7 ms·
San Francisco, crime density, and the feeling of safety
- Trias11 3y agoThat's why I left CA in 2020. High taxes. Growing crime. Political BS. That's why I left USA in 2022.
- gsibble 3y agoAlso why I left in 2018.
- uvnq 3y agoWhere did you go when you left CA? How was it there? Where did you to when you left the US? How is it there? I'm super curious as I may need to do this at some point if the country goes too far down the gutter. I don't think it will, I trust in God and America has gone through a lot and come out the other end intact.
- gsibble 3y agoI went to Boston. The quality of life is immensely better. There are obviously some bad neighborhoods, but good, safe neighborhoods free of crime, drugs, and homeless are the norm, not the exception. I cannot begin to tell you how much safer and happier I am. I even make more and am happier in my work.
- Trias11 3y agoFrom CA to Nevada. From Nevada to Switzerland. We just bought our first property over there on a mountain side. One of the best areas in a south Switzerland. From there I can swim by boat to Italy to taste ice cream. I honestly think it's the best country to be in especially in the times of unpredictability and chaos.
- Trias11 3y agoPS: choice of country to move of course greatly depends on everyone's personal circumstances. It's much easier to prepare the remote landing strip before storm hits the fan and everyone will try to run the same direction. I strongly suggest everyone to have some viable options in advance.
- shrimpx 3y agoWhere did you go after US? Don’t you still pay Uncle Sam taxes?
- Trias11 3y agoSwitzerland. Still do but luckily I'm a green card holder, not a US Citizen. Plan to get rid of my GC later this year. No more of filing BS papers and buying US taxes soon.
- BlackjackCF 3y agoWhere in CA were you living?
- Trias11 3y agoSouth of SF
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- arjvik 3y agoJust want to point out that crimes/person and crimes/area are both perfectly good metrics, but crimes/(person×area) is a nonsensical metric that overemphasizes how small SF is
- gsibble 3y agoI'm curious why this submission is lower ranked on the front page than numerous other article with fewer points submitted much less recently. This isn't the first time an article I've submitted about SF crime seemed to disappear from the front page very quickly.
- draw_down 3y agoCrime isn’t up.
- arjvik 3y agoWhat are some of the safer neighborhoods in SF?
- gsibble 3y agoPacific Heights. Enjoy the rent.
- dadoge 3y agoBreaking: more crowded places have more crime / sq. mileage Lol…SF has a crime problem, but this one data point is misleading. Crime /capita is far more relevant…and I imagine SF is still not great in that regard, but this article is pretty “meh”
- yongjik 3y agoFYI, OP submitted essentially the same story two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35496700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35496700
- gsibble 3y agoThat was just a link to the data. This was my analysis.
- boulos 3y agoThe FBI discourages using their data for simplistic rankings [1]. The linked Wikipedia entry in the article [2] reiterates this in the section entitled "Criticism of ranking crime data". The simplest criticism is that crimes happen in San Francisco that involve people from outside San Francisco who are present there during a crime, but the denominator for per-capita data is the census data. Ignoring all of that, I have to say that I continue to find it strange when people take total crime as a correlate of safety. Specifically, quotes like this from the article: > So, what this tells us is that just by virtue of walking around San Francisco, you will witness and experience significantly more crime (235% the rate of Chicago and 266% the rate of Baltimore) than in any other city in the United States. are pretty divorced from reality. If you instead sort the Wikipedia table by the violent crime rate, you have a totally different answer and conclusion. Do people feel unsafe knowing that there are people shoplifting? 72% of the crime per capita in San Francisco is listed under Larceny/Theft. Only 8% is motor vehicle theft. And finally, another 8% is burglary, which involves actually forcibly entering a premises. Burglary is the primary form of theft that people usually associate with feeling unsafe. That's what Nat Friedman cited as his reason for leaving San Francisco [2]. Muggings are under violent crime, listed as Robbery, at 5% of total crime. tl;dr: Total crime is a poor measure of safety. Simplistically using per-capita information is also explicitly discouraged for cross-location comparisons. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-statistics-their-proper-use https://ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-statistics-their-proper-use [2] https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1644736970139267072 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1644736970139267072