Near as I can tell, it's due to radical ideological splits among the different power bases, and little in the way of shared culture/values. Some prominent ones being the Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, Tech, Finance, etc. blocs. The stakes are high enough and the blocs are big enough, it's easy to drive divisions between them and play them against each other.
It lets someone who wants to point fingers at another group and fearmonger enough folks to block anything they don't want - and among the different blocs, there is no specific thing they all agree on.
One classic recent example of this is Zoning for Marijuana dispensaries. For a long time post legalization, there literally were only 2 potential locations in SF you could get permitted to open one due to extreme school location distance requirements, driven partially by the Chinese bloc. [https://www.sfexaminer.com/the_fs/forum/conservative-chinese...]
That is a ludicrously low number for a city of San Francisco's size, even if you don't know the history of San Francisco as one of the counter culture/weed cultures epicenters.
Of course, during this entire time it was still easy to find weed - just not legally. There is a huge underground market that never stopped. And regardless of legality, there were no meaningful penalties except from the Feds (who have gotten a cold shoulder from SF for a VERY long time), as the local Police stopped enforcing anti-Marijuana rules consistently sometime in the 70s.
California overall (and the US) is becoming more and more like San Francisco. It's like a cancer, as lack of belief in social institutions or a coherent social identity trends towards 'snitches get stitches' and 'fuck you, I got mine', which just enables predators.
It lets someone who wants to point fingers at another group and fearmonger enough folks to block anything they don't want - and among the different blocs, there is no specific thing they all agree on.
One classic recent example of this is Zoning for Marijuana dispensaries. For a long time post legalization, there literally were only 2 potential locations in SF you could get permitted to open one due to extreme school location distance requirements, driven partially by the Chinese bloc. [https://www.sfexaminer.com/the_fs/forum/conservative-chinese...]
Even now, there are only ~42. [https://sfstandard.com/arts-culture/cannabis-lounge-map-mari...]
That is a ludicrously low number for a city of San Francisco's size, even if you don't know the history of San Francisco as one of the counter culture/weed cultures epicenters.
Of course, during this entire time it was still easy to find weed - just not legally. There is a huge underground market that never stopped. And regardless of legality, there were no meaningful penalties except from the Feds (who have gotten a cold shoulder from SF for a VERY long time), as the local Police stopped enforcing anti-Marijuana rules consistently sometime in the 70s.
California overall (and the US) is becoming more and more like San Francisco. It's like a cancer, as lack of belief in social institutions or a coherent social identity trends towards 'snitches get stitches' and 'fuck you, I got mine', which just enables predators.