Posted on 04/24/2016 6:44:57 PM PDT by reaganaut1
SAN FRANCISCO — From her apartment at the foot of the celebrated zigzags of Lombard Street, Judith Calson has twice peered out her window as thieves smashed their way into cars and snatched whatever they could. She has seen foreign tourists cry after cash and passports were stolen. She shudders when she recounts the story of the Thai tourist who was shot because he resisted thieves taking his camera.
And that is her tally from the last year alone.
“I never thought of this area as a high-crime neighborhood,” Ms. Calson, a retired photographer, said of this leafy part of the city, where tourists flock to view the steeply sloped, crooked street adorned with flower beds.
San Francisco, America’s boom town, is flooded with the cash of well-paid technology workers and record numbers of tourists. At the same time, the city has seen a sharp jump in property crime, up more than 60 percent since 2010, though the actual increase may be higher because many of the crimes go unreported.
Recent data from the F.B.I. show that San Francisco has the highest per-capita property crime rate of the nation’s top 50 cities. About half the cases here are thefts from vehicles, smash-and-grabs that scatter glittering broken glass onto the sidewalks.
The city, known for a political tradition of empathy for the downtrodden, is now divided over whether to respond with more muscular law enforcement or stick to its forgiving attitudes.
...
On the other side is David Campos, a supervisor who opposes the increase in police officers and describes Mr. Wiener’s views as “a very knee-jerk kind of punitive approach that is ineffective and inconsistent with the values of San Francisco.”
Mr. Campos and many others evoke the charitable spirit of the city’s namesake, St. Francis.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Being a happy W7 user on the Chrome Browser I have no interest to go to Edge, nor W10.
On Chrome using the free ad blocking desktop apps, I forget that there were things such as ads popping up all over the place at one time. Same with the use of Firefox. I just prefer Chrome...even with the insane leftist slant of Google. Just can't get away from it with any of the tech companies these days.
Know what’s crazy?
Most Italians left the city by the late 70’s and moved into the suburbs around SF.
This accelerated the decline of SF, but it boosted the surrounding communities.
Foster City, Brisbane and Millbrae all have big Italian demographics now and did not before the 1960s.
Yep. Bakersfield has become a shooting gallery in the last year. It seems like every single day there is news of a shooting. Burglaries are everywhere. Doesn’t matter what neighborhood now. Gated communities are even being hit.
I watch the news everyday and just shake my head.
In the San Francisco of when I was a kid, everyone dressed nicely. Men wore suits, women wore nice dresses, hats and gloves. What is there today bears no resemblance of the great city SF once was.
When an 800 square foot converted garage goes for a million bucks, it amazes me how many homeless bums live there.
I figure they’d all cross the bridge into Oakland.
BTTT
That will never happen because:
1. Despite some drawbacks, San Francisco is in a very nice location.
2. San Francisco is not dependent on one major industry that might leave town.
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