When I interned in San Francisco in 2012, living on Harrison St between 3rd and 4th streets, the auto break-ins were so bad and happened so regularly that every

When I interned in San Francisco in 2012, living on Harrison St between 3rd and 4th streets, the auto break-ins were so bad and happened so regularly that every single Friday and Saturday night if I passed someone getting out of their car as they parked on my street, I'd slow down and try to tell them that every single car on our street would have it's windows broken and anything in sight stolen by the time they got back from the club at 2 or 3. And every Sunday and Monday morning I'd see the piles of broken glass on the street where each car had been parked. I think it would have been better if that broken glass hadn't been swept away, so that people parking there the next week might have noticed and decided to park elsewhere. And multiple times I saw groups of people crying outside of their car after returning to find their purses and laptops stolen, I saw multiple people have their work and lives thrown into chaos. Thesis papers lost or possessions they couldn't afford to replace gone. And yet I never saw a single police officer on my street, ever. I often thought about how fun it would be to get a paintball gun with a scope and camp out on a roof some night, knowing that there'd be someone who I could reap some karma with. Oh and we also had a homeless guy who literally slept on our buildings doorstep. So there were mornings where we literally had to step _over_ him to get outside. May have been a factor in my decision to not move there after graduating. Now I live in NYC where I can live in a working class neighborhood with project buildings scattered all around Brooklyn, and yet I don't ever notice any auto break-ins. And you see NYPD everywhere.