Lived in SF for ~12 years. 8 years in the Mission. > Is my perspective skewed by the sources I'm reading or have things really deteriorated to that extent? SF

Lived in SF for ~12 years. 8 years in the Mission. > Is my perspective skewed by the sources I'm reading or have things really deteriorated to that extent? SF has always been a mess, for the entire decade I've been here. I used to walk to/from work along Mission. Over the last 10 years, things got a lot better - 16th/Mission was unsafe. Most of the mission used to literally smell like a toilet. You couldn't walk between 5th and 7th along Market. I once watched a lady in a wheelchair chasing someone down the street. She was rolling as fast as she could with one hand, and holding a knife out in front of her with the other while the guy ran. Crime was always an issue. The planters along the street with the trees used to be a prime place to drop used heroin needles. Like, you could occasionally stumble on a planter with 5-10 used hypodermic needs in it. On Market. The mid-Mission and Capp area used to run thick with prostitutes. I don't see nearly as much of this anymore. It got worse in the midst of COVID, but petered out. I think the quantity of all the above issues went down, but so did the population. As such, the albeit lower crime stands out more. And SF is such a transient city that the people complaining about it now (rightly, imo) didn't see how bad it was because they weren't here. [edit] It's bad - but it's not any worse now than before. There's a lot of great reasons to live here too though! It's so pretty, great food, bars, activities, it's small, walkable, bikeable. I know a ton of folks here so it's kind of hard to leave now, heh.