True I remember visiting Pittsburgh and staying in this gentrifying neighbourhood across the street. It was an odd mix of upscale bars, luxury cars and run down shops and homeless people everywhere. I had to go into a hospital to have my eye looked at and was shocked at the appearance of those there. I’d never seen such bad teeth in Canada or disheveled people in the waiting room. Of all races I might add.

And it was definitely unsettling, I had a man follow me from the bridge back towards my neighbourhood at night.

But, I also note that Pittsburgh has relatively few such walkable neighbourhoods (though it is much better than the Us average!). If it was more like NYC or Montreal the homeless population would be more diffuse.

I’ve been to NYC a bunch and it always feels much safer. Not only were there fewer homeless per street corner, but there are always large amounts of normal people walking around, so you feel safe with numbers.

(To be clear, other than the one person following me, I felt safe in Pittsburgh. The ones in the neighbourhood I was in were not aggressive. But it was different than Canada or NYC in that they were much of the foot traffic)

NYC has spent decades bribing its homeless residents to relocate to other states[1]. Not every city has a giant tax base of hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs executives that gives them the luxury of simply paying to have their homeless problem sent away.

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/12/03/new-york-...

Can’t read due to paywall, but it says nyc is just shipping homeless to newark. That’s still nyc metro.

Also nyc doesn’t have low per capita homeless numbers. It does however shelter them better than, say, SF.

> You'll find the situation is much more grim in the US in major cities

No need to cross international borders. Vancouver BC is on par with downtown SF for this.

Toronto has gotten noticeably worse in the last few years, unfortunately. Still not as bad as SF but on its way.