Underrated observation. S.F. has always had a scraggly personality since the Gold Rush days. It's where Dirty Harry and tons of '70s police procedurals were set in, after all. The issue is that despite tech wealth since the late 2000s, none of it has seemed to better the city and in some ways has increased wealth inequality.

Manhattan's answer is because of Giuliani's authoritarian mayoral reign. Cleanliness came at a cost of mass arrests and evictions of the homelessness, restrictions on shelters, and stop-and-frisk. Probably not a price that S.F. is willing to pay.

> Probably not a price that S.F. is willing to pay.

a few years ago? definitely not.

today? possibly. people are getting really fed up

San Francisco's geography is extremely heterogeneous (especially considering the size of the city). All of these are simultaneously true:

- yes, there's human feces and needles and tent cities in the Tenderloin/SOMA area

- Painted Ladies is an old-ass building, as is much of the residential sprawl around it

- Fishermans Wharf is a textbook tourist trap

- there's a ton of nice forest-y areas (Presidio, Glen Canyon, Stern Grove, etc)

- Sea cliff area is textbook rich person neighbourhood

- Financial district actually looks like a modern metropolis

Picking one facet and ignoring the rest is... cherrypicky.

Far more than just SOMA/Tenderloin is problematic. Mission, Hunters Point are just as bad. And more suburban areas like Fillmore, Western Addition Inner Richmond are still subject to rampant petty crime. I’ve lived in a few of these areas and I am well aware.

Didn’t a family just get held up at gunpoint while washing their car near Bernal Heights?

Not cherry picking.

This specific thread was merely talking about the look and feel of the city. If you look at some of my other comments regarding crime, you'll see I very much agree with you.

The quintessential feel of SF, cherry-picked to be outside of known bad areas, is the sound that is produced when, on a quiet street of Inner Richmond at 1am, nearly weekly, people (I use the term loosely) too incompetent to hold a rectangular object drop a recycling bin upon themselves as they steal recycling, and swear profusely.

Sure, there are a couple of attractive areas, but a lot of it is just ugly sprawl. I love driving in to the city and looking over rows of boxes smashed together in rows. It looks a lot like Tijuana. So much of the city is treeless and just poorly maintained old buildings from what looks like the 50s and 60s. Sure, lots of old victorians and some of them are even taken care of. The parks are pretty. Overall though, I don't get the appeal. SF is perpetually cold and dreary. I know some people like that, but it's definitely not my cup of tea. Throw in the high cost of living, the crime, homelessness, the sidewalk poop(stepped over some last time I was there)... But hey, it's expensive, so someone must like living there, right?

Some things I love:

I love the hills. Walk up 10 minutes from tenderloin (worst part of the city) and you are on Russian hill. Almost never see homeless there, just 5 start hotels. (In fact this seems to be true of most areas of the city, walk up any hill and there are almost no homeless, they are for the most part too lazy to do it). From there you can see the bay on one side. Just a beautiful view.

Nearby from Russian hill is the biggest Chinatown in the US. Walk 5 blocks into Chinatown and you are in a different world. 95% Chinese people, no Chinese in the grocery stores and food that I have no idea what it is.

I can have a drink and smoke a joint with some friends in the park and no one cares. Where I live now I would be immediately have the cops called and arrested. Speaking of parks, I love golden gate park. It is huge and on the other side you are at the ocean.

Most of the people I have found to be far friendlier than on the east coast. Maybe I am a bit on the spectrum but people in SF don't care. Or maybe it is some other reason. But when I lived in SF I made friends way more easily. Also went on a lot more dates. For me I would be happier to move back to SF and complain about the rent and the homeless than live on the east coast and commute to my soulless suburban office park.