Sure, in places, there were homeless people sitting in doorways, and some of them asked whether I could spare any change - much like homeless people in many other cities. I didn't experience any of them shouting at me, shooting up drugs, demanding money, or peeing in the street. I didn't notice anywhere smelling of urine (although the sea lions around Pier 39 where a little bit stinky).
SF has its issues, like most cities around the world, but I don't think they're as severe or widespread as is being suggested.
How can you actually think you are qualified to have an opinion
here after visiting part of a city one time?
There's very little data in these comments. Lots of anecdata, and I'm presenting an alternative perspective with my anecdata, but until there's actual data in the discussion, I'm not sure that we should be dismissing someone else's opinion out of hand.
From the context: parent said "as a European who has made some trips to America but never been to SF in particular", so I thought it appropriate to reply with my experience as a European who has been to SF in particular. My experience there was simply my experience: I didn't observe the antisocial behaviour being described, so it's fair to say that it's not common behaviour (in the areas I visited).
That's not to say it doesn't exist, or that it isn't more common elsewhere in SF. That said, homeless people do tend to congregate in areas where tourists visit, so you would expect the density of homeless people to be highest in those tourist areas, and for those places to experience the most severe issues.
Even touristy, well trafficked areas, Powell St station for instance, will very often smell of urine.
On my most recent visit back to the city around the holidays, I saw a young looking couple shooting up on 21st and Valencia, albeit this was at night, and I almost had someone poop on me while waiting at the crosswalk at Sutter and Montgomery, this was at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon.
I find it very hard to believe you could experience much of
the city without the smell of urine at least a few times.
So it's quite possible that I did experience that, but in a context where it was such a commonplace experience that it simply didn't stick in my memory.
I almost had someone poop on me while waiting at the
crosswalk at Sutter and Montgomery
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/mar/27/ncp-...
Regarding the narrowly escaping pooping incident, yes, I was waiting for the lights to change and not paying much attention when an older woman crouched down on the curb 3-4 feet to my side and relived herself. Without getting into too much detail, what came out was rather liquified and I only noticed her as I saw it hit the pavement in front of me.
That said, I can relate a story where I was ordering takeaway on a Friday evening in (the UK city) Bristol, when one of the customers started weeing where they were sat, on a bar stool at the counter.
I think some of these incidents are a reflection of cities in general, but also - like shark attacks and plane crashes - they're talked about because they are so unusual and rare. The consequent discussions aren't necessarily proportionate to the number of incidents.
I also wonder whether the "must relocate to San Francisco" phenomenon has brought in people who have previously lived in more suburban or rural surroundings, and are attributing their changed experiences specifically to SF, rather than to cities in general.
Or it could simply be that SF does have a significantly different homeless population to most cities, which would make for a fascinating study in behavioural science. It sounds like your experiences support that, and I'll keep an open mind to the question.
And I've embarrassingly never considered your point about the transient nature of tech employment in SF possibly bringing people into contact with the homeless that don't have any prior experience dealing with them. Great point and I can definitely see how this could color their experience.
Some of this is simple geography. It's much easier to be homeless in a dense (by US standards) city than a sprawled out suburb. SF also has decent public transit, again largely due to the necessary density, which makes being homeless easier. SF also has a relatively mild climate. Yes, the fog and the dampness/rain do suck, but it rarely gets either extremely cold or hot.
Outside of geography, some cities are known for being extremely hostile to the homeless through policy and actively try and push their homeless out. I believe some cities, Las Vegas if my memory is correct, have been caught giving bus tickets to SF to their homeless. I know there are cities in Orange County where the police have been known to pick up homeless people and drop them off in neighboring cities. So, SF tends to get stuck with homeless problems that should be shared between many other cities/regions.
SF also tends to have pretty good homeless services in terms of things like food kitchens and temporary housing/shelters.
I will also add that having grown up partly in SF, and having spent some time living on the streets (more accurately parks) there, I don't think SF's reputation as a dirty city is entirely due to the homeless population. The people in SF, even those with multi million dollars houses, just don't really seem to care much. I've seen plenty of what I assume to be well employed people litter and no one really bats an eye. It also isn't unusual to see non-homeless people urinating in the streets after bars close. Again, I just don't think there is a critical mass of people that care enough, and I get the strong impression that those that do care don't really want to say anything since it could be interpreted as being intolerant.
I think the fact that you have a large number of young single tech workers who probably don't have plans to stay in the city long term leads to a lack of civic pride. Additionally, while there are many wonderful aspects of the tolerance that SF is know for, I do believe that many people end up being too accepting of what is and isn't acceptable public behavior. This is probably complicated by the fact that I don't actually think SF is nearly as progressive as it claims, it's mostly virtue signaling. It's much easier to say you're progressive by tolerating all sort of behaviors that aren't particularly healthy, than it is to try and help the underlying causes of those behaviors.
It's very late here so my apologies if this wasn't a good explanation.
I don't think SF's reputation as a dirty city is entirely due to the homeless population
[0] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dolores-Park-Friends-w...