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Old 11-24-2010, 08:11 PM
 
Location: Earth
17,440 posts, read 28,459,168 times
Reputation: 7472

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Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenchild08 View Post
You gotta go there to experience it for yourself. San Francisco's economy is solely based on tourism. Making the City look bad would equate to SF going broke. That is the reason why the real crime statistics about SF are swept under the rug.

The worst areas of SF are remote and hidden away from tourists.
Lakeview, Sunnydale, Bayview, and HP are remote and untouristed.

The Tenderloin and the Mission are NOT remote and untouristed and well known throughout the state, if anything, outside the Bay Area not that many people probably know that the Mission west of Valencia is gentrified.

 
Old 11-24-2010, 08:15 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
16,581 posts, read 27,248,742 times
Reputation: 9001
Even to this day, when I'm in the Bay Area and I decide to go to SF, I stick to a very narrow corridor. Occasionally, I'll do the Pier39 things if I'm with someone who hasn't been to the city before. I catch the BART and get off at Montgomery or Powell. The only muni line I ever ride is the number 5. It goes down Mac Allister and Fulton. It gets me to GG Park where I stay on the northeast side, near Stow Lake. Very rarely will I wander in the park. I make sure I'm out of the city before dark. Those elements from the poorer neighborhoods spread out into the city after dark. Where as Oakland's downtown becomes a ghost-town, SF's is like a scene from the apocalypse almost; crazy homeless people and thugs everywhere and it gets very loud.

I've lived in "bad" parts of San Diego, Oakland and Richmond. I've been to bad parts of LA and Long Beach and was in the so called sketchy area of downtown Seattle (Belltown) after dark. No place on the west coast frightens me as much as San Francisco can.
 
Old 11-24-2010, 08:21 PM
 
Location: ABQ
3,771 posts, read 7,056,742 times
Reputation: 4893
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenchild08 View Post
You gotta go there to experience it for yourself. San Francisco's economy is solely based on tourism. Making the City look bad would equate to SF going broke. That is the reason why real crime statistics about SF are swept under the rug.

The worst areas of SF are remote and hidden away from tourists. Beyond those hills, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Trans America Building is violent neglected third world poverty. For instance, the crime in my old neighborhood is so bad that the local cops are scared to even go there. My old hood is patrolled by the Feds and has prepubescent ten year old year old crack dealers. Life must be pretty bad to make a preteen want to sell crack or dope for a better life. That sad part about it is that my old hood was MUCH more dangerous, violent and drug filled when I was growing up there in the 80's and 90's. Read about my old hood in SF right here:

Capitol Ave: a tale of two neighborhoods and other San Francisco, CA Warning Or Danger Tips - VirtualTourist.com

This article talks about how Lakeview used to be back in the 80's and 90's:
Minnie Ward -- helped clean up Ocean View area - SFGate
I think you make a lot of valid points in general from what I read, but this is entirely overstated. San Francisco isn't Cuidad Juarez - it's not even Chicago. I grew up in Cleveland and was in close vicinity to cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit - San Francisco's worst neighborhoods just aren't on par with the aforementioned. Market rents and real estate has marginalized many people, but that's a part of the reason why many of those people aren't still in SF - opting, like many of us mentioned earlier, to move to the East Bay or beyond.

When I tour SF - either for myself, with friends, showing listings - Potrero, Mission, Visitacion Valley, Crocker-Amazon, Sunset, et al - I'm sorry, I don't see 3rd world poverty all over. I don't see that in Deep East Oakland either. I think both cities have their pockets of areas I wouldn't live in, but I find a lot of beauty in some of those neighborhoods. Moreover, even Hunter's Point's roughly per capita crime rate wouldn't fit in with the top 5 Chicago neighborhoods for crime. You'd be hard-pressed to find 70,000 willing people from Chicago suburbs and neighborhoods to travel into Chicago's Garfield Park, Austin, Englewood, Lawndale, etc, to watch a Chicago Bears game like they do nearly every Sunday in Hunter's Point.

Does San Francisco downplay many of its issues? Sure, what city doesn't? Does The Chronicle foam at the mouth to report on the next violent encounter in Oakland or Richmond? Seemingly. But it's not so misleading as to conclude that without it, San Francisco would fall off the face off the map because their entire economy revolves around tourism. That's like saying that the city of Cleveland is bound for destruction when LeBron James left the Cavaliers (since as everyone knows, Lebron James was the sole economic producer for the city of Cleveland <sarcasm>). San Francisco's economy isn't by any means one-dimensional - it's not Disneyland - they don't need parents to think that it's a safe, sterile place that they don't need to feel threatened. Look, I think SF's ties to tourism does play a roll and I think it's so very easy to paint Oakland as a horrible place to be - but let's not overstate things. I think it harms your thesis a great deal when I think you have a lot of good things to offer to the discussion.

Just my $.02
 
Old 11-24-2010, 08:32 PM
 
Location: THE USA
3,257 posts, read 6,108,881 times
Reputation: 1998
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Land View Post
They are going to Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg, down south. I read an article about how the suburbs are going to turn into the new inner cities because of people with money moving back into the cities and people with not much money moving out to the suburbs due to affordability.
Oh Pittsburg is already a mess. I have friends from East Oakland that moved there and even they said it is a bad place. I know there are some people in Stockton and Tracy. Any other ideas on where people will end up.

San Leandro is somewhat like the new Oakland. It is an entirely different population from the 1990's.
 
Old 11-24-2010, 08:42 PM
 
Location: Mission Viejo, CA / San Rafael, CA
2,352 posts, read 5,235,840 times
Reputation: 539
Quote:
Originally Posted by ssmaster View Post
from my post at 2:20 pm today :"around 65% of san francisco population are renters you appear to ignore that housing prices are very high throughout the inner core bay area and that the same problems with affordable housing apply more to SF than oakland."
No, you aren't understanding. Let me make it more simple for you, I'm talking about the amount of people who actually live in Oakland and commute to S.F, and then breaking that group into renters vs owners. You haven't done that, so your point is unvalidated by any metric.
 
Old 11-24-2010, 08:44 PM
 
Location: Mission Viejo, CA / San Rafael, CA
2,352 posts, read 5,235,840 times
Reputation: 539
Quote:
Originally Posted by majoun View Post
the Mission Viejo Kid.
I kind of like that, I think I'll use it in my status update.
 
Old 11-25-2010, 08:10 AM
 
Location: The Bay and Maryland
1,361 posts, read 3,700,268 times
Reputation: 2167
One of the things that makes San Francisco so dangerous is the fact that it is very hard to be sheltered in The City. Even some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in The City earned the lowest safety ratings according to the neighborhood scout map. Since SF is so densely populated, if you leave you front door ever you will share sidewalk space with crazy homeless people, heavily tattooed road warrior types, nortenos and thugs of all flavors and have to overhear their scary conversations about shoot outs and insane mentally disturbed rants.

On the other hand, areas in more infamous cities like DC are actually very safe. If you live in Northwest DC, you may never come in contact with any crime. Areas of NW DC bordering ultra rich Montgomery County, Maryland are among the safest in the nation. The Hawthorne/Barnaby Woods neighborhood in NW DC earned a 93 out of 100 on the safety index making it one of the safest places in the USA. It is hard to be sheltered like this in SF.

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Even some of the most world famous and picture-esque areas of SF are only a block or two from the wildest hoods in the Bay. For example, the post card scene of the Pained Ladies on Alamo Square where they filmed the feel good family show Full House is one or two blocks away from some of the historically most high crime ghetto areas of the City in Fillmore. Take a look at this Fillmore rapper showing you his hood which bleeds over into Full House suburbia:



Although many areas in Fillmore are gentrified, the area is extremely spotty. Some of the hardest projects in Fillmore don't even look like high crime ghetto areas. For an unsuspecting out of towner this can spell big trouble. Look at this block in Fillmore which is only a few blocks from nice places like Japantown. With a name like the "Piranhas", you can assume these thugs will eat you alive. Read the youtube comments on this video obviously written by SF Fillmore natives in which they pride themselves for robbing and victimizing clueless out of towners. According to some of the other youtube comments, some of the dudes in this video have been gunned down since it was filmed:

These guys don't look like the San Francisco Tourism Welcome Committee


Last edited by Yac; 11-29-2010 at 08:28 AM..
 
Old 11-25-2010, 09:33 AM
 
Location: The Bay and Maryland
1,361 posts, read 3,700,268 times
Reputation: 2167
Quote:
I think you make a lot of valid points in general from what I read, but this is entirely overstated. San Francisco isn't Cuidad Juarez - it's not even Chicago. I grew up in Cleveland and was in close vicinity to cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit - San Francisco's worst neighborhoods just aren't on par with the aforementioned.
Eh. I think you have to have lived there when it was really bad in order to make such an ignorant blanket statement. I already showed the link to the projects in my old neighborhood and they are more run down than many of the PJ's in Baltimore and Oakland. I currently live in Maryland between Baltimore and DC, two cities that strike fear into people's hearts. Many hoods in Baltimore are just the same as Lakeview, SF. Prepubescent drug dealers, open air drug market, boarded up buildings, liquor stores on every corner, lots of gun violence, murder etc. What makes young kids sell hard drugs? The fact that their parents are broke and can't afford to put food on the table. It's the same song for ghetto kids in SF, Oakland, Chicago and Baltimore. Ultimately, a ghetto is a ghetto. If you traveled the country you would know that. I don't believe in the idea that "my ghetto is harder than your ghetto". What makes Chicago harder? The fact that gangs have scary names like "The Latin Kings" and "Vice Lords" instead of repping street names like homegrown SF gangsters. GTFO. If you read any of those articles I posted, there were over 20 crack houses in the neighborhood at one point and at least a dozen documented murders on one single corner one year back in the early 90's. San Francisco was one of the cities worst hit by the crack epidemic and my neighborhood was the highest crime rate district in the City back in the early 90's. I think people refuse to believe that ghettos in SF aren't as bad as other places is because the City is such a pretty place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_e...United_States)

Do you really think a neighborhood that produced ominous music like this is safer than any other ghetto? Really?


Last edited by goldenchild08; 11-25-2010 at 09:52 AM..
 
Old 11-25-2010, 10:50 AM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,225 posts, read 36,688,530 times
Reputation: 28550
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Fantastic View Post
I don't consider areas where 60% of the neighborhood (aka Piedmont ave) are renters. I know you haven't taken any college level classes on Urban and City planning, but should know affordable housing is an indication of a strong middle class.
Hmm so the fact that the renters (and residents) are diverse doesn't mean that it counts. That seems to be splitting hairs here. Strong middle class is in Bay Area is virtually non-existant, and takes different forms here. If middle class is having 2 cars and a 2000 square foot house than we don't have it.

The people who live in the neighborhoods are middle class and diverse. Considering most people who decide to buy in the Bay Area are
a. well off
b. move to the burbs

This isn't a very indicative stat to judge neighborhood diversity. Or even whether or not a place has middle class values. In most high-cost areas more people rent than buy, but it is silly to say renter cities (or neighborhoods) do not share values or economic status.

It seems like it is hard for you to believe that Oakland has black people (and latinos) at all levels of economic class. Although some live in poverty, and are isolated, many do not share that experience. To a greater degree in most places in the US.
 
Old 11-25-2010, 11:05 AM
 
Location: The Bay and Maryland
1,361 posts, read 3,700,268 times
Reputation: 2167
Quote:
I grew up in Cleveland and was in close vicinity to cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit - San Francisco's worst neighborhoods just aren't on par with the aforementioned.
Even if the hoods in those cities are "harder" than the ghettos of SF, your argument is pointless. Why don't you take a trip to some of these projects in SF and tell these goons that "I'm from Cleveland, you and your city are SOFT!!" And see what happens.

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