It's a product of seeing our beautiful city backslide so, so much in the past two years (in terms of violent crime) and 10+ years in terms of the housing crisis. Nothing was ever done by elected officials to substantively improve the housing crisis so many of us have lost faith in our government being the solution for the violence either. Unfettered capitalism created the problem and our government failed to address it, so both major political parties helped create this mess. This isn't intended to be 'both sides' rhetoric, moreso that no party or major politician accurately reflects the priorities of people my age (<30).

We see the city actively becoming worse and nobody trying hard enough to solve those problems or even acknowledge the severity of those problems. I do try to stay positive and contribute to my community where I can, but the pessimism is well-earned.