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Comment by rib3ye | Hacker News Reader

Having lived here for 20 years, I can say things are a great deal better than they were before the Downtown tech explosion that happened 10 years ago. Market was filled with pushers you would only now only see on 6th St, and I literally saw a drive-by shooting (resulting in murder) on Mission at 19th (Beauty Bar). Both of those things are unthinkable today.

I feel like people are forgetting how bad things use to be.

[Edited for tappos]

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Murder is down, but non-violent crime (burglary, theft, car break-ins, vandalism) is way, way up. San Francisco now has a higher property crime than any large city in the United States. Literally the worst in the nation.

Not to mention, the trash, used needles, and human feces now covering the city.

I lived there ten years ago, too. You’re remembering selectively.

Yes, the Mission has gentrified and mid-market is a bit cleaner. But now there are widespread homeless camps, and open defecation and needles (formerly isolated to certain neighborhoods) are everywhere. And it’s not as if the Mission crime has gone away - it’s just further south now.

Property crime is up; even in SOMA, broken car windows were an occasional thing. Now it’s every day. Twin Peaks overlook is a robbery hotspot, and some guy was shot and killed for a camera up there not too long ago.

If you only ever visit the gentrified tech zones of SF, you’d be excused for thinking things have improved, but there’s no way to argue about it objectively.

In my observation, this argument, at best, is only describing things as marginally better than pre-2010 build up. But fear not: SF is a Gold Rush town that rises and fades 10x to the rest of the nation during every economic build up. It's not "tech", it's just the way our central banking system works.