[cedricd]

What I don't get, living in NYC, is why it's so much safer (seemingly) than SF. Yes, we have homelessness and crime, and it has sharply risen during COVID, but not to this point.

NYC is a much bigger city, politically very liberal, and our politicians aren't exactly amazing, so what's different?

[maxfurman]

To wildly speculate, NYC is much more walkable and has better public transit than SF. This puts the people more in touch with each other and increases the feeling of community, and also makes it harder to smash a car window when no one is looking.

Or maybe NYC is just bigger and the crime happens further away from where you personally live? The feeling of safety is so subjective.

[cedricd]

Could be a contributing factor. As for me I live downtown in Manhattan in a 'nice' neighborhood (though in downtown they're nearly all nice). The equivalent in SF is the opposite.

One thing could be that there are real neighborhoods where people live in the denser parts of the city. Our public schools (in Manhattan) are extremely good, so families do actually live there. AFAIK folks generally leave SF once they have kids.

[bushbaba]

Cold winters. many would not want to camp out on the sidewalk during nyc winter.

Sf doesn’t have that much violent crime. It’s mostly theft or quality of life related.

Then you have a police force who are forced to release criminals due to chesa (DA).

[jeffbee]

NY has a law that requires the city to provide shelter to everybody. So despite the fact that it also has an acute housing crisis, it does not have thousands of people, or even tens of people, sleeping in tents on the sidewalks. The recent book "Homelessness is a Housing Problem" dives into inter-city comparisons of housing and homelessness and discusses in detail the difference in outcomes between NY and SF.

[fzeroracer]

It's not really any different, I could point to any number of articles making the exact same arguments against NYC as any other city, SF included.

The same articles saying how rampant drug use is on public transit exist for Seattle, SF and NYC with the only difference being the city names.

[MAGZine]

NYC has a lot more aggressive policies regarding homelessness and drug use.

Open drug use and pitching tents are not tolerated.

If you see a homeless person "in need of assistance" (their phrasing), you just call 311 and a team of people will come and deal with the "issue."

[cafard]

As JumpCrissCross suggests, NYC includes its suburbs. All those colorful folks south and east of Washington Square can be outvoted by Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.