It's hard to get the scale of these things as it's always the extreme cases that get the spotlight. What's the % of San Francisco that's a terrifying hell-hole? If I were to be teleported to a random street in SF, what are the odds that I would immediately be fearful for my well-being? There's about 38,000 homeless on any given night: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/...king-whats-not
My experience is that it's somewhat everwhere but the truly scary areas are concentrated (e.g. The Tenderloin). It's a city that you should familiarize yourself with to understand what is safe and what isn't, before you go.
That all being said, when I went there I loved it.
Sure, but people aren’t not-going downtown because of crime. It’s an issue for sure, but it’s also a completely sensationalized issue. Even the post above calling SF a “####hole” (especially in 2019 lol) is just more of the same over dramatic nonsense.
This has for some reason become a left vs. right political thing.
The right tries to paint SF as a zombie apocalypse as proof that their progressive policies have failed. The left points to all the hyperbole in those arguments to prove it's not bad.
I'm a card carrying socialist hippie that has also spent about a month per year in SF over the bulk of the past decade.
It's gone to ####. It's not a political thing. It's a human tragedy.
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This has for some reason become a left vs. right political thing.
The right tries to paint SF as a zombie apocalypse as proof that their progressive policies have failed. The left points to all the hyperbole in those arguments to prove it's not bad.
I'm a card carrying socialist hippie that has also spent about a month per year in SF over the bulk of the past decade.
It's gone to ####. It's not a political thing. It's a human tragedy.
I don’t have any clue about the right vs left angle.
But as someone who has actually lived in the Bay Area and still has a bunch of family and friends there I speak to regularly, I’m not talking out of my ass. It’s cool you visited, it’s cool people read articles, but it’s hardly a whole picture.
People want to pin it on one thing, it’s not. Yeah, there are issues, as I said, but it’s also overblown in a lot of senses and the constant doom and gloom put out by the media is actually making some of the problems worse.
You tell people something is dangerous and they’ll stop doing that thing, even if the level of actual danger doesn’t warrant that reaction. Perception outweighs reality in this case.
My experience is that it's somewhat everwhere but the truly scary areas are concentrated (e.g. The Tenderloin). It's a city that you should familiarize yourself with to understand what is safe and what isn't, before you go.
That all being said, when I went there I loved it.
I went to New Orleans for a work conference and let me tell you how that is simultaneously awesome and a complete ####hole where you'll 100% get mugged of you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. A guy got the absolutely poop kicked out of him after trying to walk back to the hotel at 2am from Bourbon Street dressed in a suit
My experience is that it's somewhat everwhere but the truly scary areas are concentrated (e.g. The Tenderloin). It's a city that you should familiarize yourself with to understand what is safe and what isn't, before you go.
That all being said, when I went there I loved it.
I accidentally wandered through the Tenderloin this year walking to a restaurant. I and a few other locals just held our heads high and kept a consistent and brisk pace through it. Maybe I should have been more scared, but I wasn't at the time. My wife was scared AF. I told her to relax and move steadily to avoid bringing attention to herself. I think staying chill helped her stay chill. Personally, I saw cops, medics and sanitation workers as we walked through which was probably why I thought it was fine to be calm. It was a long 11 minutes. The restaurant was ####. Instagram misrepresented the place by a lot. Thanks Google. We took a long way around to avoid the Tenderloin on the way back.
It was awful though. Literally people ####ting and pissing on the street on the street. Awful smells when a breeze would blow through that strangely enough didn't linger. Nude people wandering around every few blocks. Hundreds and hundreds of homeless. Loud music, fights, smashed property, filth... As mentioned, it was a human tragedy. I've gone past and through tent cities and slums before. This was different. People lying on top of tarps and cardboard beside bottles, paraphernalia, filth (ie: fecal matter and other stuff), broken glass and other things. Property damage everywhere, occasional fights. People lying on the ground with nothing above them to cover them if it were to rain.
It was denser and dirtier than what you'd see at East Hastings.
What was also bizarre was that you had groups clustered shoulder to shoulder at some specific location. I assume some of it was social services? Or specific groups banding together to protect themselves from other groups? I'm not sure. I don't know if I'd call it post apocalyptic as I've seen some people describe, but it certainly was reminiscent of people wandering the streets after a disaster in movies, but less constant dramatic screaming and wailing than a movie. I don't know if a partial clean up had already occurred, but there weren't really any tents and tarp structures on the streets.
The surrounding areas in SF were fine and I enjoyed my time there. But it was quite jarring to see the disparity. It's one thing to see some of the unfortunate in the Union Square area. It's the typical, "Ah, the world's gone to #### for some people" type of thing. It's another to accidentally wander through the Tenderloin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
I went to New Orleans for a work conference and let me tell you how that is simultaneously awesome and a complete ####hole where you'll 100% get mugged of you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. A guy got the absolutely poop kicked out of him after trying to walk back to the hotel at 2am from Bourbon Street dressed in a suit
I wanna see New Orleans one day. I'll have to keep this in mind. I shouldn't tempt fate too often.
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New Orleans is simultaneously awesome and $hitty. The music and culture are wonderful but the city is filthy. Best time is during French Quarter Festival; all the music of Mardi Gras without the debauchery. San Francisco is awesome with so much culture, great food, sounds and sights.
I wandered around New Orleans after a, less than responsible, member of our travel party suggested we check out a great jazz bar that turned out to be in a less than reputable area. The jazz bar no longer existed as a jazz bar. It was a bar for strictly locals now. They had monitors in the bar showing the entrance of the bar, so people could rush out if their was trouble.
I had to walk out of the area, as Uber drivers wouldn't stop to pick me up. Ended up walking 10 blocks through a very sketchy area at night. It was pretty lawless. Kids were renting high school buses and just stopping them in parking lots and having street parties. A lot of the houses also had not been repaired post-flood, and people still lived in those half collapsed houses. It was a level of poverty I did not know existed in North America.
Back on topic, the overdose rate in SF is less than BC, which would suggest fewer drug addicts per capita. From what I've seen the people there are just more desperate, and, therefore, more prone to violence and crime. During daylight, you are safe anywhere in Vancouver. I would map out your route ahead of time in SF.
Sure, but people aren’t not-going downtown because of crime. It’s an issue for sure, but it’s also a completely sensationalized issue. Even the post above calling SF a “####hole” (especially in 2019 lol) is just more of the same over dramatic nonsense.
Just like suburban Calgarians who don’t go downtown for their irrational fear of the lack of parking. It’s still has consequences.
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Just like suburban Calgarians who don’t go downtown for their irrational fear of the lack of parking. It’s still has consequences.
Whether you want to call it "irrational fear", or that "perception outweighs reality", the truth is that there are real, severe consequences to inaction and telling people they're overreacting - or "irrational" - doesn't actually achieve anything.
This isn't some mom-and-pop yoga shop closing up because there are a few bums loitering around and making their customers uncomfortable; we're talking entire, formerly high-end shopping malls closing, and hotels simply walking away from their financing - billions of dollars worth of decisions being made based on this perception.
You're right - there are consequences to perception, no matter how far off base some feel they are. San Francisco is witnessing the result of "it's not that bad" and it could take decades to recover from.
I don’t have any clue about the right vs left angle.
But as someone who has actually lived in the Bay Area and still has a bunch of family and friends there I speak to regularly, I’m not talking out of my ass. It’s cool you visited, it’s cool people read articles, but it’s hardly a whole picture.
People want to pin it on one thing, it’s not. Yeah, there are issues, as I said, but it’s also overblown in a lot of senses and the constant doom and gloom put out by the media is actually making some of the problems worse.
You tell people something is dangerous and they’ll stop doing that thing, even if the level of actual danger doesn’t warrant that reaction. Perception outweighs reality in this case.
Just to be sure, "used to live in the Bay Area" puts you in a position of authority, where as "spent a month per year in the City itself up to and including last year" = scared tourist, perception outweighs reality.
Whether you want to call it "irrational fear", or that "perception outweighs reality", the truth is that there are real, severe consequences to inaction and telling people they're overreacting - or "irrational" - doesn't actually achieve anything.
This isn't some mom-and-pop yoga shop closing up because there are a few bums loitering around and making their customers uncomfortable; we're talking entire, formerly high-end shopping malls closing, and hotels simply walking away from their financing - billions of dollars worth of decisions being made based on this perception.
You're right - there are consequences to perception, no matter how far off base some feel they are. San Francisco is witnessing the result of "it's not that bad" and it could take decades to recover from.
Stop with your stats and figures based information of people no longer spending time in the core of SF or businesses closing en masse. It doesn't take into consideration they are all just scared tourists like yourself, so it doesn't count.
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The below clip is closer to what I saw when I wandered through by accident, but imagine the exact same scenes in daylight vs night time. Especially the density of people and people just lying on the ground. We walked to the other side of the street to avoid the crowds of people. I was there in May. This clip is from April.
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Just to be sure, "used to live in the Bay Area" puts you in a position of authority, where as "spent a month per year in the City itself up to and including last year" = scared tourist, perception outweighs reality.
Got it. No True Scotsman over here.
That’s not what I’m saying at all, there’s absolutely no reason to get defensive about it. You just tried to write off my view as some “left vs right” nonsense because you were there on business for a bit and I’m telling you that it doesn’t make you any more of an authority than anyone else. You don’t know what experience other people have with the city so why pretend?
I’m saying that there isn’t a “full picture” being presented. Whether you spend a month there, read a few articles, read a poll of 1500 people, watch a video, or know a couple dozen people that actually still live there, it’s not the full picture. It’s a glimpse. It’s subjective. Some things are bad. Some things are made worse because it makes for better news. That’s reality.
So, saying “well I was there for a bit so I know what it is and what it isn’t” is nonsense. You don’t.
The issues are more complex than just “crime” or just “homelessness.” And it certainly isn’t a “#### hole” just because someone spent a couple days there and didn’t like it.
Just to be sure, "used to live in the Bay Area" puts you in a position of authority, where as "spent a month per year in the City itself up to and including last year" = scared tourist, perception outweighs reality.
Got it. No True Scotsman over here.
I think I told this story a while back, my wife and I went to San Francisco about ~10ish years ago? I loved it, it was absolutely fantastic and we'd always been planning to go back.
I also have a small section of clients who specialize in currency trading for large Corporations, theres about 10 of them so obviously its not a huge sample size but all of them begged for transfers to the SF Office to live down there.
And every single one of them begged to come home in under 2 years.
And these are people whose incomes are usually touching or surpassing 7-digits. They're not slumming it.
I always tell clients to be cautious when transferring for work, lots of reasons but the general gist is 'dont sell all your Canadian belongings or home thinking everything is going to be great in the new location.'
Lots of stories about that, but thats for another thread.
The general consensus was that the high cost of living in San Francisco was no longer worth the highly deteriorated quality of life.
Essentially, part of everyday daily life involves a scary or dangerous altercation. Every. Single. Day. If you set foot out of your home its going to happen.
And it saddens me, while I've only ever been to Frisco once (<-come at me bro!) I loved it. Its a beautiful city but I think it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that its slowly sliding into hell.
And if you want my honest but only really semi-informed opinion, I think its largely due to the fact that SF and California, even America in general have been systematically destroying and devastating the middle-class.
So now you've got a population of fairly wealthy people who can afford to look the other way and do nothing and they're rubbing shoulders with people who have nothing left to lose.
They've squeezed out the normal people and the opportunities for the average citizen.
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This has for some reason become a left vs. right political thing.
The right tries to paint SF as a zombie apocalypse as proof that their progressive policies have failed. The left points to all the hyperbole in those arguments to prove it's not bad.
I'm a card carrying socialist hippie that has also spent about a month per year in SF over the bulk of the past decade.
It's gone to ####. It's not a political thing. It's a human tragedy.
Total made up, I have relatives that live there. #Fakenews. I am the authority, my view cannot be changed so I welcome you to try and change it, because I enjoy writing a thousand words in return, but I will never waiver in my view.
I am a wall that has a 10X reply word factor, so keep talking buds.
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