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Am I the only one who does NOT feel unsafe in SF at all ? I mean, I choose not to walk in TL and SOMA at night. But why would anyone feel unsafe in North Beach,
by dmode 3y ago
Am I the only one who does NOT feel unsafe in SF at all ? I mean, I choose not to walk in TL and SOMA at night. But why would anyone feel unsafe in North Beach, Marina, Russian Hill, Richmond, Sunset, GG park, Lower Haight, Valencia etc. I have spent many nights walking in Valencia and took Uber home at 2am. Doesn't feel remotely unsafe.
- Insanity 3y agoDepends on what your baseline is though. You are perhaps feeling safe because you're used to SF.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoYeah, I agree with this. Visiting SF from other American cities that have nothing like the scale of its problems...is jarring. I'm sure you can get used to it. Also, we should differentiate between the feeling of comfort / safety (which is what most people care about), and actual crime statistics (which are themselves fraught, I don't think people in SF even report car break-ins these days since the police and justice systems don't work any more).
- thethethethe 3y agoPeople absolutely report car break ins because they want insurance payouts, people just don't expect the police to do anything about it.
- el_benhameen 3y agoI don’t live in SF, but I live nearby and take my kids there for outings pretty frequently. The news reports and anecdotes have made me a little wary of these outings, but our actual experiences never have. I don’t doubt that others have very different, equally valid experiences of the city, and I do hate to see the abject misery that’s on full display in some neighborhoods. But I’ve never felt unsafe there in the 30+ years I’ve been exploring the city, including while walking at night with little kids.
- acchow 3y agoI imagine SF feels probably fine coming from another American city. But if you moved here from Seoul, it would be terrifying
- kylestlb 3y agoI'd wager this is the case for most American cities if you are coming here from Seoul
- pb7 3y agoYou're probably right. Similarly, the tolerated racism in South Korea would also be terrifying to people here.
- dmode 3y ago100% agree with you. Asian cities feel much much safer. But there is a lot more context and history behind why it is.
- gcheong 3y agoInterestingly, during my one bar night out in Seoul on an overnight visit to change visas for Japan, some dude started a fight with someone and tried to grab a knife sitting on a table while being escorted out. The people around me didn't seem particularly horrified by that spectacle though. I lived in Tokyo for 6 years, SF feels fine coming from there.
- ng12 3y agoWas it in Itaewon?
- emodendroket 3y agoAmerican cities are more violent, yes. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to pin that on San Francisco politicians, which usually seems to be the endgame with these warnings about how dangerous it is.
- mikysco 3y agoI grew up in "safe suburbs" and moved here 5 years ago. Saw a lot of sad changes with COVID... but in terms of safety, I'm 100% with you. On rare occasion, I'll cross a street if an individual is behaving particularly weirdly but I've never witnessed/experienced a "random act of violence". Broadly speaking, SF is safe from violent crime unless you're looking for trouble. I'm sure parents with young children or elderly have a different experience but that's not different for any other larger US city. With this said, the topic of the city turning a blind eye to property crime and "extreme", visible destitution is a whole different story.
- zenkat 3y agoI've lived in SF for almost 30 years. I agree 100%. Sure, there's a lot more sad/ugly homelessness in the post-covid era. The shantytowns out by Candlestick are depressing. The Tenderloin continues to be a mess. But do I feel less safe? Absolutely not! The neighborhoods (where most people live) are just fine. I regularly walk home from the bars at midnight without a care. It's simply not a problem. Compare back to the mid-90's, when there was active gun/gang violence in the Mission corridor ... quite frankly, I feel far safer today than I used to.
- selfmodruntime 3y agoSo you only feel safe because you have the means / are affluent enough to avoid crime ridden areas? That‘s not entirely fair.
- lantry 3y agoThanks for calling out privilege, but I think we should assume good faith. I don't think they were trying to say that everything is good, they're just saying the narrative isn't as simple as the media is making it look.
- ng12 3y agoDepends on what media you're reading I suppose. Quite a lot of it paints SF is a city of haves and have-nots which fits nicely into the above poster's experience.
- soundsabout 3y agoI've lived in a lot of places with, in many states, in many countries, all with different population densities and economic diversity... and that statement holds true for all of them. One of these days the sheer weight and remaining shelter of class consciousness will break through the cognitive dissonance. One of these days.
- selfmodruntime 3y ago
- zenlikethat 3y agoNo, you're not the only one. While I don't like the depressing level of homelessness, mental illness, and drug addiction, I generally haven't felt nearly as unsafe as people always play up. If there's a volatile situation around, GTFO, and don't walk in dark neighborhoods at night, de-escalate, that kind of thing helps a lot of course. Also, why do we never factor gun violence into these conversations about safety? In SF there are relatively few people walking around strapped. I looked it up, and in my hometown of Louisville, KY (which is no Detroit or Baltimore), there were about 130 gun injuries/deaths per 100k in a recent year -- in SF, about 30! Which is worse, getting shot, or avoiding poop on the sidewalk? But also, for what it's worth, I'm a reasonably tall white guy. I think that affects how many unsafe situations I'm likely to encounter A LOT.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoI don't know where you got your gun injuries / death stats, but there are two things to be careful of here: 1) substitution effects. As a hypothetical example, we could have one city that has 30 gun murders per 100k and another that has 130 per 100k, but both have the same murder rate (because you can murder with things other than guns). IMHO the important rate is the murder rate, and how much of it is with guns vs. other stuff is an aside. 2) Make sure your numbers don't include suicides. If they include suicides, they're not informative.
- lelanthran 3y ago> there were about 130 gun injuries/deaths per 100k in a recent year -- in SF, about 30! Which is worse, getting shot, or avoiding poop on the sidewalk San Francisco is number 23 for violent crime in the list of cities on wikipedia. Your options are not "get shot in another city Vs avoiding poop on the sidewalk in San Francisco", it's "don't get hurt or killed in the average city Vs get hurt or killed in San Francisco". You're equivocating "lack of gun crime" to safety, which is as incorrect as you can get while still misleading the audience
- mlyle 3y ago> San Francisco is number 23 for violent crime in the list of cities on wikipedia. No. It's number 37. It's number 23 with the default sort, which is alphabetical order. (California is early in the alphabet). It's number 66 when you sort by homicides per 100k.
- mochomocha 3y agoI've also lived in San Francisco for many years, in different neighborhoods. Now with my family including 2 young kids. The usual media narrative around SF is also very foreign to me and doesn't match my personal experience. Living in SoMa has very little in common with living anywhere west of Twin Peaks. Therefore the need to rely on data to find more objectivity when debating public policies. Yes data can be twisted and most of the time is poorly reported and interpreted by people, but it's better than relying on personal anecdotes.
- blue_dragon 3y agoI wouldn't walk in Valencia late at night. It's not a safe area. As evidence, a Twitter employee was shot and killed there in 2020; he was caught in the crossfire of a shootout. > Brousseau was walking home from Dolores Park at 8:22 p.m. Friday when 50 to 60 shots were fired at the intersection of Rosa Parks Lane and Guerrero Street, according to San Francisco police. The gunfire left him critically wounded and caused non-life-threatening injuries to an 18-year-old victim https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Twitter-employee-transit-advocate-dies-after-15248295.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Twitter-employee-t... And if you'd rather have the tl;dr version: https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/22-Year-Old-Suffers-Critical-Injuries-In-Weekend-15246629.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/22-Year-Old-Suff... Rosa Parks Lane & Guerrero Street is one block away from Valencia Street. I used to live in the area around the same time. I walked Guerrero frequently to go grocery shopping and get to my gym, usually between 7:00pm and 10:00pm. That easily could have been me. Needless to say I don't live there anymore.
- confidantlake 3y agoFor real. Avoid tenderloin and SOMA and everything else is fine.
- hnav 3y agoIn other words avoid density and transit. Best way to avoid bs in one of the densest cities in the US is to hang in the burbs.
- confidantlake 3y agoThe tenderloin is a tiny part of the city that is easily avoided. Plenty of dense places that are nice too.
- hnav 3y agoI would disagree. I walk, drive and ride all over SF, including TL/SOMA because I'm not too squeamish and it's on the way between a lot of pairs of destinations. I can tell you that if you took these 3 maps and overlaid them you'd have an SF sketchiness map. Flat-land -> easy walking, access for transients Transit -> access for transients Zoned for density -> lower civic engagement, more likely to end up losing out and getting navigation centers and needle exchanges. https://sites.google.com/site/sloanestopolesson/_/rsrc/1444924390991/day-1/map-b/3d%20topo%20sf%20Letters.png https://sites.google.com/site/sloanestopolesson/_/rsrc/14449... https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/imumv8YZu7uA/v0/1200x-1.jpg https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/imumv8YZu7u... https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5eaf1365b8d39c82c3777a8b/5eb96fbc9385fd3c92f97f47_image1.png https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5eaf1365b8d39c82c3777a8b/5eb...
- confidantlake 3y agoWhich part do you disagree with? That it is not the only dense area or that it is easily avoided? Cool maps btw.
- sagarm 3y agoMost of the property crime seems to involve people in cars. In addition, drivers killed 50 people in San Francisco last year, mostly pedestrians. There were 55 homicides in the last year -- to be clear that 105 killings last year, about 50% by drivers.
- asdfman123 3y agoMaybe if you live there. I'm very comfortable with cities, but as a visitor to SF seeing someone break into a vehicle on a busy street, 8 pm on a Saturday night is pretty bad. That sort of crime matters too.
- mustacheemperor 3y agoI wouldn't walk alone in the TL or SOMA at night, but if you skip those neighborhoods entirely after 5pm you're going to miss some of the best bars and venues in the city! Black Cat, Emperor Norton's, Zombie Village, Bar 888, Tempest, the EndUp...Maybe one reason the "SF is a hellhole" crowd are so negative about this town are because they shut themselves out of so many great places!
- twelve40 3y agoyeah you can drink and party for a few years but then the filth, the misery, and in many cases the idiocy of this city starts to wear one down. I've been working in the city for decades but now I'm just fed up and disillusioned. I can't help these people and this misery will not stop, and no amount of drinks at the tempest will change that.
- CTmystery 3y agoMy mailman quit because he was robbed at gunpoint two blocks from my house, in broad daylight, in one of the neighborhoods you mention. https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/mail-carrier-robbed-at-gunpoint-by-woman-near-ocean-beach/ https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/mail-carrier-robbed-... I don't understand why it has to be "SF is perfectly safe" or "SF is a dystopian hellhole". Why not pick a middle ground?
- pb7 3y agoNowhere on the planet is "perfectly safe" so no one is saying about that SF. Positive sentiment is probably in the middle ground you're asking for, whereas negative sentiment literally uses "dystopian hellhole".
- wsatb 3y agoWelcome to our world in Chicago, where we have been living in a hellhole for about a decade. There is a lot more violent crime here than SF but it is almost all in small pockets of the city. This is simply a narrative that certain people are trying to portray to prove that certain policy doesn’t work. It’s nonsense.