Do you live there?
This is a genuine question; I'm trying to separate possible FUD from the truth here. I lived in NYC 20 years ago, and you're not describing anything different.
This is a genuine question; I'm trying to separate possible FUD from the truth here. I lived in NYC 20 years ago, and you're not describing anything different.
Parts of it are just like NYC before the cleanup to turn it into a tourist destination. Chinatown and area around it absolutely reminded of late 80s/early 90s in NY. Has that vibe.
Parts of it -- here is looking at you Pacific Heights -- are just completely off the scale amazing. I would move in a heartbeat to PH if I could afford it, crime be damned. (Looked pretty damn safe too, btw.)
tldr; it ain't a "shithole" if you are rich (like everywhere else). far from it.
Also lived in both. It's absolutely different, but it depends on the neighborhood. I'd say that SF's average level of horribleness (when I left in 2017) was about the same as the bad parts of Harlem or the Bronx, or the area around Penn Station / PABT. But sure, if you go to the burb/bougie parts of SF, like West Portal, or even Pac Heights, then it's very different from SOMA or Civic Center. Just like SoHo is very different from East Harlem.
But it's gaslighting to pretend that the two are equivalent. New York is unquestionably better, overall (for starters, the police in NYC will typically actually do something when property crimes are being committed in the open air, which is more than I can say for SF.)
> Public parks full of criminal element that make walking through it a high-stress, high-alert situation
This one is especially laughable, nothing could be further from the truth