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.
“why would I go?”
Despite everything that’s gone wrong in S.F. (and, believe me, I’ve never seen things as bad as they are now, particularly in the downtown-Market Street corridor), I do understand why some tourists still come. There’s the bay, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, the hills, the crooked section of Lombard Street, Golden Gate Park, the ocean, the museums... It’s like a big Disneyland... if perhaps 1/3 of Disneyland reeked of weed and homeless people.
I think you might have hit on a vacation gimmick that would lure people to the home of the original sidewalk steamer...”Crime Tours”! If one city can have tours of what it’s like to be indigent another could have tours to experience robbery and assault for those who are curious. it could work.