To the Editor:
Regarding Nicholas Kristof’s “What have we liberals done to the West Coast?” (June 16 column):
Originally from Georgia, having lived in California for over 20 years, I was proud to have returned to my hometown with a more enlightened and progressive view of the world. But at a recent high school reunion, I was met with a furious response to my state’s liberal policies (“So people go into the store and theft “Can things just go on in San Francisco without any repercussions?”
Kristof’s column makes clear that West Coast liberals are damaging some of the causes they are meant to champion. I hope that blue-state leaders in the West — from governors to city councils to school boards — will recalibrate their policies to practical, common-sense legislation that embodies the spirit of the Democratic Party without the insanity.
We all need to demand better oversight and outcomes, not just well-intentioned promises.
Susan George
Mill Valley, California
To the Editor:
Nicholas Kristof’s recent criticism misses the point. He should spend more time in Portland, Oregon, where results-driven people are effectively tackling the homelessness and behavioral health crises on the streets every day. In response to a national crisis, Portland is blending pragmatism with progressive values ​​to implement effective solutions to tough problems.
Thanks to these collaborative efforts, innovative policies, and strong partnerships, crime rates downtown are down 43 percent from last year. More than 5,000 people have moved into housing in the Portland area. This is not a matter of ideological purity, but clear, demonstrable progress.
While there is still much work to be done, these results demonstrate our city’s ability to address complex social issues in pragmatic ways without abandoning our values. You might call it “West Coast liberalism,” but in Portland we call it devising effective new solutions to intractable problems.
Ted Wheeler
Portland, Oregon
The author is the Mayor of Portland.
To the Editor:
Nicholas Kristof deserves credit for taking a hard look at his own party; his essay is a precise and necessary analysis of a West Coast policy that values ​​ideological purity over practical, effective solutions.
Kristof does an excellent job contrasting East Coast and West Coast liberal policies. And what he finds, perhaps disappointingly for some progressive purists, is that having both major parties have a degree of influence in the debates and sausage-making (as on the East Coast) leads to positive, measurable results for voters. The tension between opposing polar opposites seems to help find compromises that provide the greatest benefit to citizens.
We live in a dangerous and often ineffective political climate, with both sides more interested in winning social media skirmishes than actually enacting fair and practical laws. Amid these political failures, Kristof points out there is reason for hope.
Pacific coastal states have had the maturity to recognize their shortcomings and are correcting them: As Kristof points out, Oregon has ended its disastrous drug decriminalization effort, California and Oregon are in the process of increasing housing supply, and San Francisco is seeing a decline in murders.
Let’s hope that this brutal honesty continues and helps advance policies and laws that create safe, healthy, and sustainable cities and states for our people.
Matt Tanguay
Ann Arbor, Michigan
To the Editor:
I read Nicholas Kristof’s column with interest and dismay. Kristof discusses some important issues, but blames them on liberalism when the root causes of these problems are clearly the illiberal free-market approach favored by those whose motto is “starve the beast.”
Kristof is right to say that the root cause of homelessness on the West Coast is a massive housing shortage, but to blame West Coast liberalism misunderstands the cause.
California’s homelessness problem and severe housing shortage are largely due to 1) cuts in federal subsidies for housing beginning with President Ronald Reagan, and 2) subsidies for existing homeowners with Proposition 13. Proposition 13 reduces home sales by capping property tax increases and penalizes new home buyers by reassessing property taxes at current market value when properties are bought and sold.
The destruction of public education, mental health services, and other government services also began during the Reagan years and was accelerated by the massive reduction in property tax revenues caused by Proposition 13.
Jim Fox
Palo Alto, California
To the Editor:
As a fellow West Coast native, I believe Nicholas Kristof’s analysis that Democrats are failing to address our state’s significant and long-standing challenges is well-founded: A recent survey found that 34 percent of households in the state do not earn enough to meet their basic needs.
Considering California has the fifth largest economy in the world, this high percentage of struggling households is not only troubling, but unacceptable. After all, Democrats have controlled the California Legislature for almost the entirety of the last 50 years. There’s nothing to stop them from enacting the transformative policies they campaigned on. And yet… 34 percent.
Kristof noted that a healthier Republican Party could lead to more competitive politics and pressure Democrats to deliver on their promises, but with partisan polarization on the rise, an increasingly conservative Republican party may struggle to gain significant support in a famously liberal state.
So instead of hoping that a two-party system will naturally moderate, Californians should do what we do best: innovate: a multi-party system that would do a much better job of representing our state’s diverse communities and serving their critical needs.
If we want more parties, we should start looking at electoral reforms like proportional representation as a promising structural solution to the problems of our democracy’s outdated and unrepresentative two-party system.
Caledon Myers
Grass Valley, California
The author is executive director of the ProRep Coalition.
To the Editor:
Nicholas Kristof misses the main reason why there is more homelessness on the West Coast than on the East Coast: As someone who has lived on both coasts, I can tell you that the reason the West Coast is more attractive to the homeless is not politics or a lack of housing, but the weather.
John Davison
new york
