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Comment by madrox | Hacker News Reader

I lived a block from here prior to Covid, and I would've called this a safe part of town. Honestly incredible there was a stabbing there.

My condolences to the family. The guy was too young.

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San Francisco, as you must be aware, has changed a LOT since pre-Covid. Arguably the administration and policies are surely to blame.

Hope this is a wake up call, but evidence points to the contrary in present day SF

It's one thing to have heard rumblings and another to hear about this happening a block from your old home. Upsetting story on many levels.

Unfortunately even in safer areas there are predators out looking for prey at 2:35 a.m., especially in places where crime is now epidemic.

Nothing good ever happens at 2:35 in the morning.

Especially during spring DST switchover.

post COVID, SoMa is maybe second only to the tenderloin in how overrun it is by the homeless

Some parts of SoMa, this is true, like 4th Street+.

The area where this man died is known as Rincon Hill and is dominated by tech offices, Sweetgreens, and luxury highrise apartment buildings and is basically dead after 8pm every day of the week. I lived a block away from where this man was stabbed for a month and it felt safe and dead quiet once all the tech workers go home.

The fact that its dead in the evenings is part of the problem. Places like that tend to attract a kind of a crowd later in the evenings precisely because it is nice and quiet otherwise. A friend used to live in that area shortly before Covid and the quiet was too quiet -- sometimes it felt like those scenes from westerns where the whole town shutters up when the big bad gunslingers are having a showdown.

Although a lot of the buildings in that area have lobbies that are staffed round the clock.

I thought we were supposed to call them "the unhoused" or something.

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