that it becomes difficult to take seriously. The bombastic talk of anarchists, George Soros, cults, and the “radical left” makes the book read like a teleprompter for Fox News.

To make matters worse, Shellenberger structures his argument as a stream of statistics, one after the other, without any cohesive narrative or thesis to tie things together. You're constantly left guessing what point he's building towards, and when you think you've caught the scent he throws you off the trail with another statistic to contradict an earlier one... or a gross misinterpretation of the facts... or just straight nonsense.

Here's a taste of how bad it gets:

“The annual revenue of Jennifer Friedenbach's Coalition on Homelessness, the most influential homelessness advocacy organization in San Francisco, was just $656,892, according to its most recently available tax filing. To put that number in context, consider that the annual revenues of the Nature Conservancy and the National Rifle Association were $1.2 billion and $353 million, respectively, in 2018.”

the gun lobby

Opioids

the company behind the opioid epidemic

Cults:

Black Lives Matter: