Worst city in the Bay Area to live in? (San Jose: incomes, place to live)

[goldenchild08]

SF has done a great job of ignoring crime in its borders and focusing on crime in the east bay. It is completely ridiculous.

Crime in SF has definitely been ignored by the mass media. I think it is crazy that stereotypically hardcore ghetto cities like Compton are in some ways actually statistically safer than San Francisco! Look at the neighborhood scout rating of Compton. Compton earned a 17 on the safety index while SF earned an 11. If it weren't for NWA's Straight Outta Compton, Dr. Dre's Chronic, Boyz N The Hood or numerous popular Blood & Crip documentaries, I think the C-P-T's national reputation wouldn't be as half as bad as it is today. Not to mention Compton looks much more clean, quaint and suburban with huge manicured lawns and well kept family homes that look infinitely more safe and attractive than the third world run-down World War II-era barack project filled ghettos of SF.

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An area or two in SF also earned the scary safety index of a 0 meaning that those areas are among the most dangerous in the entire country! Not mention all the sketchy areas of SF that earned safety ratings barely above 0 like 2 and 5. No area of Compton on the neighborhood scout map earned a safety rating below a 10. Crazy as it is, most of the areas with the lowest single digit safety ratings aren't located in the ghetto outskirt neighborhoods like Hunter's Point and Lakeview. Most of the lowest safety areas are near the center of the city near downtown, the TL, the Fillmore area and parts of The Mission.

[jade408]

@goldenchild08 great factoids! Thanks! I know I feel a lot safer in my neighborhood in Oakland than I do in many parts of SF (I haven't been through the whole city). But I am sure, according to the SF Tourism Board, all of this stuff is an exaggeration.

[rah]

great posts goldenchild08. SF's not-so-nice side has been well hidden through media tactics (a stronger focus on any crime that's not SF crime...especially strong on Oakland) and stereotypes (how could the gay/yuppie/hippie mecca have CRIME, right guyz?!?!??). The city government is in on the denial and smokescreens too; one example from this year is when that German tourist was killed in a gunbattle in the Tenderloin, and Newsom then claimed that it was an unfortuante occurance, but that shootings are actually "rare" in the tenderlon. Shootings...rare...in the TL? Really? Maybe compared to Afghanistan, but give us a break. Another person was shot dead in the TL just days after Newsom made that statement too. Another example from this year is when it was revealed that the SFPD has been undercounting SF's violent crime rate by roughly 20%, every year, for at least the past 5 years (the SFPD was vague about just how long it had been going on...how surprising )

Your point about crimes per square mile is interesting too. SF may not have the highest violent crime rate when compared to plenty of other US cities (though it is up there), but SF's density means that crime is witnessed or heard about by more people...basically, more people are affected indirectly by the crime, and thus crime is perceived to be even higher. SF's murder rate is much less than Baltimore for example...but in 2008 and 2007, Baltimore and SF both had nearly identical amounts of murders per square mile, when averaged out (roughly 2 murders per square mile, per year)...SF basically has one of the highest rates of murders per square mile in the entire nation. Oakland actually came in slightly lower than SF in that measurement.

Originally Posted by Mr. Fantastic

I see your problem, you're insecure because you think I'm picking on Oakland.

But tell me, why does Oakland have a state topping violent crime rate and S.F doesn't?

SF actually does have a state-topping violent crime rate. It's constantly within the top 5 or top 10 for violent crime in CA. And if you rank just the large cities of 250,000+ residents, than SF is the 3rd highest for violent crime (as of 2008), behind Oakland and Stockton.

Mr Fantastic: As someone who claims to be well educated, don't you think you should be a bit worried about your negative, unhealthy obsession with Oakland/crime/minorities? You may have some sort of mental problem that you should get checked out...or maybe you just need to go back to stormfront?

[Mr. Fantastic]

Originally Posted by rah

SF actually does have a state-topping violent crime rate.

No it isn't. It may be near the top of the list, but it's not #1. When it comes to violent crime in California, Oakland has no peer.

[LittleDolphin]

I lived in Oakland for 18 years and liked it fine. No one mentioned its incredible park system for hiking, mountain biking, dog-walking and even wildness camping: Parks | East Bay Regional Park District) and feeling a million miles away from the urban area (and some large Redwoods, too)...or its Jack London Square waterfront area, or its fine restored art deco movie palaces...Lake Merritt...

There are many Oaklands...with some fine and some not-so-fine areas, just like any urban area.

The worst place to live in the Bay area? Sorry, I don't care to contribute to negative threads...how about places in the Bay area that you can help to improve via citizen activism...?

Jeez, so much negativity gets me riled up...

[rah]

Originally Posted by Mr. Fantastic

No it isn't. It may be near the top of the list, but it's not #1. When it comes to violent crime in California, Oakland has no peer.

Ahh, focus on semantics so that you can once more bash Oakland. Good job!

SF is near the top. It is higher than the vast majority of cities in CA in terms of crime, therefore it is a "state-topping" city in terms of crime-rate...Unless there is only one very specific meaning to the arbitrary term "state-topping" that you would like to fill me in on. Oakland is not the only place in the world with lots of crime. But SF, or Stockton, or Sacramento, or San Bernardino or many other places are not Oakland, so i guess you can't bash them 24/7, as that would violate your troll code.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by goldenchild08

One of the most glaring facts about San Francisco's crime rate is that there are a ridiculously high amount of crimes per square mile in the City. In fact, there are 40,910 documented crimes per square mile in SF. The national median for crimes per square mile is 49.6.

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Uh, I see your point and not to discount the fact that San Francisco does have a fair amount of crime, but that data point is a mistake. There isn't 40,910 crimes per square mile in San Francisco--since SF is about 49 square miles, that'd be over 2,000,000 reported crimes in the city. With a density about 17,000 people per square mile that would mean every person in the city was a victim of crime at least twice per year. No place on Earth has a crime rate that high.

There might be 40,910 reported crimes total in the entire city.

The actual crime rate in San Francisco for 2008 is below:

Rates of reported violent and property crimes for 2008 (845 and 4,549 incidents per 100,000 residents, respectively) are slightly lower than for similarly sized U.S. cities.

[rah]

Originally Posted by Deezus

The actual crime rate in San Francisco for 2008 is below:

Those are old, incomplete stats, from when it wasn't known that the SFPD was cutting the violent crime rate by roughly 20% every year since at least 2005, as a result of filing aggravated assaults incorrectly.

San Francisco's violent crime rate in 2008 wasn't 845 incidents per 100,000 residents, but 1,024 incidents per 100,000 residents, coming in at third highest for california cities of 250k+ residents, and 24th highest of all US cities of 250k+ people (there are 76 such cities). With the correct stats, you can see that SF's violent crime rate is definitely above average. SF's worst area relative to other cities is robbery rate (17th highest of 76 cities, as of 2008), while assault tends to come in more or less average, homicide a little above average (though it's been amazingly low in 2009 and 2010), and rape below average.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Deezus

No place on Earth has a crime rate that high.

Ummm! Mexico?

[durf]

Mattclyde, are you for real? Have ever been San Jose? San Jose has one of the best downtowns in the U.S. with 60 highrises in its downtown. Yes, the city is sprawling with pop of 1,000,000, but it has a nice urban core. It's alot of fun. Are you ignorant and backward thinker? Orange County is exactly like your vision of San Jose. I sure stay away from that awful suburban mess. LA is an awful suburban mess with a real crappy downtown that people faint by standing in the downtown core. It' like going to 70's when downtown was abandoned.