Nashville gets a lot colder in the winter, which, over a few cold winters, solves this problem. Also, using drugs by daylight Or breaking into a car right under a running security camera in Nashville will get you arrested. In San Francisco, nothing will happen to you
no ... not even in terms of all the money they spend on social programs that further attracts that element vs. focusing their efforts on enforcing law/cleaning up the city. Also and way more importantly making sure every adult man and woman has a job that sustains them and allows them to contribute to society.
Scarcity: because SF is a tiny peninsula where housing growth requires vertical growth, and housing (and associated cost rises) are at the root of so much of this. Also some of the other reasons people said, but probably mostly that. I don't know anything about Nashville, though.
Note that the article also doesn't discuss the trade-offs we routinely see when many of the policies it opposes aren't in place: higher (very expensive) incarceration rates, higher disease rates resulting in higher public health costs, etc.
Also note that as is so often the case, SF is still stuck in a middle ground between policies many believe (based on evidence elsewhere) will really work and save money on balance -- like housing and caring for people -- and the center/right's preferred solution of shoving everyone into expensive prisons as I mentioned above. Few people advocating comprehensive public health and treatment policies think the status quo is anywhere near enough; it's simply all politics is allowing them to do at present.
