[tizzdogg]

One of San Francisco's problems, from the perspective of being appealing to outsiders, is that there are a few small areas with lots of homeless and the other problems you describe. And those also happen to be the main areas visited by tourists, and people coming to the city for conferences: Civic Center, Tenderloin, Downtown, South of Market. But the vast majority of the city is more residential and much more livable. Of course it has the problems of any big city, but in my day to day life living here I manage to almost always avoid all of the problems you mention. I live on a tree-lined street a couple blocks from a park with a playground. I havnt been to fishermans wharf in basically my entire life. Locals just dont go there because we know its a terrible tourist trap. It actually can be a very pleasant city with a lot to offer. There is a reason housing in SF is so desirable and why tech companies want to be located there. I wish it could be made more obviously appealing to the casual tourist though, because we're giving ourselves a bad rep.