Are you always such an ass? You are practicing the same kind of judgment and closed-mindedness you wrongly accuse me of.
I never said anyone's perceptions were imagined. In fact, by definition, perceptions depend upon the perceiver, regardless of whether they are anchored in fact. I am saying that I don't think the *perception* that things are more dangerous now than in the 70's in necessarily based on an actual increase in crime. Given that the national crime rate has decreased for most of the last 30 years, I'd say that is a valid conclusion. Certainly, San Francisco is safer now than it was in the 1970's. That doesn't apply to every city and town, but overall that is the trend. Just because people are more aware of the crime around them and worry about it more than before doesn't mean there is more of it.
"the sense that things have gotten more dangerous since the 70’s is imagined"
I didn't accuse him of judgement and close-mindedness. I was just making the point that -- as you say, "perceptions depend on the perciever" -- and that someone born in SF after the heyday of Haight Ashbury wouldn't have the same perceptions as people born at other times, in other places.
No, I'm not always an ass, but I reserve the right to be one now and then.