Crime-wise (and on many quality of life issues), Chicago is like 3 cities in one: - a rich, extremely safe city (broadly, greater Loop and north/northwest sides) - a poor, unsafe city (south and west sides) - a middle income, very average city (the more suburban, far northwest, south, and southwest area)

Your experience will vary greatly, depending on which areas you visit.

It also has more than triple the population of SF, or twice as many people as SF+Oakland combined, so any absolute (as opposed to per-capita) numbers aren't comparable.