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San Francisco and Baltimore couldn't be more opposite. Many people consider SF to be the most beautiful city in America. Swaths of Baltimore consist of nothing but depressing urban blight in the form of a faded post-industrial landscape in blocks and blocks of boarded-up rowhomes and crazy ghetto people loitering outside at all hours of the day and night. Yes, San Francisco is not as pristine as outsiders would like to think and the whole city is far from being "nice". Many of SF's poorly publicized ghetto areas in the southern half of The City are equally crime-ridden, blighted and dangerous as the worst of Baltimore. This is coming from a SF native who has lived right outside of Baltimore for over a decade.
Baltimore is a predominantly Black city, period. In SF, you wouldn't even know The City has any Black people unless you went to the hood in areas like Lakeview, Hunter's Point, Sunnydale and the Fillmore. The main demographic groups in SF are Whites and Asians with a steadily growing Latino population. SF is the most Asian big city in America by demographic proportion (not by raw numbers; that title obviously goes to NYC). SF is a paradise for rich people who are rich enough not to work.
SF has year round mild weather. Baltimore gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer with a few weeks or sometimes even months of mild Spring and Fall mixed in at the appropriate times.
Both cities have prevalent drug abuse and its associated problems. Both cities have ranked as being American drug capitals. Almost everyone smokes weed in SF. SF also has its problem with hard drugs like crack and heroin. Baltimore is the heroin capital of the United States.
Baltimore is beautiful too. Its a great city with many places. San Francisco looks like boson+ Pittsburgh except fidgeted to an extreme. Also the architecture is Baltimore is better then San Fran. Baltimore has that grit and charm while still being stable and with nature nearby that few cities could ever have
In SF you get the "cholo" (spanish for gangbanger) element. Lots of thugged out dudes, with red and blue rags, throwing up gangsings and shout outs to various turfs.
They rioted when they won the WS back in October. When the Raiders lost last decade, this same element that is found in Oakland rioted. Win or lose, SF is going to burn after the game.
The 49ers have a huge fan base, but it seems like they also have a lot of crazy thuggish fans....
I didn't get that out of the post. He compared SF to Baltimore in each paragraph, and one of the main differences is that Baltimore's predominantly black and San Francisco's predominantly white and asian. Where did he say that all of Baltimore is broke and high-crime or connect that to Baltimore being predominantly black? What he did say is that the only place you'll see a lot of black people in San Francisco is the hood, which is unfortunately correct.
DC is a predominantly Black city too and DC is a very high class cosmopolitan city on the level of San Francisco. The ghetto areas in DC and Baltimore are different. Even people in the hood in DC wear high fashion like authentic Gucci and Prada. The hood in Baltimore lacks this sophistication because, culturally and historically, Baltimore is a post-industrial blue collar town, much like Philly. Looking nice and being classy isn't as important in Baltimore as it is DC. DC is the nation's capital, looking nice and being classy are paramount, even for ghetto people. Everyone who lives in the Baltimore-Washington corridor knows this.
Also, there is a much larger Black upper middle class in DC although Baltimore does have a sizable amount of upper middle class Blacks than run the city government. But all in all, Baltimore is a poor city period. And no, Baltimore is not 99.9% Black like how it looks on The Wire. Baltimore is only predominantly Black by a relatively small margin at about 60% of the city. The rest of the city's population is mostly working class and lower income Whites with a sizable amount of upper middle class yuppies sprinkled in. Many overwhelmingly White hoods in Baltimore like Hampden are just as statistically dangerous as predominantly Black hoods like Park Heights. It is not a stretch to say most Whites in Baltimore share the same socioeconomic status as poor Black folks. This is clear as day in south Baltimore neighborhoods like Brooklyn, Pigtown and Lansdowne where lower-income Whites and Blacks share the same air.
And just because SF is more of a White/Asian city doesn't make it any "nicer". San Francisco, as a whole, is middle of the pack when it comes to overall ghettoness. There is a complete misconception of SF fueled by the tourism driven SF-based media that SF is somehow safer than the average big city, when in reality it is not. There are tons of thuggish ghetto Asian people in San Francisco who act just as dumb as thugs of any nationality. It just doesn't get a whole lot of publicity because Asians are wrongly portrayed to be the model minority in American society to keep minorities divided amongst each other:
And at the end of the day, you shouldn't try to lump entire big cities into categories saying "this city is nice" and "this city isn't". Especially in the case of San Francisco, which does not get credit for its wide variety of quality of life for different neighborhoods and different demographics. As I said before, some SF hoods are just as bad as the worst of Baltimore in terms of crime and quality of life. Actually, SF's Black population is generally more disenfranchised than Baltimore's Black population, as a whole. Baltimore's Black population includes a sizable middle class. SF's Black population does not. For years, the Black murder rate in San Francisco was actually much higher than that of Baltimore because of this. The majority of homicide victims in SF are Black every year despite being less than 10% of SF's overall population.
Last edited by LunaticVillage; 01-21-2013 at 09:23 PM..
I didn't get that out of the post. He compared SF to Baltimore in each paragraph, and one of the main differences is that Baltimore's predominantly black and San Francisco's predominantly white and asian. Where did he say that all of Baltimore is broke and high-crime or connect that to Baltimore being predominantly black? What he did say is that the only place you'll see a lot of black people in San Francisco is the hood, which is unfortunately correct.
Let's see he praises white people and asians while putting down blacks who are supposedly loitering in Baltimore which might be true but Baltimore is a black city right? He even said that himself. What about the whites in SF who stand around. I guess it doesn't count because they're white? Yeah I get the picture. You should too. He's basically using supplemental messages in that entire second paragraph. The part about blacks being in the hood might be true but blacks standing around in Baltimore is loitering? Because they're black? But when an asian or a white is chilling, standing around its all good and normal. Oh well. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Crab Cakes >> Sour Dough, but other than that San Fran wins something fierce. Baltimore is a nice town, but it's overshadowed by it other east coast counterparts.
DC is a very high class cosmopolitan city on the level of San Francisco.
No, its not. Quite frankly. If people believed that to be the case then DC would be on SFs level when travel survey results were released.
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And just because SF is more of a White/Asian city doesn't make it any "nicer". San Francisco, as a whole, is middle of the pack when it comes to overall ghettoness.
No one has ever said that because SF has lots of Whites and Asians, therefore its "nicer."
For some reason, you seem to think that people believe that.
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There is a complete misconception of SF fueled by the tourism driven SF-based media that SF is somehow safer than the average big city, when in reality it is not.
No, San Francisco is constantly rated at or near the top of travel surveys taken by visitors.
Its not uncommon for SF to be mentioned in the same sentence as Paris, Sydney, Florence and Barcelona.
DC and Baltimore are usually never included in that crowd of cities because they dont match up.
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And at the end of the day, you shouldn't try to lump entire big cities into categories saying "this city is nice" and "this city isn't".
Agreed, but cities are not equal across the board. Some cities shine while others dont.
Let's see he praises white people and asians while putting down blacks
Point out where he did that.
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who are supposedly loitering in Baltimore which might be true but Baltimore is a black city right? He even said that himself. What about the whites in SF who stand around. I guess it doesn't count because they're white? Yeah I get the picture. You should too. He's basically using supplemental messages in that entire second paragraph. The part about blacks being in the hood might be true but blacks standing around in Baltimore is loitering? Because they're black? But when an asian or a white is chilling, standing around its all good and normal. Oh well. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
On the rest of it, I clearly read the the response differently than you did so no point in arguing over something that comes down to difference in perspective.
No, its not. Quite frankly. If people believed that to be the case then DC would be on SFs level when travel survey results were released.
No one has ever said that because SF has lots of Whites and Asians, therefore its "nicer."
For some reason, you seem to think that people believe that.
No, San Francisco is constantly rated at or near the top of travel surveys taken by visitors.
Its not uncommon for SF to be mentioned in the same sentence as Paris, Sydney, Florence and Barcelona.
DC and Baltimore are usually never included in that crowd of cities because they dont match up.
Agreed, but cities are not equal across the board. Some cities shine while others dont.
A lot of people do believe that... They're generally the same kind of people who ask questions like "do white people get attacked in Oakland [for being white]?"
Im sure some people feel this way, but why do we want to focus on what they think? Who cares?
In the context of this comparison, SF wins flat out for lots of reasons and race has nothing to do with it.
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They're generally the same kind of people who ask questions like "do white people get attacked in Oakland [for being white]?"
Yes, and what I find most ironic is that when they ask that question, they already have an answer formulated in their heads and nothing we say matters.
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