“San Francisco has definitely become third-world.” The problem with saying that is that 93% of the people who live here have no idea what the third world is.
San Francisco has 850,000 residents. Of this 50,000 came here after living in a third-world country (Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, Philippines, India etc.) Possibly 5,000 San Franciscans have visited a third-world country (not just a coastal resort in Mexico.)
I’ve spent weeks and months in all parts of India, West Africa, including Senegal, Mali and Cameroon. I’ve also spent weeks in Cuba, Guatemala, Laos, Malaysia and many other genuine third-world countries.
I know what the term ‘third-world' means.
It means I regularly see human waste on the sidewalks including poop and vomit (and discarded IV needles.) Every corner smells like pee. When shabbily dressed people walk into Peet’s coffee shop, the smell drives me out. Graffiti is everywhere. People on the street stop to beg if I am eating outside. Small temporary squalid living quarters are regularly popping up on the sidewalk. Beggars are lying around on sidewalks nearly everywhere that there is sidewalk traffic. Streets are rarely repaired and driving around San Francisco is like driving on an unpaved mountain road. Deranged people are screaming and yelling in shopping areas.
That is San Francisco today; it is not the City I have lived in for most of my life. It is city life I see in third-world countries. The situation here gets worse every year.