To some extent, he’s right. I’m in S.F. and crime, drugs, street people are a terrible problem. However, due to the demographics of its residents, S.F. is certainly safer than many if not most other large U.S. cities. You’re far less likely to be the victim of violent crime in S.F. than in many other U.S. cities such as St Louis, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Philly, Atlanta, Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans and numerous others.
On threat levels...yeah, on a 1-to-10 scale...I’d probably only assign a ‘3’ to SF against Memphis (’8’) or Baltimore (’9’).
My question...for the past decline, this SF decline gone on without any hinderances. The trend should continue for the next decade as well. If hotels/shopping don’t return to the downtown area, the city will go begging to the state for revenue sharing. Can the city survive in this decline?
If you asked me about tourism potential...it’s like Portland and Seattle...why would I go? Even for NYC, I’d have to continually be worried about robbery or stepping to some crap, or having some drug-binge guy in front of me.
He’s right about the “narrative part”, sure. The undeniable truth is though, San Francisco has a very serious crime problem due to mismanagement. They can try to handwave it away, but at some point self-preservation kicks in, even with a looney tunes leftist. He’s trying to manage perceptions.
Because even the mere perception that an area is unsafe is more than enough to kill a business district. Permanently. It starts a negative feedback loop of sorts. Revenue declines. Businesses close. Policing goes away, and “nobody goes there”, and not because it’s too crowded. Nobody will relocate there or start a new business. Old school ward Democrats understood this, and they knew better than to allow thousands of bums to camp out in their tony districts and shit on the sidewalks.
One of the South American presidents recently remarked that they must be doing all this on purpose, because nothing else fits.
Been going to the by area nearly 30 years now, 30 years ago, as long as you avoided certain problem areas, like any big city, it was a lovely place to visit if you knew what you were doing. I even lived in the South Bay for a little over a year in 2000/2001.
However even back then, it stood in stark contrast to many other major cities. The permissiveness of homelessness and drugs petty crime was ridiculous. Urine smell was a common assault on your nose, and being harassed by junkies/beggars was and almost constant. The other difference, was just how stark the dividing lines were between nicer/safe area and a less than safe area. The city really didn’t have a gradual transition where you worked from a nice block down to a bad one, with several blocks where they declined in between.. it was just night and day. One block upscale, clean, we’ll kept, next block complete decay.
Today, not a chance in hell I would go there for a “vacation”, while being accosted by junkies and the mentally I’ll may not be a “violent” crime it sure as hell isn’t what I need to deal with or subject my family to. Walking around junkies and human excrement is not anything I need or consider a vacation.
It’s a shame what the left has done to Americas great urban centers. There was some signs of hope when they voted to kick out the school board… maybe if the Asians got a serious about good governance as they are about academics they can help change the trajectory of the city.
How’s the shopping in Union Square these days?
You’re far less likely to be the victim of violent crime in S.F.
Give it a rest already. San Francisco is the Bud Lite of cities.
I took my mother to see River Dance in San Francisco in 1998. Wonderful show. When leaving the theater after it was over, we had to walk past people sprawled out on the pavement in the theater entrance, and all down the sidewalk, on the way to the parking lot.
In 1998, I vowed never again to be in downtown San Francisco after dark.