If a homeless person pushes you or spits at you, what are you realistically going to do? Call the police, wait 15-30 minutes for them to show up, and hope they can find a guy who's long gone? And even when they do bother to catch the person, the prosecutors in Seattle have a track record of dropping misdemeanor cases. It just seems like a waste of time, so you end up writing it off as an unlucky experience and moving on with your day.
Other cities may be more violent on paper, but perhaps that's because they have smaller homeless populations and their crimes are perpetrated by people who can be reliably located and prosecuted.
BS. I have caught the criminals that broke into my house and stole over 15k in computers and cameras, and that they had a crime ring, storage units, etc. Cop response, "we can't get warrants on the weekend". I filed a complaint to the city, got a call from the union, telling me I can't file a complaint against officer friendly because he is about to retire in a month.
This is one incident, I have more. Same goes for the Portland police. They don't do their jobs, even when they are done for them. In Portland, I also caught the guy that broke in my car. The detective that was assigned my case, "don't do my job!" and then he just dropped it. Name and address of perp and a witness that would testify.
A couple months ago I was talking to an off duty cop that was doing traffic for a construction site on Capitol Hill, she thought I was out canvasing to recall Sawant. She said her attitude and the attitude of Seattle cops is that the liberals in Seattle can drown in their own shit, she is moving out of the state because she doesn't feel respected. Good riddance!
San Francisco has a lot of poor people, i.e. homeless, and a lot of which have either mental health issues or substance abuse issues. That doesn't necessarily make them dangerous, but the more people like that you see on your walk to work, the more it can contribute to someone's general feelings of being unsafe.
Vancouvers East Hastings and LAs public transit system (Blue line at night) are both examples of poor people who are (mostly) not dangerous. You could navigate these areas with very little chance of being assaulted but I doubt many would opt for such a route if given other options. There are areas though which are both poor and dangerous, certain parts of Detroit comes to mind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Is it possible that these other cities also have violence, but it is just happening out of sight, creating a general feeling of ‘this is a safe city’ for visitors?