Go find me a city that has people that are super happy and nice to each other and also has a high murder rate. Wait, I bet you can't.
Talking about the petty crime and the "vibe" is absolutely on topic for this, because that sort of laissez-faire attitude leads to murders like the one we're discussing.
... you mean the murder in question that, as we've found out in this article/thread, has nothing to do with the "petty crime" and "vibe" that you're referring to?
Let's just let the homeless and the mentally deranged do whatever they want in SF. That's definitely a good way to run a modern city. Better than hurting their feelings! /s
If that's the takeaway you're getting from this comment chain, I really don't know what else to tell you.
Many Mexican and Brazilian cities have much higher murder rates and people are still generally happier and nicer than in the US, especially if SF is the basis for comparison.
Huh? A crime must take place for... a crime to have taken place. It's tautological.
Threatening people is not usually a crime, but that depends. If it's a problem in SF, they could probably make it a crime.
If you are confronted by a mentally ill person screaming threats at you, is your first thought to seek comfort in the violent crime stats? You must be some kind of robot, if so.
Property crime is a different story. That has indeed been a problem.
And before you go to the stats, just remember something: lies, damned lies and statistics. If the police don’t get involved, there’s no police report. If the DA doesn’t charge a crime, there’s no “crime” even if there actually is. Homicides and property crimes tend to leave the most evidence behind, but those aren’t the only crimes that matter and even the criminal amounts of piss and shit around just the MUNI and BART stations probably isn’t generating any police reports either. Verbal harassment and threats also don’t tend to generate enough of the right kind of paperwork to make it into the stats, but it doesn’t make it less real.
To say that “constant threats of murder” does not accurately describe SF.
Let me put it this way: needing to counter an anecdote with your own comes across as unsympathetic at worst and apathetic at best. “Yeah that happened to you, so what? It doesn’t happen to me!” kinda vibes.
It happens enough that too many people have these stories about San Francisco. They’re the kinds of things that can happen anywhere, but San Francisco is one of the places where it is talked about as happening a lot.
I think what gets me is the underlying classism that oozes out of these conversations everywhere I turn. People here (in SFBA) are oh so liberal and progressive ... as long as the undesirables aren't in _their_ neighborhood. Then suddenly everyone's pearl clutching.
For the most part they mean you no harm. Just because people are poor, doesn't mean they're dangerous.
One of the dumbest examples was when a neighbor asked me to stop putting cardboard boxes in recycling because "it attracts the bad element and then they camp in our street". Ffs man they're homeless, let them have a damn box.
If there were more being done about the people threatening violence, intentionally urinating on passersby, molesting women, accosting people in the streets, your neighbor would likely be less concerned about the cardboard box people.
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Sorry Dang, you're right.
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