The Real Problem With San Francisco, and it's Not Socialism
When Elon Musk posts a video of San Francisco's urban decay with the caption “Radical left policies lead to annihilation,” he's not just making a political point—he's engaging in a profound form of epistemic gaslighting. This narrative—that progressive governance has destroyed America's cities—has become gospel on the right, repeated with such certainty that it feels almost heretical to question it.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And San Francisco's problems stem primarily not from “radical left policies” but from hyper-conservative market restrictions masquerading as property rights.
What we're witnessing in San Francisco is not the failure of progressivism but the predictable outcome of what my friend Vlad Vexler calls “hyper-neoliberalism”—a system where magical thinking about market forces meets the reality of emergent collusion to restrict supply and extract rent from new market entrants.
Let's be clear about what's actually happened in San Francisco and similar cities over the past several decades. Housing prices didn't skyrocket because of socialist policies. They exploded because of restrictions on housing supply—zoning laws, building height limitations, environmental review processes, and permitting requirements that effectively prevented the construction of adequate housing to meet demand.
This isn't a free market at work. It's a market failure—specifically, a form of emergent collusion where homeowners, developers, and local governments create a de facto cartel that artificially constrains supply. Not through explicit coordination in smoke-filled rooms, but through the natural alignment of interests among property owners who benefit from scarcity and the politicians who depend on their votes and donations.
When housing supply fails to meet demand, prices surge. When prices surge, housing becomes unaffordable for middle and working-class residents. When housing becomes unaffordable, homelessness increases. When homelessness increases, public spaces deteriorate. When public spaces deteriorate, businesses suffer. When businesses suffer, they close or relocate. When this cycle continues unchecked for decades, you get the urban conditions we see today.
The neoreactionaries and right-wing critics look at this outcome and blame “radical left policies.” But they've completely inverted cause and effect. The restricted housing supply that created these conditions isn't a progressive policy—it's the result of hyper-conservative homeowner interests using government power to protect and enhance their property values at the expense of everyone else.
This is what happens when capital rules rather than democracy. When the interests of existing property owners consistently trump the needs of the broader community. When “neighborhood character” and “property values” become sacred concepts that justify excluding new residents and preventing natural urban evolution.
Are there legitimately problematic aspects of progressive urban governance? Absolutely. There are reasonable debates to be had about policing strategies, public safety approaches, and the balance between compassion and order in managing homelessness. But these issues are downstream from the more fundamental market failure that created the conditions for urban crisis in the first place.
What's particularly perverse about the neoreactionary critique is that it uses the consequences of market failure as evidence against progressive governance, while simultaneously advocating for an intensification of the very forces that created the market failure. Their solution to problems caused by concentrated capital and restricted housing supply is... more concentrated capital and less democratic control over development.
This isn't just wrong—it's a warning. What we're seeing in San Francisco is a preview of what happens when “hyper-neoliberalism” flourishes: market failures presented as market successes, the consequences of those failures blamed on progressive governance, and the solution proposed as even less democratic oversight of market forces.
The YIMBY movement has recognized this reality, pushing for more housing development across the board. But their critique often stops short of identifying the deeper political economy at work—the way that restricted housing supply represents not just bad policy but a fundamental distortion of market functioning that transfers wealth from renters and future buyers to current property owners.
When capital finds a basis for collusion—even emergent, uncoordinated collusion—it creates market failures that harm the broader public while benefiting the already privileged. This isn't a radical left observation; it's basic economics. Markets function properly only when supply can respond to demand. When supply is artificially constrained, prices rise above what a functioning market would produce, creating economic rent that benefits incumbent players while harming new entrants.
The right's framing of urban problems as the result of “radical left policies” is designed to obscure this fundamental reality. It's easier to blame progressive governance than to acknowledge that many urban problems stem from market failures created by policies that protect property values above all else—policies that the right typically supports or even champions.
This isn't to say that all of San Francisco's problems would be solved by addressing the housing shortage alone. Urban governance is complex, and there are legitimate critiques to be made of how progressive administrations have handled issues like public safety, homelessness, and business regulation. But without addressing the fundamental market failure at the heart of the housing crisis, these other efforts are like bailing water from a sinking ship without patching the hole.
The real solution requires acknowledging both market failures and governance failures. It requires recognizing that functioning cities need both adequate housing supply and effective public services. It requires breaking the emergent collusion that restricts housing development while also addressing legitimate concerns about public safety and urban order.
What it doesn't require is the kind of simplistic narrative that attributes complex urban problems entirely to “radical left policies” while ignoring the market failures that created the conditions for those problems in the first place.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And San Francisco's problems stem primarily from the restriction of market forces to benefit existing property owners, not from an excess of progressive governance.
The center must be held—not because it is easy, but because it is ours to hold. And holding it requires acknowledging the complex reality of urban challenges rather than accepting convenient narratives that misdiagnose their causes and misdirect our attention from the market failures at their core.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
First, I greatly respect the insights and content Mike Brock expresses in his writing. I have tried to decrease all the journals (scientific-medical) and the political subscriptions I get, but I will make an exception and become a paid member to Mike's Notes from the Circus.
With that said, I do have criticisms of this blog or editorial writing; they are constructive.
I try to read a book or a post/blog/editorial from cover to cover. Mike, you impress me with the content of the topics you opine about, but at the same time, you overwhelm me with the amount of content. I wish your articles were shorter or perhaps presented as Part I, II, etc.
I agree with just about everything you have written since I came across "Notes." However, I will insert the "Age" or "Experience" Card in being critical about "The Real Problem with San Francisco." I was born in NY, in the same city where Trump grew up (Jamaica). I went to the U of Rochester in upstate NY, then to the U of Chicago, then to Los Angeles to the County Hospital for internship & residency, and then to San Antonio to care for military during the Vietnam years 1970-72. I have traveled the world, in the 1960s to places like East Germany and then in 1986 after Chernobyl spent six weeks in the USSR. I have been everywhere except Antarctica and Africa. And I have returned to many cities decades later and revisited places of great natural beauty. Why share this with you and your readers?
I have seen in real life the Joni Mitchell lyrics "they turned Paradise into a parking lot." The beauty I once experienced in San Francisco has been lost in great part. It was a place I once thought I would love to live in; the same with Portland, Oregon, and also Florence, Italy, etc.
What you presented with the most emphasis in the SF article is a focus on political views, and in some ways, this has relevance. But what I saw in paradises like Los Angeles and SF is something that two commenters touched upon (Cory and Marilyn). Cities are living entities, and as with all of life, a critical concept is "balance." As a city grows, so do all challenges it faces: traffic, crime, sanitation, housing, and common courtesy.
Distinctly, I recall one morning on my way to the hospital in Culver City. Stopped for a red light on Venice Blvd, the driver in the car in front, rolled down his window and dumped garbage into the street. I could not believe my eyes. I had first visited Los Angeles in 1960; it was pristine. No garbage-cluttered streets; the freeways not littered with trash; people stopped their car when you stepped off the curb into the street. All that was gone. On an intentional detour off the 10 freeway in downtown LA, I took Pico Blvd (it runs all the way West to my desired destination). Within 5 minutes, I was transported into a 3rd world country. Garbage was everywhere, at least ankle high. I could feel anxiety and fear, and I drove as fast as I safely could to get out of this cesspool of human filth.
When I was diagnosed with a usually fatal malignancy in 2018, I had a second opinion consultation at UCSF. I took the train from Nevada City, CA. Each stop was like a garbage dump. Litter everywhere. At one longer stop, a visit to the restroom was disgusting. In SF, I had to take the BART. It was OK but not as clean as the subways in Seoul or those in Moscow. On a bus, my wife and I were exposed to a psychotic man who was threatening everyone on the bus. We could not wait until we got off, only to encounter people urinating in the street and see the squalor of homeless people. Human excrement was nearby.
Mike, it is not just a question of housing but of common sense and decency. Cities, like other living entities, have their limitations. City management (as in the "kid's game" Sim City) is an art. It should not be requisite on builders and realtors whose primary MO is money but on quality of life. A city that has grown beyond the needs that are not being met is akin to a cancer that has metastasized and can no longer maintain its need for energy and thus undergoes necrosis (death). Now, in Oregon, once also pristine like LA, I see the early signs of what man does to beauty- he defiles it. Garbage on the highways; courtesy gone; noise pollution due to excessive traffic and motorcycles with Hollywood mufflers and due to landscapers and their obsession with blowers (yes, I have one too).
And despite being accused of being a bleeding heart liberal, which I am most certainly not, I will say that a lot of the garbage and litter comes from the homeless, and from the immigrant, legal or not, where cleanliness is not part of their native culture. All of us are at fault for this, for putting up with it. When my only home was my sailboat, on a long-distance journey of thousands of miles, I had a crew that mimicked this same attitude. "It's not my freakin' ship." So I fired my crew and found a responsible man and his son for the most arduous part of the voyage. We need to do a better job with (a) city management a la Sim City; (b) not only vet those wishing to come to our country but to have frank discussions about "housekeeping". This land is our land, our house, and the beauty that we extinguish is often gone forever, not unlike the glaciers I used to hike on.. The charm of cities like SF, and Florence has been lost, in large part, due to our taking something for granted (i.e., not tending to our garden).
We, all of us, must be the stewards of this planet, and we must learn the concepts that influence the quantity and quality of our lives and do the same for those who come after us.
We all just need to walk around mindlessly responding to all societal problems by saying "f*cking neoliberalism". Probably be right more often than Elon and his socialism comments. Maybe even "f*cking billionaires, eh?". Pizza's overcooked.. "f*cking Elon Musk, man".