San Fransicko

The nation's best-selling author of "Apocalypse Never" criticizes Progressives for their mismanagement of America's struggling cities.

Progressives claim to know how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. Yet in the cities they control, Progressives have exacerbated these issues.

Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During this time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to prison sentences. However, as homeless encampments spread and overdose deaths surged, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the problem.

What he discovered shocked him. The problems had intensified not despite, but because of progressive policies. San Francisco and other West Coast cities—Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland—had not only tolerated homelessness, drug trafficking, and crime but actively promoted them.

San Francisco demonstrates that the underlying issue is not a lack of housing or funding for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that labels some individuals as victims based on their identity or experience, granting them a right to destructive behavior. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities and civilization itself possible.