[seanmcdirmid]

Uhm, I've seen videos about how NYC was in the 1970s? I'm sure SF was similar. It was pretty rough back then, the 80s were slightly better, and then things got pretty good past the 90s, and now they are getting bad again.

[ghaff]

I lived in Manhattan a summer in the 80s. Went to school in Cambridge in the 70s. There were definitely areas one avoided and cities were losing population.

Relatively recently (maybe 5 years ago), a work colleague got an AirBnB "bargain" on a house in the Roxbury area of Boston for a group of people for a conference and told me there was a shooting down the street. I was, like, IDIOT, you might have asked a local why it might have been such a bargain. (To be clear I'm not sure how objectively dangerous it was but I wouldn't have been staying there and walking at night.)

Not sure most of Manhattan was unsafe generally but you were certainly careful. Not sure that accidentally taking the express subway up to 125th street was actually a guarantee to walking out to a hail of bullets but you were definitely careful to a degree you probably aren't today. I never a foot in Brooklyn until much later. And I remember a somewhat scary drive from LaGuardia to the Port Authority late at night along 42nd Street because of some confusion around schedules.