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In early 2020, before lockdown, I visited San Francisco as a tourist with my wife. We took a wrong turn at a book store and wound up on a street covered in fece

In early 2020, before lockdown, I visited San Francisco as a tourist with my wife. We took a wrong turn at a book store and wound up on a street covered in feces. The next street was fine. Then on the next, we watched a homeless woman shoot up on the street. Then a supercar pulled into a garage. I'm not the best traveled, I'll admit, so I can't compare SF to foreign cities. I'm a simple hillbilly from the Southeast, but I lived in NY for a time and I've visited most of the big cities in the US. This was my third time in SF. Every time I've visited, since 2016 or so, I've collected another story like this. The homeless are way more aggressive than they are in Chicago or Texan cities. The feces. The crime. Now people are moving away. The author is in denial. San Francisco has nice weather and beautiful hills, but it is a really expensive shithole. A really, really expensive shithole. Now look at the leadership in the city, and ask yourself, who is responsible for this? I'm so glad I chose to live in Texas, but at this point I'd move to the Detroit area before San Francisco. At least the rent is good there. In any case, the census data shows I'm not alone. I just hope the Californians moving to Texas don't vote for the same laws that made San Francisco such a hole. Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley, despite working in tech. I don't regret it.

tayo42 5y ago
SF's areas of poverty are mixed in with the highly visited areas and aren't really getting gentrified. Its easy to make a wrong turn. When you lived in NY did you go north of 110th st or further east then williamsburg?
- aiisahik 5y ago
  I've lived in both SF and north of 110th street in NYC. I frequently visit tough parts of Bedstuy. There is absolutely no comparison - the worst parts of SF is much more dangerous than the worst parts of NYC. Expensive shithole is an appropriate description.
  - tayo42 5y ago
    A google search says in 2019 there were 41 murders in sf and 99 in brooklyn. though idk where to find crime by neighborhood. seems pretty equal when you account for population
    - dimva 5y ago
      Murder is not the only crime. I, and a bunch of my friends, have been attacked (punched, followed home, etc) by homeless people in SF. This has never happened to any of us anywhere else, and we are a group who travels a lot to a lot of cities, including internationally. I didn't report it to the police when I was sucker punched in the stomach by a homeless guy who ran away afterwards, because I barely saw him and what would the police do? It would just be a waste of my time. Another friend was beaten so badly he had to go to the hospital, but the police did nothing after he reported it.
      - tayo42 5y ago
        What point are you trying to make here? What is any cop going to do anywhere in that situation? You need to be aware of where to go and where not to. 2019 Kings county - Aggravated Assault - 9,221 2019 SF - Aggravated Assault - 2,514 https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/indexcrimes/Kings.pdf https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/indexcrimes/... https://sfgov.org/scorecards//public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards//public-safety/violent-crime-ra...
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    SF has an abundance of shit, for sure, but it's nowhere near as dangerous as NYC. From my own experience, I concur that "in New York, trouble finds you."[0] [0]https://youtu.be/agvzE91Xfek?t=77 https://youtu.be/agvzE91Xfek?t=77
  - darkhorse22 5y ago
    Strong disagree, in fact I'd say that apart from Bayview, all of SF is safe, there's just lots of property crime, which I'll grant is shitty. North of 110th St? All of Manhattan's been safe for some time now. 110th St isn't even a little iffy. There are parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx that are no-go zones that have no comparison in SF. If you want screwed up, you have to go to Oakland (and boy is it... Oaktown does it all).
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      The Bishop of Oakland was robbed at gunpoint while walking near the Paramount Theatre just this past Saturday.
gumby 5y ago
> Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley, despite working in tech. I don't regret it. It’s much nicer, if you can stand suburbia, and more technology oriented than SF, which used to simply be the Valley’s bedroom community.
yupper32 5y ago
> This was my third time in SF. > Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley > The author is in denial. > it is a really expensive shithole I'm always amazed by people who have visited a place a few times as a tourist and think "I'm qualified to shit on people who choose to live here". What makes you think you have any say in the situation? SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go. Yeah, the downtown and tourist areas suck. So what? That's the case in a ton of cities. I've lived in a neighborhood here for 7 years that has low crime, no shit on the streets, and is generally a great place to live. Yeah, we've got a shit DA right now which hurts the city with increased petty crimes. We'll turn it around eventually.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I lived in San Francisco for 15 years, and it’s getting pretty nasty in some places. When ever I meet someone who’s visited San Francisco, almost without exception, they comment on the homeless problem. The problem is SF is so bad you can’t help but comment on it because you’ve likely never experienced anything like it elsewhere in the USA. Who wants to visit a city where the first thing you experience is aggressive panhandling and streets covered in poop?
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  >What makes you think you have any say in the situation? He doesn't have a say, but that doesn't mean he can't have valid opinions as an outsider with a more unbiased perspective. To be clear I've lived in SF Bay Area for 10+ years and I've also traveled extensively/lived in other world class cities. SF really is a more expensive shithole. It doesn't mean there aren't any charms but anyone who doesn't acknowledge SF's shortfalls vs. other top cities is in complete denial.
  - girvo 5y ago
    Being an outsider has nothing to do with being unbiased. Those are entirely orthogonal. And frankly, that commenters bias was pretty evident, regardless.
- kardianos 5y ago
devoutsalsa 5y ago
Yeah, I lived in the Tendernob neighborhood of SF for almost 10 years. I’d always pass by a lot of what you’re talking about... - At one point I did a lot of walking there and to keep myself entertained I started tracking PPM (poops per mile) - one day I walked by a woman peeing between two cars, and she noticed me & apologized. Later I walked back that same route and saw her again. She thanked me for not yelling at her, as she had no where else to go :( - one day while walking to work, a guy facing away from me pulled down his pants and leaned over. I had to dodge what he launched out the backside. It was maybe the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. - I gave a beer to a homeless guy, and he chugged it & threw the can into the street. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the trash can right next to us, and he explained that he didn’t want the tiny Asian women who forage for recyclables to get stabbed by the needles in the trash cans, and that one of them would be along to get the can shortly. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later, a woman pushing a shopping cart full of cans walked by, picked up the beer can, and continued on.
- nomel 5y ago
  I've peed in a bush in SF. I didn't want to, but that's what happens when you have humans with bladders and zero public restrooms. I tried to not pee in the bush. I asked around, went to a few grab and go restaurants, a gas station, but none had a public bathroom. My only option was to wait in line and pay cover to get into a bar, wait in line at the high end restaurants in the area, drive across town to Denny's for a cheaper pee, or drive 45 minutes to a saner city. I peed all over that bush, with a grin, as a fuck you to the idiocy of whoever decided to force me, and everyone else, to do it.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    My trick is to walk into a random shop, drop some change in the tip jar, and then ask to use the restroom. I’ve never been turned down. Sure, I don’t want to pay to pee, but they have to clean it at their own expense, so I don’t mind chipping in.
    - plank_time 5y ago
bagels 5y ago
Have you been to Detroit? The blight and violent crime are are far beyond San Francisco. Less feces and needles though.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"The homeless are way more aggressive than they are in Chicago or Texan cities. The feces. The crime." So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas? In SF most businesses won't let homeless people (ie. obviously poor people and/or people with severe mental issues) use their bathrooms, and even if they did, most of the city closes down at night, so there's nowhere to go. SF has some public bathrooms, but they're very few and far between, and if you're homeless, possibly suffering from mental issues and/or on drugs or drunk you're not going to be going on long treks through the city just to use a bathroom.. not to mention that sometimes you just have to go immediately (and the need can be exacerbated by being sick or drunk or on drugs). So, again, where are these people supposed to go?
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  Another thing that’s not obvious about the public bathrooms is they aren’t safe. You go in, close the windowless door, do your business, and open it up to find someone standing there waiting to rob you.
- freeone3000 5y ago
  In Texas they use restrooms at fast food places, gas stations, and Starbuckses like everyone else out on the town and in need of a pee. Failing that, the one in the local mall. Not having bathrooms available to the public is a problem of SF's own invention.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas? San Francisco has, even by California standards, an unusual lack of an aggressive policy of pushing the homeless out of places where they are visible to economic elites. So, if you are reasonably well-off person, you are more likely to see all of the things that go along with homelessness in SF than elsewhere. (SF also devotes unusual resources to dealing with the impacts of homelessness, but the net result and the frustration it causes for economic elites that are usually the power that directs local politics shows why most cities prefer to spend resources hiding homelessness rather than dealing with it.)
lordnacho 5y ago
I'm also a non resident, but with connections in SF. Thus I've been there maybe a month of my life. It's the strangest place I've ever been to: - I would reliably meet someone who was talking to themselves, out loud, every day. Not an exaggeration. I think my combined count of seeing this in my other 40 years is something like 5. - A guy pooped in front of me. Just pulled his pants down, revealing more pants, pulled those down, then pooped. Didn't seem to care. - I bought too much to eat at a Mexican place. As I was paying at the till, a barefoot lady walked in shouting something incoherent, went to my leftovers, and poured them into a plastic bag she was carrying. Then she left. - Parks that are full of homeless people. Tent cities right in the middle of town. - All this is mixed in with stunning views, beautiful homes, and normal looking parks. It's not normal, something needs to be done about the awfulness.
Bud 5y ago
Sounds like someone (with a random handle and a 20-minute-old account) who spent ten minutes in the Tenderloin and thinks they're an authority on the entire Bay Area and California in general. I'm pretty sure there are awful terrible neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston and other places in Texas, too. Let's not be absurdly reductive. Nor does this have anything at all to do with people moving out of SF, of course: that's being driven by economic forces and the fact that the workers in question now have the freedom to work remotely from anywhere in the world, including all the various places where real estate costs 50-80% less than in SF.
darkhorse22 5y ago
Anecdata is andecdata. I've visited SF a ton for work/business and for tech events and never see anything that I haven't already seen in Boston, LA, DC, any major city. I've always had a great time in SF. It's beautiful, especially at night, usually pretty decent weather, great food, lots of cute girls (everyone disagrees?), a fun place to hike around especially compared to the flat midwest. I don't know if I'd pay what it takes to live decently there, but I'm always happy to travel to SF.
dennis_jeeves 5y ago
>I just hope the Californians moving to Texas don't vote for the same laws that made San Francisco such a hole. History repeats, you can count on it with certainty.
panarky 5y ago
> I'm so glad I chose to live in Texas ... People love to pretend that right-wing politicians and policies of mass incarceration make us safer. Turns out big cities can have high crime rates regardless of their state's politicians and policies. Houston's violent crime rate is 1,095 per 100,000 population, compared to 715 for San Francisco. The crime rate is higher in Houston than Chicago. Memphis has a higher property crime rate than San Francisco or Chicago. The safest city in Texas is Plano, with a violent crime rate of 149 per 100,000. The safest city in California (and in the entire US) is Irvine, with a violent crime rate less than half of that. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- edbob 5y ago
  Houston is controlled by progressive Democrats. Plano is more even but voted for Biden by a 9 point margin, hardly representative of "right-wing politics". Plano, like many Texas cities, is racially diverse, while Irvine has hardly any black population at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California#Demographic...
ivan1783 5y ago
When I lived in India I saw the following...the image will always stay with me and has really changed me. In Bangalore (Koramangala) where I was living was an area filled with very rich people (like western standards rich) who had massive houses, security guards, huge walls and literally right across the street was a garbage dump with people living in it. Was heartbreaking.

tayo42 5y ago

SF's areas of poverty are mixed in with the highly visited areas and aren't really getting gentrified. Its easy to make a wrong turn. When you lived in NY did you go north of 110th st or further east then williamsburg?

aiisahik 5y ago
I've lived in both SF and north of 110th street in NYC. I frequently visit tough parts of Bedstuy. There is absolutely no comparison - the worst parts of SF is much more dangerous than the worst parts of NYC. Expensive shithole is an appropriate description.
- tayo42 5y ago
  A google search says in 2019 there were 41 murders in sf and 99 in brooklyn. though idk where to find crime by neighborhood. seems pretty equal when you account for population
  - dimva 5y ago
    Murder is not the only crime. I, and a bunch of my friends, have been attacked (punched, followed home, etc) by homeless people in SF. This has never happened to any of us anywhere else, and we are a group who travels a lot to a lot of cities, including internationally. I didn't report it to the police when I was sucker punched in the stomach by a homeless guy who ran away afterwards, because I barely saw him and what would the police do? It would just be a waste of my time. Another friend was beaten so badly he had to go to the hospital, but the police did nothing after he reported it.
    - tayo42 5y ago
      What point are you trying to make here? What is any cop going to do anywhere in that situation? You need to be aware of where to go and where not to. 2019 Kings county - Aggravated Assault - 9,221 2019 SF - Aggravated Assault - 2,514 https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/indexcrimes/Kings.pdf https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/indexcrimes/... https://sfgov.org/scorecards//public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards//public-safety/violent-crime-ra...
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  SF has an abundance of shit, for sure, but it's nowhere near as dangerous as NYC. From my own experience, I concur that "in New York, trouble finds you."[0] [0]https://youtu.be/agvzE91Xfek?t=77 https://youtu.be/agvzE91Xfek?t=77
- darkhorse22 5y ago
  Strong disagree, in fact I'd say that apart from Bayview, all of SF is safe, there's just lots of property crime, which I'll grant is shitty. North of 110th St? All of Manhattan's been safe for some time now. 110th St isn't even a little iffy. There are parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx that are no-go zones that have no comparison in SF. If you want screwed up, you have to go to Oakland (and boy is it... Oaktown does it all).
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    The Bishop of Oakland was robbed at gunpoint while walking near the Paramount Theatre just this past Saturday.

gumby 5y ago

> Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley, despite working in tech. I don't regret it. It’s much nicer, if you can stand suburbia, and more technology oriented than SF, which used to simply be the Valley’s bedroom community.

yupper32 5y ago

> This was my third time in SF. > Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley > The author is in denial. > it is a really expensive shithole I'm always amazed by people who have visited a place a few times as a tourist and think "I'm qualified to shit on people who choose to live here". What makes you think you have any say in the situation? SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go. Yeah, the downtown and tourist areas suck. So what? That's the case in a ton of cities. I've lived in a neighborhood here for 7 years that has low crime, no shit on the streets, and is generally a great place to live. Yeah, we've got a shit DA right now which hurts the city with increased petty crimes. We'll turn it around eventually.

devoutsalsa 5y ago
I lived in San Francisco for 15 years, and it’s getting pretty nasty in some places. When ever I meet someone who’s visited San Francisco, almost without exception, they comment on the homeless problem. The problem is SF is so bad you can’t help but comment on it because you’ve likely never experienced anything like it elsewhere in the USA. Who wants to visit a city where the first thing you experience is aggressive panhandling and streets covered in poop?
Cookingboy 5y ago
>What makes you think you have any say in the situation? He doesn't have a say, but that doesn't mean he can't have valid opinions as an outsider with a more unbiased perspective. To be clear I've lived in SF Bay Area for 10+ years and I've also traveled extensively/lived in other world class cities. SF really is a more expensive shithole. It doesn't mean there aren't any charms but anyone who doesn't acknowledge SF's shortfalls vs. other top cities is in complete denial.
- girvo 5y ago
  Being an outsider has nothing to do with being unbiased. Those are entirely orthogonal. And frankly, that commenters bias was pretty evident, regardless.
kardianos 5y ago

devoutsalsa 5y ago

Yeah, I lived in the Tendernob neighborhood of SF for almost 10 years. I’d always pass by a lot of what you’re talking about... - At one point I did a lot of walking there and to keep myself entertained I started tracking PPM (poops per mile) - one day I walked by a woman peeing between two cars, and she noticed me & apologized. Later I walked back that same route and saw her again. She thanked me for not yelling at her, as she had no where else to go :( - one day while walking to work, a guy facing away from me pulled down his pants and leaned over. I had to dodge what he launched out the backside. It was maybe the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. - I gave a beer to a homeless guy, and he chugged it & threw the can into the street. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the trash can right next to us, and he explained that he didn’t want the tiny Asian women who forage for recyclables to get stabbed by the needles in the trash cans, and that one of them would be along to get the can shortly. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later, a woman pushing a shopping cart full of cans walked by, picked up the beer can, and continued on.

nomel 5y ago
I've peed in a bush in SF. I didn't want to, but that's what happens when you have humans with bladders and zero public restrooms. I tried to not pee in the bush. I asked around, went to a few grab and go restaurants, a gas station, but none had a public bathroom. My only option was to wait in line and pay cover to get into a bar, wait in line at the high end restaurants in the area, drive across town to Denny's for a cheaper pee, or drive 45 minutes to a saner city. I peed all over that bush, with a grin, as a fuck you to the idiocy of whoever decided to force me, and everyone else, to do it.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  My trick is to walk into a random shop, drop some change in the tip jar, and then ask to use the restroom. I’ve never been turned down. Sure, I don’t want to pay to pee, but they have to clean it at their own expense, so I don’t mind chipping in.
  - plank_time 5y ago

bagels 5y ago

Have you been to Detroit? The blight and violent crime are are far beyond San Francisco. Less feces and needles though.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"The homeless are way more aggressive than they are in Chicago or Texan cities. The feces. The crime." So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas? In SF most businesses won't let homeless people (ie. obviously poor people and/or people with severe mental issues) use their bathrooms, and even if they did, most of the city closes down at night, so there's nowhere to go. SF has some public bathrooms, but they're very few and far between, and if you're homeless, possibly suffering from mental issues and/or on drugs or drunk you're not going to be going on long treks through the city just to use a bathroom.. not to mention that sometimes you just have to go immediately (and the need can be exacerbated by being sick or drunk or on drugs). So, again, where are these people supposed to go?

devoutsalsa 5y ago
Another thing that’s not obvious about the public bathrooms is they aren’t safe. You go in, close the windowless door, do your business, and open it up to find someone standing there waiting to rob you.
freeone3000 5y ago
In Texas they use restrooms at fast food places, gas stations, and Starbuckses like everyone else out on the town and in need of a pee. Failing that, the one in the local mall. Not having bathrooms available to the public is a problem of SF's own invention.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas? San Francisco has, even by California standards, an unusual lack of an aggressive policy of pushing the homeless out of places where they are visible to economic elites. So, if you are reasonably well-off person, you are more likely to see all of the things that go along with homelessness in SF than elsewhere. (SF also devotes unusual resources to dealing with the impacts of homelessness, but the net result and the frustration it causes for economic elites that are usually the power that directs local politics shows why most cities prefer to spend resources hiding homelessness rather than dealing with it.)

lordnacho 5y ago

I'm also a non resident, but with connections in SF. Thus I've been there maybe a month of my life. It's the strangest place I've ever been to: - I would reliably meet someone who was talking to themselves, out loud, every day. Not an exaggeration. I think my combined count of seeing this in my other 40 years is something like 5. - A guy pooped in front of me. Just pulled his pants down, revealing more pants, pulled those down, then pooped. Didn't seem to care. - I bought too much to eat at a Mexican place. As I was paying at the till, a barefoot lady walked in shouting something incoherent, went to my leftovers, and poured them into a plastic bag she was carrying. Then she left. - Parks that are full of homeless people. Tent cities right in the middle of town. - All this is mixed in with stunning views, beautiful homes, and normal looking parks. It's not normal, something needs to be done about the awfulness.

Bud 5y ago

Sounds like someone (with a random handle and a 20-minute-old account) who spent ten minutes in the Tenderloin and thinks they're an authority on the entire Bay Area and California in general. I'm pretty sure there are awful terrible neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston and other places in Texas, too. Let's not be absurdly reductive. Nor does this have anything at all to do with people moving out of SF, of course: that's being driven by economic forces and the fact that the workers in question now have the freedom to work remotely from anywhere in the world, including all the various places where real estate costs 50-80% less than in SF.

darkhorse22 5y ago

Anecdata is andecdata. I've visited SF a ton for work/business and for tech events and never see anything that I haven't already seen in Boston, LA, DC, any major city. I've always had a great time in SF. It's beautiful, especially at night, usually pretty decent weather, great food, lots of cute girls (everyone disagrees?), a fun place to hike around especially compared to the flat midwest. I don't know if I'd pay what it takes to live decently there, but I'm always happy to travel to SF.

dennis_jeeves 5y ago

>I just hope the Californians moving to Texas don't vote for the same laws that made San Francisco such a hole. History repeats, you can count on it with certainty.

panarky 5y ago

> I'm so glad I chose to live in Texas ... People love to pretend that right-wing politicians and policies of mass incarceration make us safer. Turns out big cities can have high crime rates regardless of their state's politicians and policies. Houston's violent crime rate is 1,095 per 100,000 population, compared to 715 for San Francisco. The crime rate is higher in Houston than Chicago. Memphis has a higher property crime rate than San Francisco or Chicago. The safest city in Texas is Plano, with a violent crime rate of 149 per 100,000. The safest city in California (and in the entire US) is Irvine, with a violent crime rate less than half of that. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

edbob 5y ago
Houston is controlled by progressive Democrats. Plano is more even but voted for Biden by a 9 point margin, hardly representative of "right-wing politics". Plano, like many Texas cities, is racially diverse, while Irvine has hardly any black population at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California#Demographic...

ivan1783 5y ago

When I lived in India I saw the following...the image will always stay with me and has really changed me. In Bangalore (Koramangala) where I was living was an area filled with very rich people (like western standards rich) who had massive houses, security guards, huge walls and literally right across the street was a garbage dump with people living in it. Was heartbreaking.