I'm trying to find a source that lists Houston as having meaningfully less crime than SF.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tx/houston/crime vs https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime (This shows SF having considerably less violent crime compared to Houston, but slightly more property crime).
Even in a self reported survey, I don't see much difference from people who live in these places: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Uni...