> This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case.
It seems equally weird to me that so many people are taking this anecdote as a sort of proof that San Francisco does not have a crime problem.
Focusing on individual anecdotes and swinging from one conclusion to another is the real problem. The source of this unfortunate murder shouldn’t dictate your entire view of a city’s crime problem.
Every major city has a crime problem and always has. The question is whether the situation is being blown out of proportion by sensationalist media or people with axes to grind. For a group that claims to be so rational, much of the HN crowd commenting here does seem to be averse to relying upon actual data.
> Every major city has a crime problem and always has.
This isn’t true.
The idea that cities must inherently have crime problems is a form of learned helplessness. You think they must have crime problems because it’s all you’ve ever experienced. Try visiting a city that has low crime, like Singapore or Tokyo.
> Try visiting a city that has low crime, like Singapore or Tokyo.
Singapore's lower crime rate is achieved by having a nanny-state government run by an autocrat, with cruel, harsh punishments for fairly low-level offenses and little care for due process. If that's what is required to get us low crime, then I will reluctantly accept higher crime rates.
Tokyo is absolutely not a low-crime city. The Japanese authorities try to paint it as such, and deal with problems quietly. News outlets don't report on much of the crime that goes on; I'm not sure why, but a reasonable guess might be due to pressure from authorities. But I assure you there's plenty of crime (especially organized crime) to go around in Tokyo; it's just not very visible.
Japan also has a near-100% conviction rate, not because they're always right, but because they value clearing cases off their books more than ensuring justice is served. The US justice system is far from perfect, but I prefer what we have here over Japan's.
I don't think many of us would sign up for bringing the Singaporean or Japanese criminal justice systems to the US. Both places have very little due process and Singapore's police have near-unlimited surveillance powers with very little judicial oversight, not sure about Japan.
Ah yes, low-crime Tokyo, where there are definitely no problems with organised crime, standover tactics in bars, construction companies using thugs to drive people out of homes, or a plethora of other well-documented problems.
Anecdotally whenever I hear a SF resident say the "crime problem is overblown", they almost always live in the nicer areas where there's virtually no crime. I lived on the border of the Tenderloin years ago, and saw things that I've never seen anywhere else. I knew a guy who was murdered in the Polk Gulch, I had my car broken into (and rummaged through multiple times after I started leaving the door unlocked), I had to physically assert myself with my friend to not seem like a target when a man brandishing a metal rod was eyeing us suspiciously, I stepped on a used hyperdermic needle which pierced my shoe but luckily did not prick me ... this is only what comes to mind at the moment as a write this, but I'm sure there's more incidents I experienced that I could conjure after some reflection. Is my experience anecdotal? Sure, but I lived it. Your experience with the city has likely been a much better one, free from such disturbing experiences. Does that mean I didn't experience this though? Or that it is "overblown"?
tldr; I lived in SF but now happily live in New York.
Yes I believe all these things, but that would be true in any other big city in the US. Try living in the bad areas of Saint Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, or Cleaveland. When San Francisco has article after article saying crime is "out of control" yet no one is writing articles about Alabama or Louisiana which objectively have higher murder rates, I would say, yes it is "overblown".
I think the question is: where did you move in New York? When you were in SF, you chose to live in/near the worst neighborhood in the city. I assume when you moved to NY, you moved somewhere a bit nicer? Do you truly believe NY has no "bad areas" that you should avoid?
This doesn't excuse the crime in the Tenderloin, but when people talk about the SF crime problem being overblown, they mean to say that there is an expected level of crime in most cities, and SF's level of crime is no worse than many others, despite what some people would like to believe.
That doesn't mean the crime in the Tenderloin is ok! But it's important to put things in context, and decide if SF is doing better or worse than other comparable cities in dealing with crime. Stats seem to point to the idea that SF is doing ok in that regard. That doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't do better, but it does mean that the sky is not falling, and there's no reason for extreme panic over SF's crime rate.
Anecdotally whenever I hear a SF resident say the "crime problem is overblown", they almost always live in the nicer areas where there's virtually no crime.
As someone who has lived in moderate-to-high crime areas for more of my life than not, most people who express a fear of crime are even less willing to listen to data-informed analyses supplemented with first hand experience, often behaving as if they're worried it might be contagious.
tldr; I lived in SF but now happily live in New York.
It seems like it might be instructive to compare your current happiness with the rhetoric of Marjorie Taylor Greene who visited recently to show support for Donal Trump and followed up with an online tirade about how 'repulsive' she found NYC.
Not every city has the same crime problems. Stealing in Tokyo will get you thrown out of the country. Stealing in SF is acceptable and will get you praise.
It seems equally weird to me that so many people are taking this anecdote as a sort of proof that San Francisco does not have a crime problem.
Focusing on individual anecdotes and swinging from one conclusion to another is the real problem. The source of this unfortunate murder shouldn’t dictate your entire view of a city’s crime problem.