The local crime statistics are saying that San Francisco is a safe city with crime trending downwards.
> My biggest problem with SF was simply not feeling physically safe while walking down the street or sitting in a train. SF has a pretty low violent crime rate, at least by US standards, so I wasn’t worried about getting shot or robbed or anything like that.
> Instead, the problem was that SF had (and still has today), thousands of people wandering around who are suffering from untreated substance abuse and/or severe mental illness. The vast majority of these folks were completely harmless, but a small percentage were hostile, threatening, and, in some cases, violent.
> In multiple cases over the last few years, I was followed, screamed at, and threatened in broad daylight. Thankfully, nothing physically happened to me, but it’s a really jarring experience to have this happen. Each time I reported these incidents to the police, they never responded. I got the sense that as long as no one was physically harmed, they didn’t really care. Thus, there were no mechanisms in place to control, contain, or treat this behavior.
Take the <$950 theft being classified as misdemeanor, not crime plus general overload of the system means cops don't even bother.
So now you have a theft that isn't reported.
Crime goes down.
What hurts SF is a perfect environment for people to be homeless, and thus all the associated problems from homelessness. Rather than murder, rape, home invasion, etc it’s a host of lesser but still unpleasant things.
My recommendation for you to stay safe as a minority in America who feels threatened is to obtain a concealed carry permit, a Glock 43 with holster, and a cell phone you can use to call 911. When shit hits the fan try to run away and call 911 but if you can't run away you can leave the phone off the hook with the 911 operator on the other end. If you can't talk your encounter is recorded even if you aren't able to engage with the operator immediately. The 911 recording can clear up any self-defense issues.
my point here is that there are places in the US that are not safe for various subgroups. in major cities, this is (unfortunately) a common issue but that doesn't mean that it's magically going to go away - the alternative is to be prepared when moving to literally the most dangerous part of the city.
If we use detailed violent crime information from Chicago sourced from https://heyjackass.com/ it is clear that the greatest threat to non-whites is other non-whites. 96% of victims and assailants are non-white and 92% of the time injury and death occurs from being shot. I find it hard to believe that city police are killing non-whites at a similar rate and manner. According the same website mentioned above there were 3 people killed by police in 2023 and 3 people were wounded by police in 2023. If we speculatively assume all six victims of police involved shootings were black only and we consider the other 237 black victims of violent crime (93% of which are shootings, so 220 blacks shot, then this gives us the ratio of 6/(220+6) or about 3% of black victims were victims of police involved shootings in Chicago. You have a 97% chance of being shot by non-cop if you are black when a violent/deadly encounter is in the cards.
If you are non-white and live in a city you should absolutely conceal carry to protect yourself. Use 911 to your advantage as a recording system too. I still recommend a good pair of running shoes first and foremost. Sometimes 911 puts people on hold. If you live in a city where this happens (it happened to me before in the US nation's capital) maybe its for the best to wear a body cam when going out and about.
so i should buy a gun, use 911 as a recording system, buy a pair of good running shoes, and wear a body cam? but this guy who moved to the tenderloin shouldn't have to accept that he lives in a bad neighborhood?
> they would seem defiant of the most common kind of testimonials of the quarter-million-plus people who have left the area.
Most people leave because it is too full/expensive. The city (and Bay Area) cycles in and out people, it always has. But an equilibrium is always reached where it is still expensive but not expensive enough to lose population.
The result was no one was investigating or prosecuting crimes anymore. Everyone predicted what would happen next is that the pundits, the news media, and the politicians would point to "see crime is actually trending downwards the numbers are going down." when in reality police were no longer as responsive, at the same time people would stop calling the police because the wait times would be too long and they know nothing would happen.
This is what's happening, and I will not be convinced otherwise. 2+2=4
As a thought experiment what would be the best way to seize the assets of downtown building owners or at least buy them in a metaphorical fire sale? Blockbusting! The background and history of the term is left as an exercise to the reader.