36 ms·

What crime? I’ve got complaints about living in SF, but it’s basically crime-free from my experiences.

nitrogen 5y ago
Not the OP, but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving (e.g. running reds including cops, ppl cutting across three lanes to make a left from the right lane, etc), guests who visited me were flashed by randos, a dude was jerking into a newspaper box by the BART, neighbors would smoke inside nonsmoking apartments with shared ventilation, etc. I'd move back again for work if I have to, but it would take a lot of $$$$ to convince me.
- olyjohn 5y ago
  Sounds like parts of just about every big city.
  - mc10 5y ago
    Many of these are absent in New York, including very visible homeless encampments, so no, these are not in “just about every big city”; many of these are specific to West Coast cities due to a failure in public policy.
    - ende 5y ago
      Year round fair weather is a public policy?
      - mc10 5y ago
        Not building enough shelters and allowing NIMBYism at local levels is public policy: https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65 https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-h...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - csmiller 5y ago
    I have never experienced anything like this living on the east coast (NYC/Boston)
- floren 5y ago
  Got off BART at Civic Center station at about 11:00 AM last Saturday. Walked past two guy sprawled in a hallway in the station smoking heroin or something from a piece of tin foil, and past another one doing the same as I climbed the stairs to the street. At the top of the stairs were a handful of guys gathered around a stereo smoking weed and, based on what I was seeing, selling it too. A few minutes later, just as I passed the tent city near City Hall, I ran into another guy torching something on a sheet of tin foil. More shit than I've ever seen on any city streets. Every doorway, tree, and wall reeks of piss. It's no way to live.
  - Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 5y ago
    All of what you mentioned is a reason why I only ride 1 station by BART and rest by Caltrain.
- zeruch 5y ago
  "but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving" ...things I've also seen in Chicago, NYC, Miami, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Portland (among others). Not saying that's ok, just that SF is hardly unique in that regard.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dcolkitt 5y ago
I think it's really easy how normalized a person can get to petty crime. Like a frog in boiling water. You'll talk to people in SF who totally brush off smash-and-grabs. They'll say something like "stupid me, shouldn't have left my AirPods visible in the center console." You don't even realize that it's not normal to have to worry about stuff like that.
- mercutio2 5y ago
  It is normal to worry about smash and grabs in every US urban area I've ever lived in or visited.
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    San Francisco has the worst property crime rate of any major city in America.[1] It's more than three times worse than what you'd find in New York, Boston or San Diego. It's even about twice as bad as Austin, Chicago or Philadelphia, which aren't exactly known as low crime cities. Moreover the discrepancy is likely understated since so much property crime goes unreported in SF. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
    - slownews45 5y ago
      Between all my bike thefts, car thefts, window break ins etc- I reported only car theft. Crime is widely understated in SF. People will step over a dying person in SF.
      - nitrogen 5y ago
        It's not just street crime, either. The first building I lived in had its bike lockers broken into by a pro crew in masks, and tens of thousands of dollars of bikes stolen. I also forgot to mention the man screaming at the top of his lungs at a woman waiting for a bus, the coworker who fought off an attempted mugging, coming back to my car (probably at Lands End) to find one of the screws missing from the license plate, and other stuff I only heard about rather than saw. Based on this thread, there's a lot going on that people are lucky enough not to notice, or choose not to notice, but it definitely makes SF a risky choice for businesses. I probably fared as well as I did because I'm tall and didn't go out much without other people with me.
slownews45 5y ago
My car was broken into multiple times, stolen a few times (I used tickets to find it because the cops wouldn't take even the basic step of matching parking tickets with stolen car reports). I worked in the tenderloin - so plenty of open air drug dealing (not a huge problem) as well as random attacks on people (a problem). My roommate was jumped and beaten near our place - very disruptive to his life in general. I actually caught folks who had stolen my car, good response by police, got them in the car too driving it. I asked, if I pressed charges, what's the consequence. A few days in jail if I was lucky and wanted to spend years pursuing the case - these would be guys who I'd then have a beef with in my neighborhood. I didn't carry a gun or knife and just didn't want to beef with the dudes hanging out. At some point you are like, is this worth it? As you get older, have kids - you just want to let you kid play. Where I am now the kids can play on their own with neighbors on the street - no worries. Much nicer in my view.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  And here I am living in one of the places that most of the SF tech crowd would consider synonymous with "failed rust belt shithole" where none of that stuff happens at any appreciable scale.
babesh 5y ago
1. Two people with knives tried to mug my father. Chinatown. 2. Two people tried to mug me. Nob Hill. 3. Car was broken into. Model airplane was taken. Just off Van Ness. 4. Mother had her purse slashed. Chinatown. 5. Brother in law had his bike stolen. He locked it in front of the Exploratorium. 6. One brother had his car stolen (but this was Oakland). 7. Roommate got hit on the head, knocked out, had stuff taken. This was late at night a few blocks from the Haight.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Don't worry - we pretty much all know the folks saying SF is "crime free" are total liars OR rich as hell and living in a gated mansion. The thing you don't realize is how nice, at a low and ongoing level, being in a low crime area is. It feels GREAT! Especially if you have a female in your family / friend group. Hey, want to meet up for ice cream at XXX? You get a ton more yeses because no one is nervous walking / biking / locking bikes etc. Early on with my wife I made the mistake of the cheap place that was in a higher crime area - I didn't mind but it really crimped her eagerness to meet me after work somewhere etc if she was going to be walking, and coming home late and walking from BART also stressed her a bit (in fairness we got off at one of the highest crime spots in BART system). I did the don't worry about it thing for a bit, but then there were some shootings and it just wasn't worth it and she wasn't re-assured (I would show her time of day charts for crime in our neighbhoorhood so she could go when it was less risky).

Not the OP, but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving (e.g. running reds including cops, ppl cutting across three lanes to make a left from the right lane, etc), guests who visited me were flashed by randos, a dude was jerking into a newspaper box by the BART, neighbors would smoke inside nonsmoking apartments with shared ventilation, etc. I'd move back again for work if I have to, but it would take a lot of $$$$ to convince me.

olyjohn 5y ago
Sounds like parts of just about every big city.
- mc10 5y ago
  Many of these are absent in New York, including very visible homeless encampments, so no, these are not in “just about every big city”; many of these are specific to West Coast cities due to a failure in public policy.
  - ende 5y ago
    Year round fair weather is a public policy?
    - mc10 5y ago
      Not building enough shelters and allowing NIMBYism at local levels is public policy: https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65 https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-h...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- csmiller 5y ago
  I have never experienced anything like this living on the east coast (NYC/Boston)
floren 5y ago
Got off BART at Civic Center station at about 11:00 AM last Saturday. Walked past two guy sprawled in a hallway in the station smoking heroin or something from a piece of tin foil, and past another one doing the same as I climbed the stairs to the street. At the top of the stairs were a handful of guys gathered around a stereo smoking weed and, based on what I was seeing, selling it too. A few minutes later, just as I passed the tent city near City Hall, I ran into another guy torching something on a sheet of tin foil. More shit than I've ever seen on any city streets. Every doorway, tree, and wall reeks of piss. It's no way to live.
- Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 5y ago
  All of what you mentioned is a reason why I only ride 1 station by BART and rest by Caltrain.
zeruch 5y ago
"but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving" ...things I've also seen in Chicago, NYC, Miami, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Portland (among others). Not saying that's ok, just that SF is hardly unique in that regard.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dcolkitt 5y ago

I think it's really easy how normalized a person can get to petty crime. Like a frog in boiling water. You'll talk to people in SF who totally brush off smash-and-grabs. They'll say something like "stupid me, shouldn't have left my AirPods visible in the center console." You don't even realize that it's not normal to have to worry about stuff like that.

mercutio2 5y ago
It is normal to worry about smash and grabs in every US urban area I've ever lived in or visited.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  San Francisco has the worst property crime rate of any major city in America.[1] It's more than three times worse than what you'd find in New York, Boston or San Diego. It's even about twice as bad as Austin, Chicago or Philadelphia, which aren't exactly known as low crime cities. Moreover the discrepancy is likely understated since so much property crime goes unreported in SF. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Between all my bike thefts, car thefts, window break ins etc- I reported only car theft. Crime is widely understated in SF. People will step over a dying person in SF.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      It's not just street crime, either. The first building I lived in had its bike lockers broken into by a pro crew in masks, and tens of thousands of dollars of bikes stolen. I also forgot to mention the man screaming at the top of his lungs at a woman waiting for a bus, the coworker who fought off an attempted mugging, coming back to my car (probably at Lands End) to find one of the screws missing from the license plate, and other stuff I only heard about rather than saw. Based on this thread, there's a lot going on that people are lucky enough not to notice, or choose not to notice, but it definitely makes SF a risky choice for businesses. I probably fared as well as I did because I'm tall and didn't go out much without other people with me.

slownews45 5y ago

My car was broken into multiple times, stolen a few times (I used tickets to find it because the cops wouldn't take even the basic step of matching parking tickets with stolen car reports). I worked in the tenderloin - so plenty of open air drug dealing (not a huge problem) as well as random attacks on people (a problem). My roommate was jumped and beaten near our place - very disruptive to his life in general. I actually caught folks who had stolen my car, good response by police, got them in the car too driving it. I asked, if I pressed charges, what's the consequence. A few days in jail if I was lucky and wanted to spend years pursuing the case - these would be guys who I'd then have a beef with in my neighborhood. I didn't carry a gun or knife and just didn't want to beef with the dudes hanging out. At some point you are like, is this worth it? As you get older, have kids - you just want to let you kid play. Where I am now the kids can play on their own with neighbors on the street - no worries. Much nicer in my view.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
And here I am living in one of the places that most of the SF tech crowd would consider synonymous with "failed rust belt shithole" where none of that stuff happens at any appreciable scale.

babesh 5y ago

1. Two people with knives tried to mug my father. Chinatown. 2. Two people tried to mug me. Nob Hill. 3. Car was broken into. Model airplane was taken. Just off Van Ness. 4. Mother had her purse slashed. Chinatown. 5. Brother in law had his bike stolen. He locked it in front of the Exploratorium. 6. One brother had his car stolen (but this was Oakland). 7. Roommate got hit on the head, knocked out, had stuff taken. This was late at night a few blocks from the Haight.

slownews45 5y ago
Don't worry - we pretty much all know the folks saying SF is "crime free" are total liars OR rich as hell and living in a gated mansion. The thing you don't realize is how nice, at a low and ongoing level, being in a low crime area is. It feels GREAT! Especially if you have a female in your family / friend group. Hey, want to meet up for ice cream at XXX? You get a ton more yeses because no one is nervous walking / biking / locking bikes etc. Early on with my wife I made the mistake of the cheap place that was in a higher crime area - I didn't mind but it really crimped her eagerness to meet me after work somewhere etc if she was going to be walking, and coming home late and walking from BART also stressed her a bit (in fairness we got off at one of the highest crime spots in BART system). I did the don't worry about it thing for a bit, but then there were some shootings and it just wasn't worth it and she wasn't re-assured (I would show her time of day charts for crime in our neighbhoorhood so she could go when it was less risky).