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Comment by jackfruitpeel | Hacker News Reader

I'm living in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Oakland, and I would definitely not consider it "fine". The area is beautiful, but we're plagued by gunpoint robberies, burglaries, dumping, etc — people coming in and treating us as a place to loot and leave.

I love Oakland, but I'm gone as soon as our rent is up. There's a general lawlessness here that's incredibly frustrating.

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I'm sorry you've had that experience, where I lived in Oakland nothing like that happened with any regularity. And I did not live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Oakland.

But I mean, it is a city. These things happen in cities, I just don't see how it could credibly be claimed to be worse than San Francisco when the geographical variability is so high.

Anything I saw in Oakland was no worse than any other city I have ever lived in. I don't really know a better way to put it, I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm saying it's as fine as anywhere else of comparable density.

I appreciate your viewpoint, but I want to push back on "this just happens in cities". The only other place I experienced this level of criminality was when I was living in South America. (And I'm certainly not saying SF is much better.)

I'm originally from Europe, and have lived in and visited a huge variety of cities around the world. This level of anti-social behaviour / criminality is not normal, or acceptable in most developed countries.

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