[scarmig]

I don't think Houston residents spend much if any time thinking about how to walk home from work to avoid a homeless encampment.

Cities don't have to be like this: by any standard, US cities are much less safe than those in the rest of the developed world. Where it comes to a head in San Francisco in particular is that everything is very heavily mixed together in close proximity, so commuting from a $2M townhouse to work a $300kpa job means you also pass through areas where people are literally dying in the street.