5 ms·

How Safe Is SF?

30 points by HudZah 2y ago

lanternfish 2y ago
They come to the conclusion that their crime numbers are reflecting underlying density differences, but then don't redo the analysis with a per-capita control? Seems like, without that, this isn't a very useful presentation.
- financetechbro 2y ago
  100% I was thinking the same thing. Shouldn’t be too hard to account for density
  - HudZah 2y ago
    Will do so, this was a quick project that I was curious about since I moved here last week
- vehementi 2y ago
  Yes, they don't actually answer the question of how safe SF is. They say that some areas are more safe than others. Is the worst area in SF unsafe at all, or are the absolute numbers (and per capita) actually low? How unsafe? Who should be concerned about doing what, and when?
- ProfessorLayton 2y ago
  One thing to note is that SF's population swells greatly during the day [1] as people commute into the city for work (Less than before the pandemic, but still substantial). So per-capita crime might still not be the best metric to use because it would be misleading. [1] "San Francisco leads the Bay Area in attracting the most workers from outside its boundaries, with a net inflow of more than 200,000 commuters each day" https://vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/indicators/commute-patterns https://vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/indicators/commute-patterns
TheBlight 2y ago
Why is this flagged?
- roynasser 2y ago
  I've seen lots of things flagged because they arent flattering to the majority of the HN populus...
rvnx 2y ago
A deeply rooted issue, as in Paris: lot of people in denial and a very taboo topic, hence no will to fix the issues. The visualizations you created may help to realize the scale of the issue, so this is helpful.
- thriftwy 2y ago
  I wonder what's the mechanism for having people not discuss crime as they see fit. Is it only the free press doing tabooing?
  - TheBlight 2y ago
    Complaining about crime is right-coded so it could lead to social complications which incentivizes people to stay silent about it.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Gentrification is also a contributor to the problem but it's hard to tell rich people that without them getting mad and blaming someone/something else.
      - TheBlight 2y ago
        That may be true but I don't think it has much to do with the reluctance to discuss the issue (or to actively play down the importance of it when discussed.)
        talldayo 2y ago
        The only solution for either side is to move away, and if the rich people refuse to pack up and leave the less fortunate sure as hell aren't going to buy themselves plane tickets and skedaddle. So it kinda makes sense why people downplay it when the only alternative to moving somewhere else is perpetuating false victimhood.
    - thriftwy 2y ago
dkasper 2y ago
Two of the intersections mentioned (boardman & Bryant, eddy & jones) are where police stations are. Is there a problem with the data where they just use the location of the police station by default?
- stouset 2y ago
  > eddy & jones Anecdotally that intersection is sketch as hell, even with the police department right there.
anonygler 2y ago
Classic crime reporting pet peeve: Market & Powell is right in front of the Westfield. Obviously there's more property crime there. When Police would over rely on heatmaps for their patrol routes, they always ended up spending too much time in front of Walmarts and not enough in neighborhoods. Anecdotally, crime in SF is far worse than what's reported. Police won't even show up for your smashed windows.
- marcinzm 2y ago
  Last I was there, a Burger King had smashed windows and was serving customers like nothing happened. Didn’t even clean the shards, just put some yellow tape in the area.
- TMWNN 2y ago
  >Anecdotally, crime in SF is far worse than what's reported. Police won't even show up for your smashed windows. "The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it". —Jeff Bezos <https://sports.yahoo.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-explains-212315127.html https://sports.yahoo.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-explains-2123...>
jpm_sd 2y ago
In other words - like every other city on Earth, there are "good" neighborhoods and "bad" neighborhoods.
- RACEWAR 2y ago
  At first I wanted to criticize this comment as being a gross oversimplification of the city’s crime rates. After some thought though, there is a lot to be desired from the author’s when it comes down to contextualizing the data. I mean, can the notion of safety really be relayed by showing a person a bar graphs and telling them to avoid the tall cities? Apparently this is a hobby project though, so I think I’m expecting too much. With this in mind, good work, HudZah.
- dekhn 2y ago
  and then there's sixth street, south of market.
et-al 2y ago
They didn't normalize the data? https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
- deathanatos 2y ago
  Yeah, they didn't. Worse, > it's clear that some areas experience significantly higher crime rates than others. (emphasis mine) "crime rates" — but then the data immediately after that is incident counts. The word "rate" means to measure some quantity against another, usually to find a frequency. And here, that would be per capita. (The chart Y axis labels are also lopped off. E.g., the max on the one chart for me reads "0,000".)
taylorhughes 2y ago
A better title for this website might be "Where are crimes reported in SF?" -- it does not help us understand or contextualize how "safe" SF is overall compared to anything else, or even understand the types of crimes reported and whether that impacts your personal safety.
- HudZah 2y ago
  I think the implied effect was to understand how safe a neighborhood in SF is. Partially because I moved here a week ago and didn't really understand what to avoid. This was a quick project, but yes, showing the type of crimes is important. Though generally, most crimes affect the safety of an area, which is the assumption I went with
solidsnack9000 2y ago
The list of crimes counted includes: ...Larceny Theft, Malicious Mischief, Assault, Burglary, Motor Vehicle Theft, Fraud, Lost Property, Warrant, Drug Offense, Robbery, Missing Person and more. It doesn't seem like "Warrant" (someone with a warrant is apprehended?), "Missing Person", or "Drug Offense" are relevant to general safety. The author concludes with: We notice this more when analyzing the heatmap of incidents. Incidents across Mission are much more spread out than incidents across Tenderloin. Therefore, it's unfair to say that the neighborhoods are equally dangerous. I am not sure why it is not fair to say the neighborhoods are equally dangerous! Notably, the author does not tell us what it is fair to say. What does the degree of dispersion tell us about which one is more dangerous?
- HudZah 2y ago
  My thoughts are to represent general crime around the areas represent it's safety. The best way to normalize the data is viewing the crimes per capita, in which case Tenderloin is the highest. It's not fair; simply because the Mission is much larger in area. Either way, I will be making updates to the site and data with time, this was a quick 1 day project!
- bhawks 2y ago
  An area where it is common for someone with an arrest warrant to be apprehended seems reasonable to be considered unsafe. Similarly for an area where people go missing. Getting arrested for drug use in San Francisco is pretty hard to do - if someone accomplishes it you probably wouldn't want to be around them.
  - chrismcb 2y ago
    Why? If the three only crime reported in a neighborhood is a bunch of arrest warrants, why is that less safe than a place that has a bunch of violent crimes reported? I think you are implying that as neighborhood that has a bunch of criminals is inherently unsafe. But it is only unsafe if those people commit crimes there. There may be a relation, there may not be one.
    - 2y ago
jmakov 2y ago
You step out of the car and hear a female voice in the background: "Level 3, start"
dheera 2y ago
Honest question: Why do so many good companies {OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.} continue to set up offices in the highest-crime neighborhoods of SF (most notably: Mission and the vinicity of Market)? I feel like they would do their less-physically-tough employees (women, people with disabilities, physically smaller men) a HUGE favor by moving to Potrero Hill or some other safer neighborhood. I shouldn't have to fear for my physical safety to get to/from work. I live in a very low-crime area for a reason.
- infamouscow 2y ago
  A level of grittiness has been long sought after by innovators, artists, writers, and the like. Too much comfort is not good for creative endeavors because you quickly become out of touch.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    I'll believe that when I see the mansions of the company owners and top management in the middle of such areas.
adfm 2y ago
Reminds me of chicagocrime.org back in the day. Everything seems to cycle every twenty years. Enjoy the ride, kids. https://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ https://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/
breck 2y ago
I really like the layout of this page (and the design of the authors homepage -- https://www.hudzah.com/ https://www.hudzah.com/) . Feels like it could also be used on more positive content. Source code anywhere?
- HudZah 2y ago
  https://github.com/HudZah/HowSafeIsSF https://github.com/HudZah/HowSafeIsSF
thatguymike 2y ago
Something looks wrong with the month-by-month graph... I'd expect December and January to be close to each other, but they are radically discontinuous. That's a priori very surprising.
xoqem 2y ago
Crime maps often just turn into population density maps. I always want to see these per capita. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
usmannk 2y ago
this data would leave you thinking valencia st is worse off than soma
taylorbuley 2y ago
This does not address the safety of SF relative to other areas, adjusted for population and other pertinent factors. SF is wildly safer than the zeitgeist seems to suggest. San Francisco's overall crime rate has been decreasing, not increasing. Sure, we can have a discussion about reporting rates and adjust for those. As far as I've read, homelessness, a separate but interdependent issue, does not necessarily correlate with crime with any r^2 worth mentioning.
- stouset 2y ago
  > San Francisco's overall crime rate has been decreasing, not increasing. How much of this is due to reduced reporting? I'm 100% willing to believe that overall crime is decreasing in reality and not just on paper, but there's a pretty convincing narrative that the decline on paper is a result of people just not filing police reports for crimes they know won't be investigated.
  - taylorhughes 2y ago
    Anecdotal, but my neighborhood police chief (Ingleside) recently shared that thefts are down across the board in her reporting area. Seems backed up by aggregate reports: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-crime-rates-drop-19400210.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-crim... (She attributed it to the plainclothes retail ops they've been doing leading to significant arrests, and the DA prosecuting a bunch of theft over the past year)
bufferoverflow 2y ago
You can't know how safe SF is from the official data, because they release criminals without charges. Most recent high profile example: Golden Gate bridge "protesters".
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fragmede 2y ago
what's fascinating is the portrayal of SF on Fox News vs Threads.

30 points by HudZah 2y ago

They come to the conclusion that their crime numbers are reflecting underlying density differences, but then don't redo the analysis with a per-capita control? Seems like, without that, this isn't a very useful presentation.

financetechbro 2y ago
100% I was thinking the same thing. Shouldn’t be too hard to account for density
- HudZah 2y ago
  Will do so, this was a quick project that I was curious about since I moved here last week
vehementi 2y ago
Yes, they don't actually answer the question of how safe SF is. They say that some areas are more safe than others. Is the worst area in SF unsafe at all, or are the absolute numbers (and per capita) actually low? How unsafe? Who should be concerned about doing what, and when?
ProfessorLayton 2y ago
One thing to note is that SF's population swells greatly during the day [1] as people commute into the city for work (Less than before the pandemic, but still substantial). So per-capita crime might still not be the best metric to use because it would be misleading. [1] "San Francisco leads the Bay Area in attracting the most workers from outside its boundaries, with a net inflow of more than 200,000 commuters each day" https://vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/indicators/commute-patterns https://vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/indicators/commute-patterns

TheBlight 2y ago

Why is this flagged?

roynasser 2y ago
I've seen lots of things flagged because they arent flattering to the majority of the HN populus...

rvnx 2y ago

A deeply rooted issue, as in Paris: lot of people in denial and a very taboo topic, hence no will to fix the issues. The visualizations you created may help to realize the scale of the issue, so this is helpful.

thriftwy 2y ago
I wonder what's the mechanism for having people not discuss crime as they see fit. Is it only the free press doing tabooing?
- TheBlight 2y ago
  Complaining about crime is right-coded so it could lead to social complications which incentivizes people to stay silent about it.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Gentrification is also a contributor to the problem but it's hard to tell rich people that without them getting mad and blaming someone/something else.
    - TheBlight 2y ago
      That may be true but I don't think it has much to do with the reluctance to discuss the issue (or to actively play down the importance of it when discussed.)
      - talldayo 2y ago
        The only solution for either side is to move away, and if the rich people refuse to pack up and leave the less fortunate sure as hell aren't going to buy themselves plane tickets and skedaddle. So it kinda makes sense why people downplay it when the only alternative to moving somewhere else is perpetuating false victimhood.
  - thriftwy 2y ago

dkasper 2y ago

Two of the intersections mentioned (boardman & Bryant, eddy & jones) are where police stations are. Is there a problem with the data where they just use the location of the police station by default?

stouset 2y ago
> eddy & jones Anecdotally that intersection is sketch as hell, even with the police department right there.

anonygler 2y ago

Classic crime reporting pet peeve: Market & Powell is right in front of the Westfield. Obviously there's more property crime there. When Police would over rely on heatmaps for their patrol routes, they always ended up spending too much time in front of Walmarts and not enough in neighborhoods. Anecdotally, crime in SF is far worse than what's reported. Police won't even show up for your smashed windows.

marcinzm 2y ago
Last I was there, a Burger King had smashed windows and was serving customers like nothing happened. Didn’t even clean the shards, just put some yellow tape in the area.
TMWNN 2y ago
>Anecdotally, crime in SF is far worse than what's reported. Police won't even show up for your smashed windows. "The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it". —Jeff Bezos <https://sports.yahoo.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-explains-212315127.html https://sports.yahoo.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-explains-2123...>

jpm_sd 2y ago

In other words - like every other city on Earth, there are "good" neighborhoods and "bad" neighborhoods.

RACEWAR 2y ago
At first I wanted to criticize this comment as being a gross oversimplification of the city’s crime rates. After some thought though, there is a lot to be desired from the author’s when it comes down to contextualizing the data. I mean, can the notion of safety really be relayed by showing a person a bar graphs and telling them to avoid the tall cities? Apparently this is a hobby project though, so I think I’m expecting too much. With this in mind, good work, HudZah.
dekhn 2y ago
and then there's sixth street, south of market.

et-al 2y ago

They didn't normalize the data? https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/

deathanatos 2y ago
Yeah, they didn't. Worse, > it's clear that some areas experience significantly higher crime rates than others. (emphasis mine) "crime rates" — but then the data immediately after that is incident counts. The word "rate" means to measure some quantity against another, usually to find a frequency. And here, that would be per capita. (The chart Y axis labels are also lopped off. E.g., the max on the one chart for me reads "0,000".)

taylorhughes 2y ago

A better title for this website might be "Where are crimes reported in SF?" -- it does not help us understand or contextualize how "safe" SF is overall compared to anything else, or even understand the types of crimes reported and whether that impacts your personal safety.

HudZah 2y ago
I think the implied effect was to understand how safe a neighborhood in SF is. Partially because I moved here a week ago and didn't really understand what to avoid. This was a quick project, but yes, showing the type of crimes is important. Though generally, most crimes affect the safety of an area, which is the assumption I went with

solidsnack9000 2y ago

The list of crimes counted includes: ...Larceny Theft, Malicious Mischief, Assault, Burglary, Motor Vehicle Theft, Fraud, Lost Property, Warrant, Drug Offense, Robbery, Missing Person and more. It doesn't seem like "Warrant" (someone with a warrant is apprehended?), "Missing Person", or "Drug Offense" are relevant to general safety. The author concludes with: We notice this more when analyzing the heatmap of incidents. Incidents across Mission are much more spread out than incidents across Tenderloin. Therefore, it's unfair to say that the neighborhoods are equally dangerous. I am not sure why it is not fair to say the neighborhoods are equally dangerous! Notably, the author does not tell us what it is fair to say. What does the degree of dispersion tell us about which one is more dangerous?

HudZah 2y ago
My thoughts are to represent general crime around the areas represent it's safety. The best way to normalize the data is viewing the crimes per capita, in which case Tenderloin is the highest. It's not fair; simply because the Mission is much larger in area. Either way, I will be making updates to the site and data with time, this was a quick 1 day project!
bhawks 2y ago
An area where it is common for someone with an arrest warrant to be apprehended seems reasonable to be considered unsafe. Similarly for an area where people go missing. Getting arrested for drug use in San Francisco is pretty hard to do - if someone accomplishes it you probably wouldn't want to be around them.
- chrismcb 2y ago
  Why? If the three only crime reported in a neighborhood is a bunch of arrest warrants, why is that less safe than a place that has a bunch of violent crimes reported? I think you are implying that as neighborhood that has a bunch of criminals is inherently unsafe. But it is only unsafe if those people commit crimes there. There may be a relation, there may not be one.
  - 2y ago

jmakov 2y ago

You step out of the car and hear a female voice in the background: "Level 3, start"

dheera 2y ago

Honest question: Why do so many good companies {OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.} continue to set up offices in the highest-crime neighborhoods of SF (most notably: Mission and the vinicity of Market)? I feel like they would do their less-physically-tough employees (women, people with disabilities, physically smaller men) a HUGE favor by moving to Potrero Hill or some other safer neighborhood. I shouldn't have to fear for my physical safety to get to/from work. I live in a very low-crime area for a reason.

infamouscow 2y ago
A level of grittiness has been long sought after by innovators, artists, writers, and the like. Too much comfort is not good for creative endeavors because you quickly become out of touch.
- int_19h 2y ago
  I'll believe that when I see the mansions of the company owners and top management in the middle of such areas.

adfm 2y ago

Reminds me of chicagocrime.org back in the day. Everything seems to cycle every twenty years. Enjoy the ride, kids. https://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/ https://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/

breck 2y ago

I really like the layout of this page (and the design of the authors homepage -- https://www.hudzah.com/ https://www.hudzah.com/) . Feels like it could also be used on more positive content. Source code anywhere?

HudZah 2y ago
https://github.com/HudZah/HowSafeIsSF https://github.com/HudZah/HowSafeIsSF

thatguymike 2y ago

Something looks wrong with the month-by-month graph... I'd expect December and January to be close to each other, but they are radically discontinuous. That's a priori very surprising.

xoqem 2y ago

Crime maps often just turn into population density maps. I always want to see these per capita. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/

usmannk 2y ago

this data would leave you thinking valencia st is worse off than soma

taylorbuley 2y ago

This does not address the safety of SF relative to other areas, adjusted for population and other pertinent factors. SF is wildly safer than the zeitgeist seems to suggest. San Francisco's overall crime rate has been decreasing, not increasing. Sure, we can have a discussion about reporting rates and adjust for those. As far as I've read, homelessness, a separate but interdependent issue, does not necessarily correlate with crime with any r^2 worth mentioning.

stouset 2y ago
> San Francisco's overall crime rate has been decreasing, not increasing. How much of this is due to reduced reporting? I'm 100% willing to believe that overall crime is decreasing in reality and not just on paper, but there's a pretty convincing narrative that the decline on paper is a result of people just not filing police reports for crimes they know won't be investigated.
- taylorhughes 2y ago
  Anecdotal, but my neighborhood police chief (Ingleside) recently shared that thefts are down across the board in her reporting area. Seems backed up by aggregate reports: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-crime-rates-drop-19400210.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-crim... (She attributed it to the plainclothes retail ops they've been doing leading to significant arrests, and the DA prosecuting a bunch of theft over the past year)

bufferoverflow 2y ago

You can't know how safe SF is from the official data, because they release criminals without charges. Most recent high profile example: Golden Gate bridge "protesters".

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fragmede 2y ago

what's fascinating is the portrayal of SF on Fox News vs Threads.