San Francisco is the dirtiest place I've ever been (Oakland: best city, hotel)

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Ulysses61

Dirtier than Mumbia, India? Really!??

yes. the people of Mumbia famously say, "sure, our city is pig sty. but at least we're not San Francisco."

[UKWildcat1981]

Welcome to California: The home of the Homeless.

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by Wallop the Spot

When I read posts like this, I always wonder what neighborhoods of SF the visitor is referring to. I will be visiting SF for the first time later this month (staying in the Marina), but I do not intend to spend much time in the heavily touristed northeast quadrant of the city. Rather, I intend to spend most of my time wandering around Crissy Field, the Presidio, Baker Beach, Sutro Heights Park, Glen Canyon, Golden Gate Heights, Golden Gate Park, Tank Hill, Kite Hill, and other parts in the central and western parts of the city. I find it hard to believe that all of these places are "filthy". Please say it's not so!

Those are mostly posh areas, far from the center of the city and very beautiful. There is no excuse, however, for central San Francisco being the pit that it is. It's caused by a pernicious mix of political correctness and laziness. New York used to have similar problems but after 20 years of Giuliani and Bloomberg, it's squeaky clean.

[Miami3]

Originally Posted by Ulysses61

Dirtier than Mumbia, India? Really!??

We Americans don't seem to live in the real world apparently.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by Miami3

We Americans don't seem to live in the real world apparently.

It's all real. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful.

[EclecticEars]

San Francisco is a city full of rude, elitist locals. Sorry, truth hurts. Even much of the rest of the Bay Area isn't so bad, but then Redwood City, San Jose, and Livermore aren't exactly tourist meccas, either.

When tourists from Europe, a part of the world that does not have a reputation for friendliness, comment on the rudeness and "full-of-itself-ness" of San Franciscans, that should tell you something. And especially when the rest of America has people who are generally friendlier than Europeans, and Europeans even say so themselves!

Some poetic justice as far as filth goes: the Civic Center BART station is, in my experience, the most filthy public transit stop in the entire complexity of Bay Area regional transit. Employees of the City of SF who use BART have to get off at that stop to go to work, since city hall is practically right there. However, while that area of SF is quite filthy, I wouldn't call the city at-large dirty.

San Francisco is still worth the visit for the food, views and architecture. But I prefer Oakland, Livermore (yes, there are some great wineries there), Stinson Beach, Half Moon Bay, and Sonoma County. As long as tourists are willing to drive to those places (or BART to Oakland and stick to the right neighborhoods over there), they can get a fuller, better exposure to what the Bay Area has to offer.

Honestly, while Los Angeles is not full of angels themselves, people down that-a-way tend to be a little more extroverted, tolerant and "sunny." You ought to spend a few days in L.A. sometime. It is, however, a dirtier city in many areas.

[Lookitskirby]

Originally Posted by midwestlaxer

Wow...we've done a lot of traveling this summer...New York, Vegas, Chicago, and now we are in San Francisco...my question is...why is this town so dirty? Absolute filth...and so many homeless people...and the people...the locals...so RUDE. This is how I thought NYC was going to be...it was clean and people were friendly.

Why don't they clean up San Francisco?

Because the people of San Francisco love it and they won't acknowledge that it is a problem. They deny that is filthy and dirty at any cost to make their city look more superior than others.

[bmw335xi]

San Francisco as a whole is actually pretty clean, but the tourists areas are often filthy.

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by Lookitskirby

Because the people of San Francisco love it and they won't acknowledge that it is a problem. They deny that is filthy and dirty at any cost to make their city look more superior than others.

Just how Oaklanders pretend there isn't a crime problem? lol

[bentobox34]

Originally Posted by clongirl

I think the concentration of grossness is in/around Market St and Union Square, the Tenderloin and Chinatown.

Sadly, it's also where most of the hotels are and near many of the tourist attractions, shopping activity, and destination restaurants. It's embarrassing and I don't disagree with many of the tourists that experience this. Even my in-laws over from Ireland said the same thing. They wondered why the homelessness is so pronounced and why nothing has been done.

There are a lot of other neighborhoods where you don't see this though, unfortunately it's not where most of the visitors venture over to.

One thing I find unfortunate about the BART system is that most of the BART stations are situated along Market and Mission, which are two streets that don't exactly present the best face to visitors. Therefore it's practically impossible to visit the city without a car without passing through shady areas. In contrast you can zip around Boston and New York on transit all day and only encounter pretty nice areas.