There are tons of commercial streets and only so many homeless. But when you have fewer streets, you have more homeless per street.
Mind you I live in Montreal, Canada. Things may be different in the US. In particular the bay area.
It's difficult to compare these places, when I lived in Toronto the homeless situation was nothing like what I saw in downtown SF, even around Bloor & Yonge at night.
You'll find the situation is much more grim in the US in major cities and exactly like the OP describes. It affected me slowly over the years, I'm still recovering.
And it was definitely unsettling, I had a man follow me from the bridge back towards my neighbourhood at night.
But, I also note that Pittsburgh has relatively few such walkable neighbourhoods (though it is much better than the Us average!). If it was more like NYC or Montreal the homeless population would be more diffuse.
I’ve been to NYC a bunch and it always feels much safer. Not only were there fewer homeless per street corner, but there are always large amounts of normal people walking around, so you feel safe with numbers.
(To be clear, other than the one person following me, I felt safe in Pittsburgh. The ones in the neighbourhood I was in were not aggressive. But it was different than Canada or NYC in that they were much of the foot traffic)
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/12/03/new-york-...
Also nyc doesn’t have low per capita homeless numbers. It does however shelter them better than, say, SF.
No need to cross international borders. Vancouver BC is on par with downtown SF for this.
Your average walkable suburban center would likely have a pretty limited homeless population, and locals would be familiar enough with them to recognize whether or not they are a potential threat.
Very cold winters seem like an effective (and brutal) deterrent against long-term homelessness? Though, you say the homeless people in your area congregate in one place, do you have some idea why?
Specifically am referring to the plateau mont royal neighbourhood. There, the homeless congregate on mont royal avenue. It is long, has a metro station, plentiful bus routes, a monastery that provides homeless services and food, a library across from the metro. Lots of stores and foot traffic all throughout the day.
I’m in Halifax now for a few months and the homeless people (who congregate on spring garden) seem more aggressive for whatever reason. In Montreal they were never a bother.
There were definitely long term homeless as I saw many of the same faces over the years. Could be a lower number, but I think part of the issue is shelter.
For instance SF has no more homeless per capita than NYC, but they have a massively higher number of unsheltered homeless, which causes a lot of problems both for the city and for the homeless.
But NYC also has many more “homeless amenable” areas than a place like SF, which has a fairly small walkable area. My central point is if you built like Montreal and NYC then the entire city is walkable and the problem is less concentrated and thus much less bothersome.
(There are homeless elsewhere in Montreal. But in my specific neighbourhood only one street has them)
It's a different society. Spent a little bit of time in Montreal. Used to think only the language was different but it goes much much deeper.