Comment by briandear

Comparing San Francisco to similarly sized Marseille; I would suggest that Europe doesn’t necessarily have to answers either. I lived near Avignon and half of the storefronts in that town are boarded up. You’ll find a similar story across much of France. Paris, Marseille and Lyon suburbs often look like war zones and while the US has some similar areas, there are still plenty of places that don’t. Those that like to compare Europe to the US often look at the capital cities such as Paris as examples, but fail to look beyond the surface. France has considerable decay and economic malaise. Two of my kids were born in France and while it’s a nice place, the opportunity there doesn’t even come close to the US.