Yeah, that sounds like a better description of my 3.5 years here. Of course, don't tell any of the SF-lovers exactly where you live, because they'll just blame your experience on you not living at exactly the right block. Live in Soma? Oh, that place has no night life. Live in the Mission? Oh, you're too close to the BART station. Live in the avenues? Too far away from the city center. And so on.
Well, it's a city a lot of people like but certainly those adjectives could be applied to just about any good-size city--and it's why a lot of people also don't really like cities period. I'd add that, if your experience with SF is going to a show at the Moscone or elsewhere nearby, that general area (Market, Tenderloin, etc.) is definitely less nice than much of the rest of the city. But it's also fair that SF, for a variety of reasons, also has more street people of various sorts than most cities do.
I was born in New York City, grew up in L.A., started a company in SF, and live in Chicago, but the only place I've ever been held up at gunpoint was in San Francisco at 4th and Mission.
That sounds like bad luck. Within San Francisco, 4th and Mission seems like one of the less likely places to be held up at gunpoint since it's so busy.
What are your reasons, out of curiosity? I'm a reasonably-sized guy, so I rarely feel personally scared, but I don't have to look far to see some really sketchy situations.
"dirty, scary, and smelly"...Have you ever been to the East Coast? I would say SF is on par as far as dirty and smelly goes. Scary? I think it's pretty underwhelming but I come from NYC/Philly/Baltimore area so that might bias my viewpoint.