Is San Francisco a safe city? (Oakland, Bayview: high crime, houses, theater)

[Joel41510]

Happy in cali and 80skeys. My point was that in any major metropolitan city such as San Francisco you will have crime, it's inevitable. But only tourist and transplants whine and complain about it. It's part of living in any large city. You guys must be from Mayfield and you must think that nothing should ever happen to you. Real San Franciscans walk with their mug on mean and always park their motorcycle where they can see it.you have to know how to carry yourself but that comes with the territory. You are obviously transplants, so stop your whining and accept that the criminals and thugs can see that you're a transplant it's written all over your face. People don't mess with me, not because I'm this really big guy they can see it in my eyes and in my swag that if wanna take mug me or Robb me it's not gonna be easy. It's written all over my face. You gotta come correct. STOP WHINING

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by Joel41510

You guys must be from Mayfield and you must think that nothing should ever happen to you. Real San Franciscans walk with their mug on mean and always park their motorcycle where they can see it.

My wife's from Cali, Colombia. That's a place where guys with guns will go onto a city bus and rob the whole bus in broad daylight. It doesn't make her any happier about the prospect of getting mugged while walking to her job in San Francisco.

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by Joel41510

Happy in cali and 80skeys. My point was that in any major metropolitan city such as San Francisco you will have crime, it's inevitable. But only tourist and transplants whine and complain about it. It's part of living in any large city. You guys must be from Mayfield and you must think that nothing should ever happen to you. Real San Franciscans walk with their mug on mean and always park their motorcycle where they can see it.you have to know how to carry yourself but that comes with the territory. You are obviously transplants, so stop your whining and accept that the criminals and thugs can see that you're a transplant it's written all over your face. People don't mess with me, not because I'm this really big guy they can see it in my eyes and in my swag that if wanna take mug me or Robb me it's not gonna be easy. It's written all over my face. You gotta come correct. STOP WHINING

Oh, I think all types of people complain about crime. I don't see how being a native of any city would preclude anyone from complaining about a crime problem. More so when someone is personally affected by it. I split my time between San Francisco and So. Cal, and I just spent the last 12 days in lower Pac Heights, where I had to park my newish car on the street. And the whole time, I was worrying about someone bashing in one of my car windows. Because judging by the shards of broken car window glass littering the local streets, that seems to be a common criminal pastime.

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by X14Freak

I will give my assessment of SF's safety. I lived in the Marina District (considered one of the "safest" neighborhoods) and during my time there I witnessed bar fights, fights, and even a break-in (cops thankfully caught the guy). My apartment gave warnings about a string of robberies that happened in the Marina and there was also a pretty awful SRO called the Bridge Motel which was full of criminals and prostitutes. My neighbor also told me that before I came there was a murder that happened in the Marina.

The biggest problem with SF's safety is that a "safe" neighborhood can become dangerous in a millisecond since the city is so small and cramped. The conviction rate in SF is also pretty pathetic and this only encourages the criminals. San Francisco doesn't have any kind of buffer or physical barrier in their neighborhoods unlike say LA or NYC to segregate the crimes so a lot of criminals sometimes drive up to the richer neighborhoods and commit crime and return to their neighborhoods. Western Addition's projects for example are pretty close to Pacific Heights and crime often occurred in Pacific Heights. Seacliff, Presidio Heights and St. Francis Wood are all pretty safe though but they are very very secluded from the rest of the city and don't have apartments or MUNI stops that go directly into the neighborhood.

St. Francis Wood is awesome. I split my time throughout the year between San Francisco and So. Cal, and I just returned to So. Cal after spending 12 days house-sitting in lower Pac Heights. And during my stay, I would go every few nights to St. Francis Wood to walk around the neighborhood. It's so serene and quiet compared to the rat race and congestion along and near Sutter Street, between Divisadero and Fillmore Streets. I did see a few cops answering a call one night in St. Francis, which I thought odd, since I never saw any police presence there at all. But lower Pac Heights is different: a lot of police activity, a lot of broken car glass littering the streets, and a lot of riff-raff roaming around. And it only gets worse when you go south of Geary, especially around Turk/Golden Gate and Scott St, where many projects are.

I'd also add West Portal, Forest Hill, and Westwood Highlands as areas isolated from much of the SF grittiness.

[NewbieHere]

It didn't use to be not safe, but I've heard things about it lately. Some packets are not safe like the Tenderloin area. I've heard this from my kid who stayed at a youth hostel in SF with her friends.

[rah]

Originally Posted by NewbieHere

It didn't use to be not safe, but I've heard things about it lately. Some packets are not safe like the Tenderloin area. I've heard this from my kid who stayed at a youth hostel in SF with her friends.

Actually, SF used to be worse: 142 murders in 1977, 120 murders in 1981, 129 murders in 1993, 100 murders in 2007...and only 46 murders last year. In the early 90s compared to now, SF's murder rate was three times higher, the robbery rate was over twice as high, and the total violent crime rate was twice as high.

A lot of people who have never been to SF have no idea about it's bad side though, because the media and hollywood have paid comparatively little attention to it (unlike say, neighboring Oakland, where until recently it was all they paid attention to), instead choosing to focus more on non-scary, stereotypical touristy stuff, not to mention that the safer half of the city (northern) is where most tourists go anyways, which helps color perception too. So most people not born and raised in SF are usually presented with the city from a mostly middle class/upper class perspective (AKA a point of view of many of the safest parts of the city, and few or none of the rough parts), and never really know about the bad side of the city, unless they accidentally walk through the Tenderloin or something.

The only reason i can think of why SF would be getting an unsafe reputation now, of all times (when it's the safest it's been since the 1960s), is because of the proliferation of the internet making it a lot easier to share news articles and learn about crime in SF (particularly because of some recent high profile incidents that made the national news, and are getting used as political ammo by republicans).

[NewbieHere]

Originally Posted by rah

Actually, SF used to be worse: 142 murders in 1977, 120 murders in 1981, 129 murders in 1993, 100 murders in 2007...and only 46 murders last year. In the early 90s compared to now, SF's murder rate was three times higher, the robbery rate was over twice as high, and the total violent crime rate was twice as high.

A lot of people who have never been to SF have no idea about it's bad side though, because the media and hollywood have paid comparatively little attention to it (unlike say, neighboring Oakland, where until recently it was all they paid attention to), instead choosing to focus more on non-scary, stereotypical touristy stuff, not to mention that the safer half of the city (northern) is where most tourists go anyways, which helps color perception too. So most people not born and raised in SF are usually presented with the city from a mostly middle class/upper class perspective (AKA a point of view of many of the safest parts of the city, and few or none of the rough parts), and never really know about the bad side of the city, unless they accidentally walk through the Tenderloin or something.

The only reason i can think of why SF would be getting an unsafe reputation now, of all times (when it's the safest it's been since the 1960s), is because of the proliferation of the internet making it a lot easier to share news articles and learn about crime in SF (particularly because of some recent high profile incidents that made the national news, and are getting used as political ammo by republicans).

I didn't know that there are any Republicans left in SF?

[bigboibob]

SF has twice the violent crimes and 3 times the property crimes as NYC.

SF property crimes will likely get worse due to Prop 47 while increasing number of property crimes go unreported.

[WizardOfRadical]

Compared to LA and NYC no, SF is GHETTO.

But compared to Chicago, it probably looks like Mayberry.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by rah

The only reason i can think of why SF would be getting an unsafe reputation now, of all times (when it's the safest it's been since the 1960s), is because of the proliferation of the internet making it a lot easier to share news articles and learn about crime in SF (particularly because of some recent high profile incidents that made the national news, and are getting used as political ammo by republicans).

Hit it right there at the end. It's the continuous characterization of SF (and CA) as the awful den of iniquity, spawned by Lucifer to wreak unlimited havoc on the puritanical morality of God-fearing 'Murica, by the usual suspect media outlets that informs the casual alarmed observers. It's a veritable "mission" for many of these good ol' boys, whether it be to save souls, or to extract money from the wary through fear.
SF has always represented an alternative to old world, ancient silly ideology, and those folks make it their business to bugger about West Coast business, even if it is quintessentially NONE of their business. (Like those who creep around the CA C-D forums who don't live here).

But the beat goes on. And crackheads will do their smash-and-grabs in SF, much like any major city. But there will be a lot more coverage about it in the hysterical media since such things occurring in more mundane places is merely a nuisance, whereas in Sf, it's the inevitable result of liberals' rampant sinning...or something like that. We'll let Glenn Beck explain it.