That's interesting, and true. In the early 80s, the middle class abandonment of cities running at full throttle. New York and San Francisco had enough of an u

That's interesting, and true. In the early 80s, the middle class abandonment of cities running at full throttle. New York and San Francisco had enough of an urban core to retain some of their middle class, but yeah, a lot of people left. This was the era of dirty harry movies, where people felt it was all kind of coming apart, that cities were sinking ships, and that you might want to get out while you can. It started turning around in the 90s, culturally (I remember commentaries on shows like "Friends", that an urban ideal was emerging, at least among young adults). This wasn't a brand new thing by any means, but preferring an urban environment started to make its way back into the mainstream again. And now, interestingly, it's full throttle once again, but this time, it's people trying to cram into cities rather than fleeing them. Rather than talking about "getting out" of SF, people talk about being "priced out" of San Francisco and NY and regrettably feeling forced to move to the suburbs. I'm not sure how much of this is really sincere - I live south of 280 in SF, and a lot of people who say they were priced out would turn their nose up at my neighborhood. But still, I don't think this kind of talk was as common in the early 80s. On another note - I felt New York was worse than SF, in terms of blight, in the early 90s when I lived there. Growing up in SF had certainly prepared me for the homelessness and aggressive panhandling, but it was heavier in NY. This may of course just reflect the neighborhoods I was in, but in NY, people asking for chance would follow me for blocks, negotiating (do you have subway tokens? I take subway tokens!) I was frequently approached for spare change in bars and restaurants (once, I dropped some money while paying for my coffee, a homeless man in NY jumped up to collect it for me, then held onto it as he entered negotiations for how much he would keep - possession being 9/10ths of the law, I guess). I went back to NY recently, after 20 years away, and my perception is that you're experience far less of this sort of thing in NY than SF now. Certainly, there were still homeless people in NY, but the aggression I'd experienced earlier really wasn't nearly as notable. In SF, I'd say it's gotten steadily heavier, more aggressive. Not sure why.