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Comment by tchaffee | Hacker News Reader

Here's a good place to compare to other cities, if comparing is even a reasonable thing to do [1]. Sort by Total for Property Crime. Notably Albuquerque, Spokane, and Memphis have higher total property crime rates. But perhaps wouldn't make such an interesting headline for those in tech.

Also notable that Orlando, FL is high on the list. But Irvine, CA and Tampa, FL are at the bottom of the list.

Please also read the Criticisms sections before jumping to conclusions when making comparisons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

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Interesting facts about Irvine:

It’s owned entirely by one of the largest (maybe the largest) real estate company in the US, The Irvine Company. They also have a heavy presence in Sunnyvale CA.

Irvine buildings and neighborhoods - all of them - are built intentionally to be anti-crime. Things like alleys and dark corners are virtually non-existent.

I heard many years ago that Irvine has/had the highest police to citizen ratio in the US. Not sure how true was/is though.

To many, Irvine is also soulless, sterile and feels like living in an office park. Hence moving to SF.

The Irvine Company is solely owned by one man now.

I can only point out anecdotally that the people I know in SF who've had their cars broken into don't even bother waiting to report it to the police because they know there's nothing to be done.

I had three or four while I was there, can't remember. Two thefts from our locked garage. Never seriously considered reporting it, but I should have just to make the stats more accurate

I've lived in Albuquerque and even the worst, absolute worst part of Albuquerque, the part of town the locals call "the war zone", was cleaner and safer-feeling than a huge chunk of SF.

My truck did get broken into, though... guy couldn't figure out how to disconnect the 2m radio, though, so he settled for the owner's manual and nothing else.

I guess the shocking part is that you have all of this theft and crime and grit, all happening around people making hundreds of thousands a year living in multi million dollar houses. Go look at the tax revenue of San Francisco vs Albuquerque. It's unacceptable for a city so rich to have such a dismal quality of life.

What would theft harm per dollar of income look like, instead of 1+ experiences per resident?

> a city so rich

Crime goes up when income gaps get bigger.

https://financesonline.com/how-income-inequality-affects-cri...

There are many, many cities with much lower crime and much higher Gini coefficients than SF. Suggesting the crime problem we're discussing is the cause of income inequality is almost deliberately misleading.

> There are many, many cities with much lower crime and much higher

Do you mean cities with lower arrest rates? I don't know of any reliable source that shows actual crime rates.

> Suggesting the crime problem we're discussing is the cause of income inequality

We already know that income inequality causes higher crime. So it's almost certainly a factor. If anyone has sources to evidence for other factors, there's no reason to not be open to that evidence as well.

The Bay Area has two of the top ten cities for total property crime (SF, Oakland). Not surprising, of course.

EDIT: This chart is accurate to 2019. The picture for SF/Oakland must be much worse using EOY 2021 statistics.

Arson is fascinatingly variable: look at Detroit.

I guess Devil's Night is still a tradition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Night

I mean this could also just be a list of how honest particular police departments are at reporting (or classifying) property crime. Not necessarily the actual rates.

That's a fair criticism. Which is why I questioned the validity of comparisons in my first sentence.

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