San Francisco: Where Progress Meets Distrust
From TrustTalk - It's all about Trust by Severin de Wit
May 6, 2026 · 24 min · Episode 135
About this episode
The episode explores the paradox of trust in San Francisco, a city with a progressive majority yet marked by significant distrust among its residents.
We tend to think of trust as something that grows where people agree. Where neighbors share values, where voters share a party, where a city sees itself as forward-looking and inclusive. The more common ground, the more trust. That, at least, is the intuition. San Francisco complicates that picture. Eighty per cent of voters belong to the same party. Almost everyone calls themselves progressive. The city is wealthy, diverse, and proud of both. And yet, by one well-known measure, it is also among the least trusting cities in the United States. The deepest political conflicts are no longer between left and right. They run between people who all believe they are on the same side. Our guest today has spent years thinking about why. She grew up in a modest stucco house beneath Sutro Tower, watched her neighborhood empty out in what was later named "white flight", and went on to become a political theorist. Her current book project asks the mirror image of the famous question Thomas Frank posed about Kansas. Not what is the matter with the American right, but what is the matter with the American left, and what San Francisco, as its laboratory, reveals about the limits of progressive…
People in this episode
Host: Severin de Wit
Guest: unknown
Topics covered
- trust
- politics
- progressivism
- distrust
- San Francisco
- community
- solidarism
Keywords
- trust
- distrust
- San Francisco
- political theory
- progressive politics
- solidarism
- community conflict
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: American left, American right
Places: San Francisco, Kansas, Sutro Tower
More episodes of TrustTalk - It's all about Trust
- Why Trust Matters · June 3, 2026 · 30 min
- The Trust We Assume, the Consent We Feel · May 19, 2026 · 22 min
- Trust Me, I'm Emotional · April 23, 2026 · 20 min
- Why Wikipedia Runs on Trust · April 8, 2026 · 20 min
- Leading with Trust · March 26, 2026 · 24 min
- When We Only Trust People Like Us · March 4, 2026 · 27 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the TrustTalk - It's all about Trust podcast page.