> “The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There’s something wrong with the way you are measuring it” -Jeff Bezos
The article quotes this and responds that people need to come up with their own data for crime.
I’ve visited SF every few years for the last 20. On my last visit about 6 weeks ago it looked like Covid was still a thing. Streets that were previously safe, around what was DSO bar and Monarch, were dangerous. It feels like a lawless environment. I could have measured this by counting incidents of crime or homeless people but it seems pointless to measure something you can see.
The obvious issue being that, on the internet, it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing.
On a reddit city subreddit that had bubbled up to the frontpage this morning I noticed three or four people claiming that a certain bus route had basically become a mobile homeless shelter constantly full of migrants playing music and being obnoxious. About two or three other people were chiming in saying 'I commute on this line daily and I've literally never seen that, the buses are clean and usually empty'
The 'regular commuter' comments stand at -15 or something making them invisible, the instigatory comments are heavily upvoted.
Bezos' statement is a bit circular in a way - yes, genuine anecdotes may well be right, but to determine that you have to gather enough of them in a random pattern to avoid anomalies. When you've completed that process of randomly sampling genuine anecdotes you now have data.
That's literally restating the point I made in the very first line of my comment...
If you want to gather genuine anecdotes you've basically ruled out the internet as a source of data.
You also can't do a townhall or call an assembly as you'll have people being bussed in (I remember a video of a Florida school board meeting in which literally every speaker had a different regional accent)
You basically have to canvass the streets and buttonhole people, and that's automatically excluding people who WFH etc.
> it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing.
You're right. I had a friend from Malmo, Sweden who talked about the weirdness of the city being used as a talking point both left and right wing Americans.
Her feeling was the left were saying everything was fine, the right were saying it's a dystopian nightmare, and neither were accurate. It's a city with unique problems.
Yeah that's one of those places that seems to pop up in the news unusually frequently for the size and shape of the place. Reddit seems convinced ethnic cleansing is about to take place there, not sure entirely how true that is. Definitely something odd happening over there.
You can feel all you want, but the stats generally do not agree with you. SF’s violent crime rate is nearly half that of alaska’s yet you will never hear these same people talking about how dangerous juneau is.
Sf doesn’t have a gang violence issue. It’s non violent crime and general pedestrian unfriendliness.
You won’t get stabbed walking on 6th st, but I know plenty who had a homeless in SF hit them with chicken, hit with food trays, chased, yelled, needles thrown, etc.
Petty theft is also generally never reported. What the heck are the pd going to do about your stolen iPhone. Why are you going to file a report when there’s no outcome.
The SF metreon target 10 years ago didn’t need things locked up. Now they lock up much. The only explanation I have for why retail in SF has recently started really going overboard on shoplift preventing is that shoplifting has gotten worse.
This is my favorite head in the sand trope. If you've lived in SF and another major city, you know this is all PR. SF has armed robbers smashing car windows with impunity, but we can count it "unarmed" because citizens aren't dumb enough to get involved. Hell, cops don't even need to show up to take a report so long as you don't get involved and get hurt. Shit, now we've helped our property crime numbers and violent crime numbers! And if we're lucky, these folks have never left the city and won't understand our numbers must be cooked.
Well, if in drugstores most of the products must be locked away and you need to ask a clerk to get them, there is obviously a problem, regardless of what the statistics say.
When you need to board a plane there's a ton of security you need to go through and you need to be thoroughly investigated. So obviously criminals causing issues on planes is a big problem.
It's all security theatre. Theft does exist and happens, but it becomes an excuse by management to lock up toothpaste behind glass cases so that they can pretend their store isn't falling apart.
Why would they need to lock up items to keep the store looking good? What is making those products move and leave the store without payment except social disorder?
I was just in (bigger) US city where the pharmacy was picked over for what I wanted but none of it was locked up except the razor blades or whatever you'll find locked everywhere. They didn't feel the need to put plastic barriers up. They also didn't have a security guard at the front. In SF, I know you need both because I have seen dozens pile into the residential Walgreens at once and clean it out. But yeah, it's all theater and just marketing to make SF look bad.
I understand SF Bay Area residents are embarrassed of what they created, but denying the problem isn't helping.
I’ve seen razors and even underwear locked up in a walmart in Irvine, CA, one of the safest cities in the entire country. There is nothing particularly exceptional about SF’s crime, nor is there any data to support claims like this. Just anecdotes and a lot of “trust me bro.”
Yep, some items are locked up almost everywhere, as the post you replied to said. What's unique to SF is the amount of uniformed security and amount of items locked up versus what you'd see in the same store in Manhattan, for instance. You can discount the anecdotes all you want, but what's going on in SF is not the same as other urban areas. Perhaps it's a west coast contagion, since the apologists mostly point to other west coast cities, which are suffering similar issues?
A West Coast contagion, right. I've seen these same carbon copy posts in about every city I've lived in across the US. Usually from people that live outside of the city or have never gone into it.
Well, that'd put you at odds with state leadership in CA who see their current situation in a much more sober light. Going from unchecked projected growth to projected stagnation in a 3 year span isn't something I've experienced in other parts of the country in my lifetime, so I'm glad you're ready for it.
FWIW, I currently live in a "high crime" east coast city -- the kind Californians hold up as a boogeyman versus their "safe" cities. I chose it after years of "safe" SF declining.
If you had bothered to read any of my prior posts you'd see that I don't live in CA or SF, so this weird sort of projection you're doing where you're acting like I'm some stereotypical Californian isn't exactly doing you any favors.
> I've seen these same carbon copy posts in about every city I've lived in across the US. Usually from people that live outside of the city or have never gone into it.
This is what I'm responding to. I don't see anything I said which implies anything. I don't see anything in this thread of discussion which I have erroneously responded to. You're making broad statements about CA in this thread and stating its just like all the places you have been. Knowing you don't have firsthand experience in this area explains why your posts have seemed so, frankly, ignorant. For those that have lived there recently and have lived other places, we are patiently telling you it is different.
I think you made a surprisingly good point on an unrelated topic.
I think this particular observation is related to rising costs and some people struggling to afford things. These are probably younger people doing the thefts or outsiders going into Irvine to steal. I noticed a combo package with a razor and separate blades and someone ripped out the blades from the package because the back of the package was cardboard. I thought it looked really weird at first and then later realized someone probably stole the blades out.
Yes, I live in one where the target locked up toothpaste while the other stores a block away locked up nothing. It's incredibly weird that you keep trying to push a narrative on someone living in that area with experiences that directly contradict yours. Where in Seattle do you live?
By "the world" I actually mean "the world" as in the planet earth or all seven continents, not just the neighboring state in the United States of America.
Okay, great. What's your point here? I live in an area where that issue you bring up does not exist. States have a wide degree in variation (I would know, since I've lived on both coasts and in Texas). Do you live in WA? Or anywhere in the greater US?
> Streets that were previously safe, around what was DSO bar and Monarch, were dangerous.
Whenever I read something like this, I wonder what it's actually based on. Did they personally observe somebody getting stabbed or gunned down? Or is it vague vibes that may not actually be backed up by anything?
I've often made the kind of experience where comparable sheltered people claimed that, say, some part of a city was really bad and dangerous. But when I actually went there (during the day, at least) I felt perfectly safe.
> Whenever I read something like this, I wonder what it's actually based on.
Why wonder, rather than ask? People sizing others up to rob them, people abusing others to start a fight, human shit and piss (in public, not alleyways). Basically SF downtown now = Tenderloin 2005.
> comparable sheltered people claimed that, say, some part of a city was really bad
If you think I'm sheltered ask where else I've visited.
The article quotes this and responds that people need to come up with their own data for crime.
I’ve visited SF every few years for the last 20. On my last visit about 6 weeks ago it looked like Covid was still a thing. Streets that were previously safe, around what was DSO bar and Monarch, were dangerous. It feels like a lawless environment. I could have measured this by counting incidents of crime or homeless people but it seems pointless to measure something you can see.