[tsgagnon]

I don’t understand why it can’t be both: SF is degenerating when it comes to random crime AND this murder wasn’t by some random thug.

Always important to reflect on whether stances like "SF is degenerating" are based on a rational analysis of what is actually happening, versus a more emotional response to stories that might be more like the topic of this post, just with less visibility into the exact circumstances of what happened.

Not saying that's likely happening here, but the clear response to the original news was that this was the perfect example of what SF is becoming. How often does that assumption happen?

[smsm42]

I've seen SF degenerating with my very own eyes and smelled it with my very own nose. Yes, this particular case may or may not be (we don't have jury decision yet) part of this pattern. But no amount of "akshually, this carefully picked statistic clearly shows that the crime is much better than it was in 1980s!" is going to change how I felt when I went to SF and how my eyes watered from the urine stench when I tried to ride BART in the city. Call me irrational as much as you want - but this is what being there felt lately, and it's obvious it is not only my personal point of view.

[slg]

I don't live in San Francisco. I can't tell you exactly what is going on in the ground, so I don't know who is right here.

However, this comment is falling into the exact situation that OP was trying to warn about. You are using an anecdote to dismiss statistics because the anecdote is a powerful emotional narrative that feels true. It is after all your own personal experience. However, that experience might not be an accurate representation of reality. OP warned to keep that in mind. Your response is effectively saying "no, my emotional narrative feels true so I'm sticking with it."

Maybe you are right and your emotional narrative is true. As I said, I don't know. But I'll tell you if one side of a debate has statistics and the other side has feelings, I think it is smart to side with the side that has statistics.

[overrun11]

City-wide statistics seem almost entirely meaningless in these contexts. Most violent crime is concentrated in specific parts of the city where the people who participate in these debates never go. A 10% decrease in violent crime in the most dangerous part of a city could cancel out a 10x increase in the areas where most HN people would likely be living in.

[midoridensha]

Don't forget, there's different kinds of crimes with different visibilities.

So there could be a 50% decrease in violent crime in the most dangerous part of a city, along with a 500% increase in non-violent or petty crimes everywhere else: shoplifting, parked car smash-and-grabs, urinating in the train stations, pooping on the sidewalks, etc. So the tech crowd isn't going to notice fewer people getting murdered in the worst section of town, but they'll definitely see the other stuff.

[slg]

I can't tell what point you are trying to make. Are you suggesting that while crime overall is down, this new situation is actually worse because the victims are now likely to have more money than past victims?

[kbelder]

He is putting more emphasis on his direct experience than in statistics that are undoubtedly cherry-picked and potentially unreliable (by both political extremes). That's not buying into an emotional narrative; that's doing a reality check.

[slg]

The direct experience of a single person has almost no value when assessing a problem as big as crime rates. It would be like saying cancer rates are up because two people you know got cancer. Direct experience shouldn't be given that much weight.

[kelnos]

Direct experience is colored by emotion. I was mugged in the Mission 10 years ago, and it felt shitty, and it took several years for me to feel comfortable walking in some areas of the city again, especially at night. But my feelings were utterly irrelevant to what actual crime rates have been in the city since then.

I agree with you that crime stats can be politicized, but it's equally sketchy to consider n=1 anecdotes as more reliable indicators. Certainly if you yourself experience or are the victim of crime at some particular rate and intensity, then that's suggestive to you, personally. It's entirely logical to make decisions about your own life -- like moving to a safer neighborhood, or avoiding areas in the city where you've experienced crime -- but it's not particularly useful when talking about the city as a whole, or in making general recommendations to residents on how to be safe.

[pb7]

Aggregated year-over-year statistics are cherrypicked but his emotional experience isn't?

Ok, here's my not cherrypicked experience: The issue is massively overblown. It's nowhere near as bad as the sour-grapes living elsewhere would have you believe.

[anigbrowl]

It is a kind of reality check, but as an individual you just see a very small slice of reality, so generalizing from that in space or time is often misleading. And some people cite their personal experience as a way of shutting down debate, ie 'don't tell me about the data on X, I've seen it with my own eyes', and making lengthy impassioned speeches to sideline other points of view.

[ramblenode]

> You are using an anecdote to dismiss statistics because the anecdote is a powerful emotional narrative that feels true

Statistics can be useful, not useful, or misleading. Nothing about them is inherently meaningful or valuable--it depends entirely on the question and process generating the data and statistic. GIGO applies.

Despite the meme that an anecdote isn't data, it actually is no different from data from the Bayesian point of view. It is an n=1 posterior with a prior of one's past life experiences. And many anecdotes together can be thought of as a multi-level model (if you don't believe this, just see what the methodology of many behavioral/observational studies looks like--it's collating anecdotes into "data"--including the crime statistics that you are after).

> the anecdote is a powerful emotional narrative that feels true

And researchers can absolutely be emotional! A study biased by the emotions and beliefs of a researcher will produce biased results. Statistics isn't an escape hatch from human bias; it actually compounds whatever bias exists in the first place.

[slg]

Yes, statistics can be misleading and/or biased. Yes, multiple anecdotes become data when combined (which is even more susceptible to being misleading and/or biased). Do you think either of these things are happening in this instance? If so, make that argument. I don't think there is much value in arguing that anecdotes are generally more valuable than statistics because that obviously isn't true overall.

[smsm42]

"Has statistics" does a lot of work here. When we weight visible dilapidation of the city against a set of figures showing some metric decreasing - a reasonable question would be how well this statistic reflects the reality on the ground. If we aggregate all crime over all the territory and get this metric to go down - does it mean we are doing great, or does it mean the crime became more concentrated in some places and now we have safe remote havens for the rich and a criminal hellscape for the less fortunate? Or does it mean we stopped reporting some things as "crime" either because the law does not care anymore or because citizens gave up on reporting it because it's useless anyway? I don't say it necessarily means that - I am just saying that you can not consider isolated metrics alone, you should always also consider how well these metrics reflect the underlying reality.

[nradov]

The problem is that official statistics are worse than useless because most victims of minor crimes never file police reports. And I don't think you'll find any statistics at all on the intensity of odors in public transit stations.

[pb7]

In that case, statistics in all cities should be equally as error prone.

Statistics also don't collect how many annoying people are blasting shitty music on subways or how many morons are rolling coal in lifted trucks. There are unpleasant people everywhere.

[slg]

>most victims of minor crimes never file police reports

Minor crimes like murder?

[kelnos]

> The problem is that official statistics are worse than useless because most victims of minor crimes never file police reports.

In that case, statistics should still be useful to observe trends, if they can't be used to determine accurate absolute numbers. We should expect the same percentage of people to not report crime when there are 1,000 car break-ins per month as when there are 100. Say that's 20%; seeing that number change from 200 to 20 is still teaches you about how crime rates change.

Besides, we're talking about murder, here, and I would suspect that pretty much every murder ends up accounted for in the statistics. Contrary to what mafia movies would like us to believe, it's not that easy to hide a body indefinitely.

> The problem is that official statistics are worse than useless because most victims of minor crimes never file police reports.

While urine smells certainly affect quality of life, I'm not convinced this particular statistic is all that relevant when talking about crime or public safety.

[zdragnar]

> We should expect the same percentage of people to not report crime when there are 1,000 car break-ins per month as when there are 100

This ignores changes in police enforcement and prosecution of crimes. If there is very little overall crime and the police have the time to find the perpetrator, and the prosecutor agrees to bring charges, you're more likely to report the crime. If there is high crime, police are too swamped to deal with yet another break-in, and the DA is too busy dropping felonies to misdemeanors or not bringing charges at all, then people aren't going to bother reporting crime as much anymore.

[hnfong]

> In that case, statistics should still be useful to observe trends, if they can't be used to determine accurate absolute numbers. We should expect the same percentage of people to not report crime when there are 1,000 car break-ins per month as when there are 100. Say that's 20%; seeing that number change from 200 to 20 is still teaches you about how crime rates change.

That's definitely not true for car break-ins. In California pretty much every one I knew who lived there experienced some form of car break-in, and of course nobody got their stuff back. If I experienced one there I'd just shrug it off as a fact of life since the process of filing a police report takes time and effort, and the reward is expected to be zero.

In other places with fewer break-ins, I will most likely respond differently.

[justizin]

How long have you lived here? What were the conditions when you arrived, versus what you see now? What areas do you frequent?

Have you ever made friends with a homeless person? Do you know anyone who has been homeless in the past?

In my ~20y in SF, I have seen the exact same issues and political divides repeat over and over. There are certainly issues which need to be addressed, but the constant insistence that there is some short-term degeneration constantly leads to the reimplementation of solutions that do not work, particularly homeless sweeps and policing of nonviolent property crime.

Real solutions take time, commitment, dedication, and engagement from and with the community, not just shouting at a handful of politicians. That isn’t gratifying enough for most people, who want to see some overnight transformation, which is what leads to homeless people being shifted around from block to block based on who most loudly demands that seeing the poor on a daily basis makes them unsafe.

Further, this strategy prolongs and ingrains people being stuck on the street. Having access to the resources that help people get off the street, heal from addiction, and not be so desperate as to engage in petty property crime for survival makes everyone safer, including the folks currently living on the street. Being able to establish semi-stable communities (“encampments”) where they can rely on each other to watch their property, often including medications, identifying paperwork, treasured possessions like family photo albums which keep them tethered to reality, is key to seeing them improve.

This is the strategy upon which navigation centers are built, and while not perfect, it works for a lot of people.

The, “tough on crime, I don’t want to see the homeless”, strategy which has continually failed for decades actually, counterintuitively to many people - esp newcomers’ - perception, makes us all less safe. If there has been a decline in SF since you’ve moved here, it is almost certainly because of these wasteful, costly, and dangerous approaches to public safety and health.

It doesn’t matter how many condo towers are built, SF is never going to be a gated community. If you want to live in a gated community, I suggest you move to one.

[kelnos]

Thank you for this. I haven't been here as long as you have (13 years for me). I do feel like I've seen a "decline", especially accelerated during the pandemic. I admit that these are just my personal impressions and observations, but: increased homelessness (with many more with obvious mental-health issues), increased visible drug use, increased car break-ins. And I say this as someone who was mugged 10 years ago in the Mission, without being the victim of any crime since then (well, ok, someone broke into my garage and stole a rusty broken bicycle a few years ago, but whatever). Emotionally, I feel like my experience 10 years ago might give me the opposite view, that things have gotten better since then, but that's not what I see or feel.

I go back and forth on feelings of safety: I think in some ways I do feel less safe now than I did when I moved here, but part of that are the differences between my attitudes and lifestyle at ages 30 and 40. Logically, my risk level is probably much lower now than it was 10 years ago.

But there's also just general fear, especially when walking near someone who is screaming at the moon. Maybe that fear isn't entirely rational, but I think the fear more comes from unpredictability than anything else. A few years ago, my partner was standing on the Folsom/Embarcadero Muni platform, with 15 or so other people waiting for a train. A mentally-ill person came up onto the platform, occasionally ranting, walking past people standing there, when he, completely randomly and unpredictably, turned to someone waiting and punched him, hard, in the face (he doubled over, in pain, bleeding, his nose probably broken).

For better or worse, that incident comes to mind most of the time whenever I walk past a homeless person who seems to have mental health or addiction issues, no matter how likely or unlikely it is that they might attack me. Add on top of that the fact that police will do essentially nothing when an attack occurs, even when they witness it happen, and people know this and don't feel like they have somewhere to turn if something happens.

Anyhow, I'm rambling a bit, but I think my point is that people are afraid because they see a lot of weird, potentially dangerous things that don't fit into their view of what day-to-day life should be like, and they don't know what's going to happen to them in those situations. They hear stories -- even of isolated incidents -- like mine above, and that scares them.

I completely agree that police sweeps of tent encampments are not the answer. But I also think you're putting too nice a face on these encampments (not sure why you use scare quotes; that is literally what they are). You are almost certainly correct in what you see as the good aspects of these areas, but they also have significant downsides, as breeding grounds for drug use and other health issues.

For some out on the street, I truly believe involuntary commitment to some kind of mental health or addiction treatment center is the only real start to a solution. It can't stop there, of course: supportive housing, job training and placement, etc. is an absolute necessity. Getting someone clean and then throwing them back on the street is going to lead them right back where they were. But I'm tired of this idea that we're only allowed to help people who accept it. Refusing treatment or housing should not be an allowed option. "Tough on crime" is not the answer, but maybe some form of "tough love" is. I know California has a complicated (to put it mildly) history with forced mental health treatment, but that seems to be trotted out as an excuse to do nothing, and that's not ok either. To be clear, there are many who do want help, and accept it when offered, to varying degrees of success. But the most visible are those who have mental health and/or drug addiction issues, and asking or offering nicely often does not get us anywhere.

[smsm42]

> the constant insistence that there is some short-term degeneration

Define "short term". I have first met San Francisco in 2006. I have never actually lived there (first because I couldn't afford it, then because I didn't want to) but I visited it fairly regularly, at some periods of my life almost daily. At the beginning, is was a very nice place to visit. And then at some point I realized I don't actually want to go there anymore. At which precise point over the 17 years of this history that happened is hard for me to describe, but I can clearly see the contrast between where we started and where we ended up. It may be that living there all the time feels differently - I only have my perspective to it.

> seeing the poor on a daily basis makes them unsafe.

This is really an unfair take, designed to shame the complainer rather than address the complaint. You are fully aware that the problems with SF go way beyond "seeing the poor" and that people that complain do not complain about "seeing the poor". Yes, people that cause these complaints are often poor - nobody would complain much about seeing a billionaire strolling through Market street - but pretending like them being "poor" is the sole basis of all the complaints is clearly not taking any of it seriously and just trying to blame the messenger. I guess it worked so well the last 15 years, keep doing it.

> is key to seeing them improve.

How has it been improving lately?

> strategy which has continually failed for decades actually

Yeah, true socialism has never been tried yet. Except SF didn't do anything like that for "decades" - the visible homelessness has been steadily increasing, and the enforcement of property crime has been steadily decreasing, to the point that it has been effectively legalized now.

> If you want to live in a gated community, I suggest you move to one.

Well, that's pretty much what I did. Except where I live there's no need for gates - it's safe enough without them. And also clean enough. I hope one day it will be the same way in SF, at least as it was where I first met it 17 years ago, or better - but it's a hope beyond hope, because right now I witness people of SF doubling down hard on "how dare you to complain, you snobby rich fuck? Just smell the poop and shut up!" and "we need to legalize even more crime and do even less enforcement and then it surely will all work". Well, I guess we'll see how it will work out for you.

[kelnos]

"Akshually", pretty much any statistic you can find shows that crime is in SF is much lower today than it was in the 1980s.

I've lived in SF for 13 years, which I know is not as long as many others, but I agree that quality of life has declined, at least in the time I've been here. But quality of life and crime rates are not the same thing. Certainly, increasing crime -- especially violent crime, but also property crime -- can decrease quality of life. But quality of life can be hurt by things that you can't easily qualify as worse crime: increased homelessness and drug use, especially when those things are much more visible and in-your-face, as they have been here. The smell of urine and having to step over human poop is a quality-of-life issue, not a crime issue.

And yes, while I assume peeing and pooping on sidewalks is at least a misdemeanor, drawing a direct line from that to "I'm gonna get assaulted or murdered" is the stretchiest of stretches.

But still, I totally get why all this stuff makes people feel less safe, even though the city (aside from a few neighborhoods that people should avoid, just like in nearly every other city in the world) on the whole is actually pretty safe, including when compared with decades ago.

But let's not conflate quality-of-life issues with crime. They are certainly intertwined in many ways, but they are not the same thing.

[smsm42]

> But quality of life and crime rates are not the same thing.

True. But if you say "shoplifting is not a crime anymore" and then citizens say "I am not going to report my car getting broken into because what's the use?" - then yes, crime rate statistics on these drops like a stone, but did we really improve anything here?

[ryandrake]

These threads about public pooping and open drug use show that a lot of people seem to equate their feelings of discomfort with feelings of danger. Just because something is upsetting to see doesn't mean it's dangerous. I've seen people relieving themselves on the sidewalk and have never once thought that they were a danger to me or my family. It's gross, but seeing gross things never injured anyone.

[kelnos]

Did you read what I wrote? My entire post was about how quality-of-life issues and crime/safety issues are not the same thing.

While stepping over poop or smelling urine on the street doesn't hurt me, it doesn't exactly make me happy to live here either.

(Fortunately I moved out of SoMa and into a nicer neighborhood a few years ago, so I don't have to deal with sidewalk piss and shit on a daily basis anymore.)

[ryandrake]

I don't know why this reply, I am totally agreeing with you!

[jwestbury]

Curious -- how much time have you spent elsewhere in the western world in recent years? I don't mean small towns in the midwest, I mean other cities of similar size and economic importance. I suspect you'll find that San Francisco isn't really special, and, in fact, the problems facing SF are facing most of the world, especially in the wake of the pandemic.

Interestingly, there's strong correlative evidence that wealth inequality is linked to increased crime in developed nations. So that's a fun fact!

[tsunamifury]

You can appeal to facts and being as rational as you want, but people leave because of how they feel.

[lazyasciiart]

The overwhelming emotion that people feel as they decide to leave San Francisco is "my god, housing is expensive!"

[itsdrewmiller]

"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

[kelnos]

Which is funny, because if everyone were leaving SF because of high crime rates or whatever, housing would... not be so expensive.

[bilbo0s]

I'm not the person you're responding to but I believe the point is that people leaving, doesn't make Bay Area degeneration a fact. Only actual Bay Area degeneration, can make Bay Area degeneration a fact. We need to know who is moving, who is coming in, the economics of the region, geological suitability to population demands, needs of the larger state and nation as it relates to the region. And on and on and on.

A blog post about a guy who didn't like the dog poo in the Mission is not nearly enough data to draw the conclusions most of us were drawing. That includes myself. But after the glaring intellectual lapses I engaged in subsequent to the Asian mass shootings and the killing of the crypto exec, the inner me is attempting to reassert rational order by demanding intellectual honesty and logic. All of which is now firmly demonstrating to me that facts don't care about feelings, and will gleefully bite you in the ass if they don't align with the world view or narrative that you're emotionally comfortable with.

[stanfordkid]

Just because an economist wrote a utilitarian calculus saying "this is what makes a city great" doesn't make it so. The logic they use to define "good" ultimately has, at it's deepest core a morality. The morality that "longevity is good" "per capita GDP good", "average happiness good" ... is not an objective fact and has no bearing on how human beings measure greatness. The anesthetized bug-brained western homo-economicus would probably be laughed at by a Spartan warrior ... is one objectively a "better" human than the other?

[bryananderson]

> We need to know who is moving, who is coming in, the economics of the region, geological suitability to population demands, needs of the larger state and nation as it relates to the region. And on and on and on.

Exactly. And it turns out we know the answer: California has been hemorrhaging residents for 30 years and they are overwhelmingly lower-income, albeit with a recent surge in higher-income departures which correlates with the shift to remote work.

https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-m... https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-gol...

It's the housing, y'all.

All of it.

The homelessness vastly out of proportion to the area's drug-addiction and mental-illness rates. The property crime. The exodus.

All of it. It's all the housing.