5 ms·

I lived in Oakland (17th, on Lake Merritt) back in 97/98, coming in from Canada and attracted by the low rent. I got the hell out of there as quickly as possib

I lived in Oakland (17th, on Lake Merritt) back in 97/98, coming in from Canada and attracted by the low rent. I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible (moved to Sunnyvale) - Every night consisted me of taking my life into my own hands as I tried to walk the 5 or so blocks from Bart to my apartment. A week ago, after not having visited for about 10 years, I toured the old neighborhood and was astonished at how much it had changed - it was after dark on a friday night - and there were actually a lot of people out, walking around the lake, restaurants open. HUGE shift in gentrification of the area. This is a very positive impact of the San Francisco housing situation.

auctiontheory 13y ago
Still not quite safe enough for me to consider a nightly walk home from BART. Looking for a place in Oakland a few months ago, I was amazed how blasé people were about being assaulted, mugged or having their car stolen. Much as I prefer the EB vibe, I think living under constant threat of violence would stress me out.
- gmjosack 13y ago
  About a year ago I was at a dinner party with some friends that live in Oakland, off Lake Merritt. They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! Another friend of mine tells me about shootings she's seen outside her window as recently as a few weeks ago. She's only a few blocks South of Lake Merritt around 18th and 5th. I'm sorry but I wouldn't feel at all safe living in that area.
  - staunch 13y ago
    I've been made to seem like crazy person more than once for suggesting that people in the bay area live in intolerably crime-ridden/filthy conditions.
    - WalterSear 13y ago
      A few do, most don't. It's a big place.
      - staunch 13y ago
        It's a tiny place.
        fibbery 13y ago
        SF is tiny. The Bay Area is not.
    - mc32 13y ago
      People used to put up with the same violence in NYC, till they got sick of it and elected mayors who cared about fighting crime more (messrs giuliani and bloomberg). Back in the messrs koch and dinkins eras, NYC was a dump, by and large. San Jose takes crime seriously and it's constantly up there among the safest large cities in the US. One can only wish The EB will take crime more seriously. SF is slowly taking crime more seriously. Maybe the EB can lear from SJ and SF a bit. Undoubtedly some people will raise the issue of profiling criminal behavior[1]. If I had to choose between simmering street violence and occasional police excess (where one can seek redress), I'd choose the latter. Not sure why the EB is so anti-police so much as to spite their own safety. The good of being better policed vastly outweighs, to me, the occasional bad cop. But to each their own. One phenomenon I don't understand so well. In NYC I'd see people dress us as (wannabe) mobsters (acquire their style), but they were no mobsters, tho maybe they idolized them in some way --they would complain that they'd get flack from the police. Maybe if they didn't try to pretend to be toughs the police wouldn't think they were toughs. I can see some similarities in the 'anarchists' in the EB.
      - philsnow 13y ago
        > One can only wish The EB will take crime more seriously. 'wish' is a good term to use here, since I don't see any other way of reducing crime in Oakland since they have no money to provide nearly enough police services, and can't really tax their residents any more since they're already financially overburdened.
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    >>> They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! In high crime areas when you first experience it, you're pretty shocked. As time goes by, it just becomes part of the landscape and part of your life. You learn to live with it. When I lived on the South Side of Chicago, it was the same way. When I moved in, I was constantly harassed for money by panhandlers and such. I saw people get shot, junkies lying in alleys, all kinds of stuff that make you numb to life in the "big city". I never had a friend who lived in Chicago who hadn't been robbed, mugged, beat up, raped, car broken into, apartment broken into or been in the middle of a drive-by. To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. Glad I moved out after a year or so.
    - harlanlewis 13y ago
      > To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. The phrase 'badge of honor' strikes me as a phrase unlikely to be used by someone actually at a high degree of risk in a crime-ridden neighborhood. So just how different is the experience for different demographics in a high-crime locale? How divorced from a real, perpetual threat are these 'badge of honor' stories? Disclaimer this is difficult to cite appropriately because the DoJ & Bureau of Justice Statistics sites are down due to the federal shutdown, taking lots of data with them. Also, it's a HNews comment, which means I'm writing quickly about something I don't actually know much about. First: parent's comment mentioned the full range of crime, which it's useful to tease apart - violent crime (simple assault), serious violent crime (rape, robbery, aggravated assault), and property crime (car stereos). As a 20s-30s professional white guy in San Francisco, just about everyone I know has an anecdote or two about scary situations. I know people who have been threatened or worse at gunpoint (very recently!), at knifepoint, and at fistpoint (surely there's a word for that). But statistically, most physical violence my demographic experiences are anomalies. We might live and work and walk in high crime neighborhoods, but we're rarely targets. Even rape & sexual assault, in which 80% of victims know their attacker, is much more likely to victimize people with <$40k income (and the rate of violence increases the lower income gets). [1] Other kinds of violence are less likely than rape to victimize acquaintances (50% robbery, 60% aggravated assault), but most of violent crime victims still make less than $35k. It isn't evenly distributed. [2] Put simply, most violent crime occurs between people with lower incomes who know each other. None of this should be too surprising. Next, property crime. The rates of violent crime and property crime are highly correlated. However, property crime is more equal opportunity. Property crime is more likely to be committed by strangers and target across income groups. [4] So while I'm at relatively low risk of physical violence while walking down scary streets, parking a car or locking a bicycle is much higher risk. Now, all of this gets more complicated when we consider a large transient population like SF has, but the gist is that more transients leads to a higher rate of burglary, larceny, and robbery than would be expected of an equal population increase made up of other groups, but not necessarily a higher rate of violent crimes unrelated to taking property. [3] The clumping of violent crime by demographic stands. So, in a sense, I'm agreeing with you - scary neighborhoods do just become a 'part of the landscape'. But only for some of us. This 'landscape' and 'badge of honor' way of experiencing crime is a privilege to those who, relatively speaking, don't have much to worry about. For medium- and high-income individuals with limited or no social ties to other people in the neighborhood, living in a high crime locale is a minor economic problem (potential property loss) easily offset by low rent. There are a whole lot of other quality of life issues correlated with high crime for which I wouldn't judge anyone for wanting to move away from, but the mean streets aren't equally mean to everyone. [1] http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8WlSG0kJ:www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8Wl... [3] http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.pdf http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.... [4] http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf
  - hack_edu 13y ago
    That is the most commonly cited neighborhood where people are shocked that there is so much crime. That's a very historically depressed neighborhood, less than the old E. 14th days, but just because there are two streets with cute old 1900's houses does not mean it's safe at night. East Lake isn't that much cheaper than other options, and a mid-high crime dump. You'll be hard pressed to find a resident who's excited to be there, especially after a year or three.
- steveplace 13y ago
  Do I have to be the token crazy gun nut here?
- BadCookie 13y ago
  The startup that I work for is considering moving its office from SF to Oakland due to a rent increase. My boss asked how I would feel about that. I said, "That's fine, as long as the new office isn't in a sketchy neighborhood." His response? "There are no sketchy neighborhoods in Oakland." The denial that some (otherwise intelligent) people live with is amazing.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    It is possible he was joking? Otherwise his response makes no sense.
    - BadCookie 13y ago
      It really didn't seem like it. Some people seem to think that if you are afraid of crime, then you are a wuss, and I think he might be one of those people (based on this comment and others). He lives on the Oakland-Berkeley border, and seems proud of his lack of concern about the area where he lives. It's probably a lot easier to feel this way if you are tall and male (he is both), but of course neither of those things helps very much when guns are involved. Or maybe I completely misread his tone and it was a joke. That's possible.
badman_ting 13y ago
I used to think that too, but then my friend pointed out that it just shifts the problem elsewhere. This is DC, not SF, but the gentrification of DC has meant that a lot of problems (as well as longtime DC residents who can no longer afford the rent) have simply been pushed out to PG County.
- nilkn 13y ago
  It's the unfortunate nature of gentrification. It's also multi-layered; it's not just the middle class pushing out the lower class. The middle class is actively being pushed out of central hubs like San Francisco and Manhattan by the upper class (which is exactly why places like Oakland are themselves gentrifying in the first place).

auctiontheory 13y ago

Still not quite safe enough for me to consider a nightly walk home from BART. Looking for a place in Oakland a few months ago, I was amazed how blasé people were about being assaulted, mugged or having their car stolen. Much as I prefer the EB vibe, I think living under constant threat of violence would stress me out.

gmjosack 13y ago
About a year ago I was at a dinner party with some friends that live in Oakland, off Lake Merritt. They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! Another friend of mine tells me about shootings she's seen outside her window as recently as a few weeks ago. She's only a few blocks South of Lake Merritt around 18th and 5th. I'm sorry but I wouldn't feel at all safe living in that area.
- staunch 13y ago
  I've been made to seem like crazy person more than once for suggesting that people in the bay area live in intolerably crime-ridden/filthy conditions.
  - WalterSear 13y ago
    A few do, most don't. It's a big place.
    - staunch 13y ago
      It's a tiny place.
      - fibbery 13y ago
        SF is tiny. The Bay Area is not.
  - mc32 13y ago
    People used to put up with the same violence in NYC, till they got sick of it and elected mayors who cared about fighting crime more (messrs giuliani and bloomberg). Back in the messrs koch and dinkins eras, NYC was a dump, by and large. San Jose takes crime seriously and it's constantly up there among the safest large cities in the US. One can only wish The EB will take crime more seriously. SF is slowly taking crime more seriously. Maybe the EB can lear from SJ and SF a bit. Undoubtedly some people will raise the issue of profiling criminal behavior[1]. If I had to choose between simmering street violence and occasional police excess (where one can seek redress), I'd choose the latter. Not sure why the EB is so anti-police so much as to spite their own safety. The good of being better policed vastly outweighs, to me, the occasional bad cop. But to each their own. One phenomenon I don't understand so well. In NYC I'd see people dress us as (wannabe) mobsters (acquire their style), but they were no mobsters, tho maybe they idolized them in some way --they would complain that they'd get flack from the police. Maybe if they didn't try to pretend to be toughs the police wouldn't think they were toughs. I can see some similarities in the 'anarchists' in the EB.
    - philsnow 13y ago
      > One can only wish The EB will take crime more seriously. 'wish' is a good term to use here, since I don't see any other way of reducing crime in Oakland since they have no money to provide nearly enough police services, and can't really tax their residents any more since they're already financially overburdened.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  >>> They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! In high crime areas when you first experience it, you're pretty shocked. As time goes by, it just becomes part of the landscape and part of your life. You learn to live with it. When I lived on the South Side of Chicago, it was the same way. When I moved in, I was constantly harassed for money by panhandlers and such. I saw people get shot, junkies lying in alleys, all kinds of stuff that make you numb to life in the "big city". I never had a friend who lived in Chicago who hadn't been robbed, mugged, beat up, raped, car broken into, apartment broken into or been in the middle of a drive-by. To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. Glad I moved out after a year or so.
  - harlanlewis 13y ago
    > To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. The phrase 'badge of honor' strikes me as a phrase unlikely to be used by someone actually at a high degree of risk in a crime-ridden neighborhood. So just how different is the experience for different demographics in a high-crime locale? How divorced from a real, perpetual threat are these 'badge of honor' stories? Disclaimer this is difficult to cite appropriately because the DoJ & Bureau of Justice Statistics sites are down due to the federal shutdown, taking lots of data with them. Also, it's a HNews comment, which means I'm writing quickly about something I don't actually know much about. First: parent's comment mentioned the full range of crime, which it's useful to tease apart - violent crime (simple assault), serious violent crime (rape, robbery, aggravated assault), and property crime (car stereos). As a 20s-30s professional white guy in San Francisco, just about everyone I know has an anecdote or two about scary situations. I know people who have been threatened or worse at gunpoint (very recently!), at knifepoint, and at fistpoint (surely there's a word for that). But statistically, most physical violence my demographic experiences are anomalies. We might live and work and walk in high crime neighborhoods, but we're rarely targets. Even rape & sexual assault, in which 80% of victims know their attacker, is much more likely to victimize people with <$40k income (and the rate of violence increases the lower income gets). [1] Other kinds of violence are less likely than rape to victimize acquaintances (50% robbery, 60% aggravated assault), but most of violent crime victims still make less than $35k. It isn't evenly distributed. [2] Put simply, most violent crime occurs between people with lower incomes who know each other. None of this should be too surprising. Next, property crime. The rates of violent crime and property crime are highly correlated. However, property crime is more equal opportunity. Property crime is more likely to be committed by strangers and target across income groups. [4] So while I'm at relatively low risk of physical violence while walking down scary streets, parking a car or locking a bicycle is much higher risk. Now, all of this gets more complicated when we consider a large transient population like SF has, but the gist is that more transients leads to a higher rate of burglary, larceny, and robbery than would be expected of an equal population increase made up of other groups, but not necessarily a higher rate of violent crimes unrelated to taking property. [3] The clumping of violent crime by demographic stands. So, in a sense, I'm agreeing with you - scary neighborhoods do just become a 'part of the landscape'. But only for some of us. This 'landscape' and 'badge of honor' way of experiencing crime is a privilege to those who, relatively speaking, don't have much to worry about. For medium- and high-income individuals with limited or no social ties to other people in the neighborhood, living in a high crime locale is a minor economic problem (potential property loss) easily offset by low rent. There are a whole lot of other quality of life issues correlated with high crime for which I wouldn't judge anyone for wanting to move away from, but the mean streets aren't equally mean to everyone. [1] http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8WlSG0kJ:www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8Wl... [3] http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.pdf http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.... [4] http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf
- hack_edu 13y ago
  That is the most commonly cited neighborhood where people are shocked that there is so much crime. That's a very historically depressed neighborhood, less than the old E. 14th days, but just because there are two streets with cute old 1900's houses does not mean it's safe at night. East Lake isn't that much cheaper than other options, and a mid-high crime dump. You'll be hard pressed to find a resident who's excited to be there, especially after a year or three.
steveplace 13y ago
Do I have to be the token crazy gun nut here?
BadCookie 13y ago
The startup that I work for is considering moving its office from SF to Oakland due to a rent increase. My boss asked how I would feel about that. I said, "That's fine, as long as the new office isn't in a sketchy neighborhood." His response? "There are no sketchy neighborhoods in Oakland." The denial that some (otherwise intelligent) people live with is amazing.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  It is possible he was joking? Otherwise his response makes no sense.
  - BadCookie 13y ago
    It really didn't seem like it. Some people seem to think that if you are afraid of crime, then you are a wuss, and I think he might be one of those people (based on this comment and others). He lives on the Oakland-Berkeley border, and seems proud of his lack of concern about the area where he lives. It's probably a lot easier to feel this way if you are tall and male (he is both), but of course neither of those things helps very much when guns are involved. Or maybe I completely misread his tone and it was a joke. That's possible.

badman_ting 13y ago

I used to think that too, but then my friend pointed out that it just shifts the problem elsewhere. This is DC, not SF, but the gentrification of DC has meant that a lot of problems (as well as longtime DC residents who can no longer afford the rent) have simply been pushed out to PG County.

nilkn 13y ago
It's the unfortunate nature of gentrification. It's also multi-layered; it's not just the middle class pushing out the lower class. The middle class is actively being pushed out of central hubs like San Francisco and Manhattan by the upper class (which is exactly why places like Oakland are themselves gentrifying in the first place).