San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

Progressives claimed they knew how to solve the homelessness crisis, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, from San Francisco to Seattle, progressives made those problems worse.

Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison. But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the public policy failures.

What he discovered shocked him. The problems had grown worse not despite but because of progressive policies. San Francisco and other West Coast cities — Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland — had gone beyond merely tolerating homelessness, drug dealing, and crime to actively enabling them.

San Fransicko reveals that the underlying problem isn’t a lack of housing or money for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that designates some people, by identity or experience, as victims entitled to destructive behaviors. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities, and civilization itself, possible.

This unflinching investigation confronts the root causes of urban decay head-on, revealing:

• The Failure of Housing First: Why spending billions more on housing—without addressing the underlying issues of addiction and mental illness—has failed to solve the problem in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
• The Ideology of Victimhood: An exploration of how a well-intentioned focus on social justice has led to policies that enable self-destructive behavior and erode the civic values that make city life possible.
• The Truth About Crime and Drugs: How the decriminalization of hard drugs and the refusal to prosecute quality-of-life crimes have contributed to open-air drug markets and a shocking decline in public order.
• A Path Forward: A pragmatic, evidence-based plan for restoring accountability, compassionate care, and functional cities by moving beyond the failed progressive policies of the past.