For what it's worth, my sense is that the issues that SF has Chicago doesn't--homelessness, untreated mental illness--largely stem from cost of living differenc

For what it's worth, my sense is that the issues that SF has Chicago doesn't--homelessness, untreated mental illness--largely stem from cost of living differences, particularly housing prices. My experience is that Muni itself is generally OK (yes even the 8/9, 14, and 38), but that BART has gotten really bad over the past couple years. For a while Muni stopped running the (then new) hybrid buses in the Bayview because people would hit the external kill switches when the bus was stopped. There are a couple of California-specific and SF-specific issues at play as well. SFPD simply doesn't ride Muni, although I believe they're contractually obligated to. Meanwhile BART PD is spread very thin (around four officers at any given time for their SF stations). At the state level, California makes it very difficult to force someone to stay on psychiatric medication or keep them in an institution. I don't believe this is as much of an issue in Illinois.