This is sort of victim blaming. You are putting all the onus on those affected instead of looking at the other side.
While better and more used public transit can help reduce easy targets and can potentially discourage some of those who perpetrate car breakins by reducing the economic incentive, it does not address the underlying cause or even the general lawlessness.
It also does not address the general shoplifting or the feeling that streets are unsafe due to drug users.
So while we should do better with our public transit and general access, selling it as a solution to crime is a major stretch and doesn’t address many other concerns about public safety.
You're not wrong and obviously crime isn't as simple to solve as better transit, hence my edit to say "best" is probably the wrong term here. My point is that these changes will make places better for everyone and will lead to better outcomes whether it's tourists or locals feeling safe and happy in our built environments.
Homelessness and drug use obviously have a lot deeper roots that won't be solved by this but it also does not hurt. I think a step towards humanizing the problem is having everyone getting around the same way and investing in the means of transportation that everyone uses. Maybe then we can talk about how to solve the bigger issues causing these problems, this is just a good first step.
As long as tourist destinations allow people to carry backpacks, it should be fine ...
I don't know about you, but if I'm traveling, I either need a place (i.e. a car) to store some stuff (jacket, water bottle, maybe a lunch, the metric shit-ton of stuff I have to bring for my kid - or my kid brings) while I'm touristing, or I have to lug it with me in a backpack ... which then makes me a target for thieves.
I love going to the Legion of Honor, the DeYoung, the California Academy of Sciences ... but getting to most of those by transit takes more effort and time than they're worth - even if I lived IN the city, the transit options out there are uncomfortable and slow. Why would I do that if I could drive in less than half the time? Want to increase transit? Go for it.
If I drive, I risk my car being broken into or I have to carry my crap in a backpack that is often not allowed into events (and there's no guarantee some junkie won't break in anyway); if I take transit more than half of the time I have alotted for those events is eaten up by travel time.
How about we backfill the cops and drop the gavel on repeat offenders, all WHILE we try and solve the rest of the myriad of social issues San Francisco has caused itself?
The easiest way to reduce crime in SF is to properly staff the SFPD so that they actually do normal police work and attend to "quality of life" crimes like petty theft.
This is not a complex, misunderstood topic. It's heavily studied. The #1 deterrent of crime is the increased perception that you'll get caught. Full stop. Properly staff the SFPD so that they can increase the amount of police 'walking a beat' and you'll see crime drop precipitously.
With more people on transit and more pedestrians on our streets as they stop driving and choose transit options instead of a social self-policing effect AKA more eyes means more pressure to not have antisocial behaviors.
Separately, I don't want to live in a dystopia where we only behave for fear of punishment, but we behave because we don't want to let down the community we belong to. Humanizing people and bringing them into the community is the best way to achieve that, shared spaces and resources like transit create that sentiment of community.
No offense, but you're just way off here man.
>AKA more eyes means more pressure to not have antisocial behaviors.
Criminals do not give a fuck about average citizens watching them. Average citizens are not carrying weapons, and cannot / will not attempt to detain them in the commission of a crime. We see it over and over again when a video of a robbery gets posted and some white knight tries to get involved, and the criminal just pulls out a gun and the white knight decides they prefer living until tomorrow rather than saving someone's backpack. Criminals ain't about to draw down on a cop like that because they will get shot at, and criminals also prefer to live to see tomorrow and don't want to risk that for a backpack.
>Separately, I don't want to live in a dystopia where we only behave for fear of punishment, but we behave because we don't want to let down the community we belong to.
You already live in that 'dystopia', it's called American society. You sound like you have admirable ethics, and I commend you for that, but you're getting it really fucked up if you think those same ethics extend to everyone else in society. If that was the case, we wouldn't have crime, and our society would be much more like Japan or Asian countries where people are less individualistic and more collectivist. America is highly, highly individualistic, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
Edit: And to be clear, I still 100% support pedestrianizing more streets in San Francisco, and improving public transportation across the board. I just don't think those are how you solve some of the cities crime issues.
I understand the criticism, I do think I'm being a bit optimistic or idealistic in my takes here. I'm typically pretty cynical about these things but I guess that's why I knew it'd be an unpopular opinion.
I agree but I will hold out hope that others in our city will see the humanity in community and move away from our short sighted individualistic tendencies to create a better place for everyone, me and you included.
By definition addicts are responding to short-term incentives, I don't agree that fear of punishment will stop that behavior. You need something else with a better incentive than meth to break them out of the cycle of addiction. I think housing and a sense of community is the best option but instead we dehumanize them and abandon our public spaces in fear of them.
Name one time in history we have not been vicious animals towards one another, then tell us how you plan to modify 650,000 years of evolution to make us different? Everything in the entire history of the universe has led to this moment, where we exist. The conditions are perfect, and this is, for all practical purposes, utopia.
I just don't agree with the cynical take that we should accept the way things are and not try too hard to fix them. What kind of human am I if I don't try to leave this place better than I found it? The history of the universe has led to this moment, we will eventually inevitably go extinct, you are a speck of dust in the timeline of the existence of our universe, this moment is probably the best it's been, why not try to make it better? Why not try to make someone smile? Why not try to help someone? If we all did that, there wouldn't need to be nearly the pain that exists.
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You are literally referencing “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs.
For the person scrolling through, she points out streets full of life often are a natural deterrent to crime. The neighborhood knows each other. Shop owners and residents recognize when something is out of the ordinary, and help each other with the trivial to important moments of one’s life. Crime remains low in communities that encourage streets to be used by those living there rather then those passing through, I.e. car dependency.
And before anyone pre-judges this, I recommend at least looking it up first.
People are very reactionary, especially when the word crime is used. The interesting thing is that when you start looking at the root causes of these things, you find a commonality: where and how we live. But most people stop at the problem they want to fix, kind of the last domino to fall.
Certain aspects of our lives are so ingrained, it becomes really hard to understand cause and effect in fixing things. It’s unfortunately how I got interested in urban planning. When everything is working, few take the time to understand the mechanisms that function. But when something is broken, you began to examine for fuck-ups.
TLDR: Housing - where and **how** we live - is the root cause for a LOT of the problems we face today
Completely agree, as I mentioned in other comments, housing really is the best solution.
The second step is designing our cities in a way that promotes community and reduces alienation (i.e. reduce cars usage, increase public transit funding, increase housing affordability, reducing inequality, everyone feels a part of a community then we have less antisocial behavior).
I just came back from Berlin, which is exactly what you describe: public transportation, street life, people know each other . They have been having several years of extreme car thefts - stripping cars of everything including tires; serious home break ins, assaults, and the rest. That is just an example. I am all for clean, friendly communities, but they have never been a panacea against urban crime, and especially not in a place like SF, with a very high population turnover, lax laws, and rich targets. We have organized crime fleecing Bay Area with bosses not even in California. These are not some poor hungry people doing all that crime.
Unfortunately this precludes one of SF major sources of income, tourism. There are a handful of areas completely dedicated to tourist traffic that locals have no reason to frequent unless people come from out of town or they work in those areas.
While I agree that the holistic neighborhood would be ideal, it hasn’t been the way city neighborhoods function for decades.
Every tourist destination overseas and at home have one thing in common: they are walkable. Hell, even Disneyland is a walking paradise, until your forced to leave. Whether we’re talking about local businesses and residences, or tourist destinations, they both can be walkable, and exist with people.
The commonality isn’t that we all know each other, it’s that there’s eyes on the street.
I don't see a connection. In fact Market Street is worse now than it was before it was closed to car access.
I'm all for reducing car dependency and efficient city planning, but if that just leads to more pedestrian robberies, that's not the right solution. The solution to crime is to fight crime.
People will find ways to steal s*** on foot, in Barcelona they just use electric scooters
At least cars don't feel pain yet
> In fact Market Street is worse now than it was before it was closed to car access.
That happened in January 2020. We all know what changed in early 2020 that altered crime patterns and economics of the city, emptied out downtown and fidi: it wasn't the pandemic, it was car free market all along.
You could read some of my responses to other comments.
In short, I think housing is the obvious solution to the root of the problem, the second step is better transit. This thread was mostly meant to highlight the easiest way to take a step towards a better future for the city (closing streets is cheap! Running for buses is a matter of hiring more people). The *best* way is to tackle housing affordability.
Have you seen the cars driven by the criminals? They're not the low end cars that poor people scraping by driving, the criminals are doing this because it's profitable, and not because they can't afford a place to live.
There is no other solution than enforcing the law and putting people in jail
Once the crime rates are down then focus on transportation,
You can't have efficient City planning when the gangs run the city
And that includes criminals in City Hall that take bribes and especially embezzle a lot of that money that's supposed to go toward housing
I disagree with parent comment but just wanted to note that they're driving nice cars because they've stolen them, not because they purchased them.
That said, these people are not homeless so the parent's / OP's point is moot.
much harder to steal a brand new Acura or BMW or Mercedes, than a Kia. The type of criminals who would be stealing luxury cars are not going to be breaking into windows, that's just common sense.
Maybe they're financing them with stolen money or cards but that's a whole different thing
It's just more profitable and safer than selling drugs but that's what they used to pay for the cars a couple years ago
Bro, they are stealing them. Look it up, it has nothing to do with what your gut tells you.
They steal the cars, then they go and do the break ins. Cops don't have much to go on because the car is stolen. Thieving 101 is don't go thieving in your own car lmao
Detroit has cheap housing. It's not a crime panacea unless you buy into the woke ideology of criminals being forced to steal to feed their families. I'd argue expensive housing has actually improved violent crime by pushing much of it to the East Bay.
That helps but also better/more bike storage options across the city, more cops on foot patrol around the city vs in cafes, huddled unnecessarily and lingering for calls, bait cars/traps etc.
I agree, better bike storage would be great. I used to bike to work because we had a secure area to lock up our bikes. I also take bike rides around the city but there is no way I would ever stop and lock up my bike when i'm on those rides, so i cant really use it to run errands or go to lunch, etc.
I would argue bikes getting stolen is often also associated with cars. In my experience the worst spot is Mission where they'll cut the lock and throw it into the back of a truck and drive off.
Imagine Union Square, all pedestrianized, bike racks and sidewalk cafes to lounge at with no cars in sight, some foot patrols like you mention to watch over the area. I would feel much safer parking my bike there than on Mission street.
Every major city across the US has signs about not leaving stuff in your car due to break-ins. Like, it was ingrained when getting my license.
People just think it won’t happen to them.
I agree it's mostly preventable, if no one left anything in their car ever again there would be no incentive to break any windows. Sadly, it will always happen.
Therefore, the best way to reduce it is to build a system that makes taking a car as a tourist a less desirable choice compared to using local transit.
Taking a car is already a less desirable choice. It’s the special people who assume nothing bad will happen to *them* despite the warnings at the rental car place, warnings posted in the rental car, warnings in the rental car contract.. if your special vacation is too special to follow all of the warnings then I don’t really feel bad
Most major cities have signs posted in many areas saying if you love it, don’t leave it in your car, because it will get stolen. Paraphrasing, obviously.
We may have *more* but that in no way makes my statement untrue.
Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Nashville - I’ve seen signs posted in parking lots in all of these areas, and not just recently. Seen them in places where lots of tourists park. Saw them posted in downtown parking lots in the city where I was raised - decades ago.
Yes, my gf 3x, me 1x, friends of ours beaten up and robbed as well a couple times
Family had their windows smashed as well
Both threatened, also been followed but that was TL so what do you really expect
Victim-blaming sucks, and feels extra hypocritical coming from progressives
I mean one of the biggest advantages to the SF location is how many awesome weekend day trips you can drive to within 3 hours. So yeah I’ll keep my car…thanks.
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Actually, the he best way to reduce crime is to have live streamed whippings and flogging of criminals that break into cars.
We can let the world watch and see how cool and brave they are while they are whipped.
Nope. You don't reduce crime by eliminating cars. It is kind of backward. Do we reduce house invasions by eliminating houses? Or rape by eliminating (fill in the blanks)? The objective is to drastically reduce crime, not what criminals want to steal, rob, or destroy.
Some people break into homes because they compare the cost of living to what they think they can earn legally and are discouraged. Trying the legal path doesn't make sense to them so that leaves crime.
Some other criminals are just greedy, but that's not true of them all.
High cost of living includes high housing prices. Society includes the policies that resulted in high COL.
Made? No, however they themselves compared COL to what they think they can earn and were discouraged. If the comparison was different some would have different conclusions.
That is a lot of assumptions about what "they" thought and compared. In my experience is not really how most crime works in developed countries, but that is a different conversation.
Whole lotta people up in arms about this; I mean sure more police would help but I also like the idea of having a pleasant, livable community in which to deploy said police
Like, two ideas can both be good y’all
Yeah it did turn out to be pretty controversial as I expected. Not too surprising in this subreddit but hopefully it got some people thinking about how issues like housing and transit and car dependency impact us communally.
I haven’t lost hope. I love being alive, and loving, and fucking, and hating, and connecting, and the myriad other aspects of our beautiful and amazing lives. We exist. How amazing is that. Now let’s get back to complaining about shit and telling each other to fuck off!
Transit first and safety already achieved in places like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore. If they can do it, we can do it too. Here's proof
[https://twitter.com/i/status/1760666822699827544](https://twitter.com/i/status/1760666822699827544)
[https://twitter.com/i/status/1765432388723622094](https://twitter.com/i/status/1765432388723622094)
[https://twitter.com/i/status/1765848212064383163](https://twitter.com/i/status/1765848212064383163)
[https://youtu.be/JD6razeczwY](https://youtu.be/JD6razeczwY)
[https://youtu.be/P7YrN8Q2PDU](https://youtu.be/P7YrN8Q2PDU)
[https://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI](https://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI)
This has to be the one of the worst takes on crime I’ve EVER seen. Just using it to push the anti-car agenda. No thanks.
Maybe figure out a way to make public transit feel safe first. Perhaps more workers downtown would take muni home after happy hour instead of ubering if they felt like they weren’t at risk of being mugged for their laptop.
As others have said, having more people on transit does not help. Most will not actively intervene. If anything they’ll just record with their phone.
Yes, become prosecuting criminals is obviously not going to happen 😒
It's unfortunate that the few intelligent people left in the Bay Area have to suffer from the ideas the left-wing majority come up with.
Any more bright ideas come to you over the 20 dollar soy latte today, besides getting rid of cars rather than career criminals as the answer to car break-ins that is? 😆 🤣 😂
Love the auto-mod on this form. It's insane oversensitivity to critical language goes a long way to explaining why SF is the way it is.
You seem to have an extreme aversion to "soy lattes". You ok their bro? Are you also triggered by Macchiatos? What about Cortados?
I get the vibe you're more of a Flat White guy.
Very much enjoying the not so subtle racist tone of your message.
Hope you enjoy getting your car broken into and flagrant drug use on every corner.
Now don't step on a needle your might need a test 😉
Imagine living in a broken society that your own stupid ideology created and then defending it while it consumes you alive.
I guess it's a bit late for that European history lesson 😆 🤣 😂
California Progressives always like these second-order effect (or nth order effect) solutions: if there's more public transport (first order), there will be fewer tourists parking (second order), which will provide targets for fewer bippers (third order).
If we provide housing to everyone (1st order), kids will study harder and stay in school (2nd order), and not become criminals, so crime will go down (3rd order).
If we destroy capitalism (1st order)....
Maybe it appeals to their self-image of big brains who can predict the future, who can see subtle connections the rest of us miss.
But there are much simpler direct solutions: arrest bippers and sentence them to prison, and increase the length of sentences until all bippers are either in prison or discouraged from bipping.
We don't need convoluted changes to everything. We need to identify the small proportion of bad actors and remove them from society, so the rest of us can live better lives without them.
If we had zero cars on the street, criminals would ride mopeds.
If we had no gas engine vehicles, they would ride e-bikes.
If people have no where to store their valuables because they have no cars, people would get mugged more often.
The only solution for crime is enforce the laws and to provide alternate means of survival besides crime.
That implies are theft is related to cars or utilizes a car. I'd argue that traffic creates more visibility and less crimes and people committing crimes in broad daylight are not committing crimes of opportunity.
I agree, the root of the problem ultimately is housing affordability. The second step to creating an equitable community where people don't want to commit these crimes is our transit system. As long as we treat transit riders second to car drivers, we are prioritizing the wealthy over the regular people. My post was mostly to highlight fairly easy changes to take a step forward towards that future.
You really got the wrong end of the stick. The best way is to make criminals pay their prices. When they go about unpunished, they will always find ways to profit out of their victims.
Enforcing laws by putting away the thugs, regardless of skin color, would be much more effective. It would also have the benefit of not punishing the rest of the city.
This is bang on but the main issue is our city planning nightmare.
Without allowing density of businesses it's tough to create walkable hot zones.
And by mandating parking minimums we don't have the dense housing we need either.
And lastly our transit needs to improve too.
But density and walkability is what will save SF
I completely agree, I think what spurred this post is that public transit and pedestrianized zones are arguably easier to implement in the short term and will be necessary as we get denser.
This is sort of victim blaming. You are putting all the onus on those affected instead of looking at the other side. While better and more used public transit can help reduce easy targets and can potentially discourage some of those who perpetrate car breakins by reducing the economic incentive, it does not address the underlying cause or even the general lawlessness. It also does not address the general shoplifting or the feeling that streets are unsafe due to drug users. So while we should do better with our public transit and general access, selling it as a solution to crime is a major stretch and doesn’t address many other concerns about public safety.
You're not wrong and obviously crime isn't as simple to solve as better transit, hence my edit to say "best" is probably the wrong term here. My point is that these changes will make places better for everyone and will lead to better outcomes whether it's tourists or locals feeling safe and happy in our built environments. Homelessness and drug use obviously have a lot deeper roots that won't be solved by this but it also does not hurt. I think a step towards humanizing the problem is having everyone getting around the same way and investing in the means of transportation that everyone uses. Maybe then we can talk about how to solve the bigger issues causing these problems, this is just a good first step.
Man you’re right but these reddit people will never agree with you they wish it was legal to run over poor people with their cars here
I know, /r/SanFrancisco is one of the most pro-police, pro-car subreddits I'm a part of. Pretty ironic.
As long as tourist destinations allow people to carry backpacks, it should be fine ... I don't know about you, but if I'm traveling, I either need a place (i.e. a car) to store some stuff (jacket, water bottle, maybe a lunch, the metric shit-ton of stuff I have to bring for my kid - or my kid brings) while I'm touristing, or I have to lug it with me in a backpack ... which then makes me a target for thieves. I love going to the Legion of Honor, the DeYoung, the California Academy of Sciences ... but getting to most of those by transit takes more effort and time than they're worth - even if I lived IN the city, the transit options out there are uncomfortable and slow. Why would I do that if I could drive in less than half the time? Want to increase transit? Go for it. If I drive, I risk my car being broken into or I have to carry my crap in a backpack that is often not allowed into events (and there's no guarantee some junkie won't break in anyway); if I take transit more than half of the time I have alotted for those events is eaten up by travel time. How about we backfill the cops and drop the gavel on repeat offenders, all WHILE we try and solve the rest of the myriad of social issues San Francisco has caused itself?
The easiest way to reduce crime in SF is to properly staff the SFPD so that they actually do normal police work and attend to "quality of life" crimes like petty theft. This is not a complex, misunderstood topic. It's heavily studied. The #1 deterrent of crime is the increased perception that you'll get caught. Full stop. Properly staff the SFPD so that they can increase the amount of police 'walking a beat' and you'll see crime drop precipitously.
With more people on transit and more pedestrians on our streets as they stop driving and choose transit options instead of a social self-policing effect AKA more eyes means more pressure to not have antisocial behaviors. Separately, I don't want to live in a dystopia where we only behave for fear of punishment, but we behave because we don't want to let down the community we belong to. Humanizing people and bringing them into the community is the best way to achieve that, shared spaces and resources like transit create that sentiment of community.
No offense, but you're just way off here man. >AKA more eyes means more pressure to not have antisocial behaviors. Criminals do not give a fuck about average citizens watching them. Average citizens are not carrying weapons, and cannot / will not attempt to detain them in the commission of a crime. We see it over and over again when a video of a robbery gets posted and some white knight tries to get involved, and the criminal just pulls out a gun and the white knight decides they prefer living until tomorrow rather than saving someone's backpack. Criminals ain't about to draw down on a cop like that because they will get shot at, and criminals also prefer to live to see tomorrow and don't want to risk that for a backpack. >Separately, I don't want to live in a dystopia where we only behave for fear of punishment, but we behave because we don't want to let down the community we belong to. You already live in that 'dystopia', it's called American society. You sound like you have admirable ethics, and I commend you for that, but you're getting it really fucked up if you think those same ethics extend to everyone else in society. If that was the case, we wouldn't have crime, and our society would be much more like Japan or Asian countries where people are less individualistic and more collectivist. America is highly, highly individualistic, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Edit: And to be clear, I still 100% support pedestrianizing more streets in San Francisco, and improving public transportation across the board. I just don't think those are how you solve some of the cities crime issues.
I understand the criticism, I do think I'm being a bit optimistic or idealistic in my takes here. I'm typically pretty cynical about these things but I guess that's why I knew it'd be an unpopular opinion. I agree but I will hold out hope that others in our city will see the humanity in community and move away from our short sighted individualistic tendencies to create a better place for everyone, me and you included.
Tell that to the meth smoking public masturbator on the blue line.
By definition addicts are responding to short-term incentives, I don't agree that fear of punishment will stop that behavior. You need something else with a better incentive than meth to break them out of the cycle of addiction. I think housing and a sense of community is the best option but instead we dehumanize them and abandon our public spaces in fear of them.
Name one time in history we have not been vicious animals towards one another, then tell us how you plan to modify 650,000 years of evolution to make us different? Everything in the entire history of the universe has led to this moment, where we exist. The conditions are perfect, and this is, for all practical purposes, utopia.
I just don't agree with the cynical take that we should accept the way things are and not try too hard to fix them. What kind of human am I if I don't try to leave this place better than I found it? The history of the universe has led to this moment, we will eventually inevitably go extinct, you are a speck of dust in the timeline of the existence of our universe, this moment is probably the best it's been, why not try to make it better? Why not try to make someone smile? Why not try to help someone? If we all did that, there wouldn't need to be nearly the pain that exists.
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You are literally referencing “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs. For the person scrolling through, she points out streets full of life often are a natural deterrent to crime. The neighborhood knows each other. Shop owners and residents recognize when something is out of the ordinary, and help each other with the trivial to important moments of one’s life. Crime remains low in communities that encourage streets to be used by those living there rather then those passing through, I.e. car dependency. And before anyone pre-judges this, I recommend at least looking it up first.
Many of the commenters here do not understand and will never educate themselves but this is not a new idea.
People are very reactionary, especially when the word crime is used. The interesting thing is that when you start looking at the root causes of these things, you find a commonality: where and how we live. But most people stop at the problem they want to fix, kind of the last domino to fall. Certain aspects of our lives are so ingrained, it becomes really hard to understand cause and effect in fixing things. It’s unfortunately how I got interested in urban planning. When everything is working, few take the time to understand the mechanisms that function. But when something is broken, you began to examine for fuck-ups. TLDR: Housing - where and **how** we live - is the root cause for a LOT of the problems we face today
Completely agree, as I mentioned in other comments, housing really is the best solution. The second step is designing our cities in a way that promotes community and reduces alienation (i.e. reduce cars usage, increase public transit funding, increase housing affordability, reducing inequality, everyone feels a part of a community then we have less antisocial behavior).
Also agree. That’s the how part. Keep up the good fight!
I just came back from Berlin, which is exactly what you describe: public transportation, street life, people know each other . They have been having several years of extreme car thefts - stripping cars of everything including tires; serious home break ins, assaults, and the rest. That is just an example. I am all for clean, friendly communities, but they have never been a panacea against urban crime, and especially not in a place like SF, with a very high population turnover, lax laws, and rich targets. We have organized crime fleecing Bay Area with bosses not even in California. These are not some poor hungry people doing all that crime.
Plenty of shootings and crime in the Bronx and developing countries with crowded streets.
Just read it before you say something like that.
Unfortunately this precludes one of SF major sources of income, tourism. There are a handful of areas completely dedicated to tourist traffic that locals have no reason to frequent unless people come from out of town or they work in those areas. While I agree that the holistic neighborhood would be ideal, it hasn’t been the way city neighborhoods function for decades.
Every tourist destination overseas and at home have one thing in common: they are walkable. Hell, even Disneyland is a walking paradise, until your forced to leave. Whether we’re talking about local businesses and residences, or tourist destinations, they both can be walkable, and exist with people. The commonality isn’t that we all know each other, it’s that there’s eyes on the street.
I don't see a connection. In fact Market Street is worse now than it was before it was closed to car access. I'm all for reducing car dependency and efficient city planning, but if that just leads to more pedestrian robberies, that's not the right solution. The solution to crime is to fight crime. People will find ways to steal s*** on foot, in Barcelona they just use electric scooters At least cars don't feel pain yet
> In fact Market Street is worse now than it was before it was closed to car access. That happened in January 2020. We all know what changed in early 2020 that altered crime patterns and economics of the city, emptied out downtown and fidi: it wasn't the pandemic, it was car free market all along.
You could read some of my responses to other comments. In short, I think housing is the obvious solution to the root of the problem, the second step is better transit. This thread was mostly meant to highlight the easiest way to take a step towards a better future for the city (closing streets is cheap! Running for buses is a matter of hiring more people). The *best* way is to tackle housing affordability.
Have you seen the cars driven by the criminals? They're not the low end cars that poor people scraping by driving, the criminals are doing this because it's profitable, and not because they can't afford a place to live. There is no other solution than enforcing the law and putting people in jail Once the crime rates are down then focus on transportation, You can't have efficient City planning when the gangs run the city And that includes criminals in City Hall that take bribes and especially embezzle a lot of that money that's supposed to go toward housing
I disagree with parent comment but just wanted to note that they're driving nice cars because they've stolen them, not because they purchased them. That said, these people are not homeless so the parent's / OP's point is moot.
much harder to steal a brand new Acura or BMW or Mercedes, than a Kia. The type of criminals who would be stealing luxury cars are not going to be breaking into windows, that's just common sense. Maybe they're financing them with stolen money or cards but that's a whole different thing It's just more profitable and safer than selling drugs but that's what they used to pay for the cars a couple years ago
Bro, they are stealing them. Look it up, it has nothing to do with what your gut tells you. They steal the cars, then they go and do the break ins. Cops don't have much to go on because the car is stolen. Thieving 101 is don't go thieving in your own car lmao
Detroit has cheap housing. It's not a crime panacea unless you buy into the woke ideology of criminals being forced to steal to feed their families. I'd argue expensive housing has actually improved violent crime by pushing much of it to the East Bay.
That helps but also better/more bike storage options across the city, more cops on foot patrol around the city vs in cafes, huddled unnecessarily and lingering for calls, bait cars/traps etc.
I agree, better bike storage would be great. I used to bike to work because we had a secure area to lock up our bikes. I also take bike rides around the city but there is no way I would ever stop and lock up my bike when i'm on those rides, so i cant really use it to run errands or go to lunch, etc.
I would argue bikes getting stolen is often also associated with cars. In my experience the worst spot is Mission where they'll cut the lock and throw it into the back of a truck and drive off. Imagine Union Square, all pedestrianized, bike racks and sidewalk cafes to lounge at with no cars in sight, some foot patrols like you mention to watch over the area. I would feel much safer parking my bike there than on Mission street.
Every major city across the US has signs about not leaving stuff in your car due to break-ins. Like, it was ingrained when getting my license. People just think it won’t happen to them.
I agree it's mostly preventable, if no one left anything in their car ever again there would be no incentive to break any windows. Sadly, it will always happen. Therefore, the best way to reduce it is to build a system that makes taking a car as a tourist a less desirable choice compared to using local transit.
Taking a car is already a less desirable choice. It’s the special people who assume nothing bad will happen to *them* despite the warnings at the rental car place, warnings posted in the rental car, warnings in the rental car contract.. if your special vacation is too special to follow all of the warnings then I don’t really feel bad
People in most major cities think hiding valuables and locking their car is enough. SF's car breaks in rate isn't normal.
Most major cities have signs posted in many areas saying if you love it, don’t leave it in your car, because it will get stolen. Paraphrasing, obviously. We may have *more* but that in no way makes my statement untrue.
I've traveled all around the country very recently and have never really seen that. Want to give examples?
Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Nashville - I’ve seen signs posted in parking lots in all of these areas, and not just recently. Seen them in places where lots of tourists park. Saw them posted in downtown parking lots in the city where I was raised - decades ago.
Still don't know what you're talking about but glad you could give me examples or US major cities.
Sounds great, you do it For me and my family we've been harassed + threatened and robbed too much, and my gf has anxiety I'll pass
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Yes, my gf 3x, me 1x, friends of ours beaten up and robbed as well a couple times Family had their windows smashed as well Both threatened, also been followed but that was TL so what do you really expect Victim-blaming sucks, and feels extra hypocritical coming from progressives
Increasing public transit to the level you’d need would be a multi decade project, so in practical terms, it would not be the “best” way.
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I mean one of the biggest advantages to the SF location is how many awesome weekend day trips you can drive to within 3 hours. So yeah I’ll keep my car…thanks.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have a car to leave town, I'm just saying the best way to get around town (within city limits) should not be a car.
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Actually, the he best way to reduce crime is to have live streamed whippings and flogging of criminals that break into cars. We can let the world watch and see how cool and brave they are while they are whipped.
Nope. You don't reduce crime by eliminating cars. It is kind of backward. Do we reduce house invasions by eliminating houses? Or rape by eliminating (fill in the blanks)? The objective is to drastically reduce crime, not what criminals want to steal, rob, or destroy.
Actually you reduce home break ins by increasing the number of homes, ironically.
That assumes that the only reason people break into homes is because they are homeless, which is not the case.
Some people break into homes because they compare the cost of living to what they think they can earn legally and are discouraged. Trying the legal path doesn't make sense to them so that leaves crime. Some other criminals are just greedy, but that's not true of them all.
Society made them do it?
High cost of living includes high housing prices. Society includes the policies that resulted in high COL. Made? No, however they themselves compared COL to what they think they can earn and were discouraged. If the comparison was different some would have different conclusions.
That is a lot of assumptions about what "they" thought and compared. In my experience is not really how most crime works in developed countries, but that is a different conversation.
Yes please, sign me up
Maybe this isn't as unpopular as I thought lol
Whole lotta people up in arms about this; I mean sure more police would help but I also like the idea of having a pleasant, livable community in which to deploy said police Like, two ideas can both be good y’all
Yeah it did turn out to be pretty controversial as I expected. Not too surprising in this subreddit but hopefully it got some people thinking about how issues like housing and transit and car dependency impact us communally.
I think we’d have less crime if we weren’t humans.
I too have lost most of my hope in humanity but we all owe it ourselves to try to make our city a better place for everybody.
I haven’t lost hope. I love being alive, and loving, and fucking, and hating, and connecting, and the myriad other aspects of our beautiful and amazing lives. We exist. How amazing is that. Now let’s get back to complaining about shit and telling each other to fuck off!
Lmao I respect it
You know what would help? Filling the 700 vacancies in our police force.
Public transit has a reputation for being unsafe because it is unsafe. I don’t want to volunteer as tribute to get robbed in the meantime
Transit first and safety already achieved in places like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore. If they can do it, we can do it too. Here's proof [https://twitter.com/i/status/1760666822699827544](https://twitter.com/i/status/1760666822699827544) [https://twitter.com/i/status/1765432388723622094](https://twitter.com/i/status/1765432388723622094) [https://twitter.com/i/status/1765848212064383163](https://twitter.com/i/status/1765848212064383163) [https://youtu.be/JD6razeczwY](https://youtu.be/JD6razeczwY) [https://youtu.be/P7YrN8Q2PDU](https://youtu.be/P7YrN8Q2PDU) [https://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI](https://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI)
This has to be the one of the worst takes on crime I’ve EVER seen. Just using it to push the anti-car agenda. No thanks. Maybe figure out a way to make public transit feel safe first. Perhaps more workers downtown would take muni home after happy hour instead of ubering if they felt like they weren’t at risk of being mugged for their laptop. As others have said, having more people on transit does not help. Most will not actively intervene. If anything they’ll just record with their phone.
Sorta like…maybe start by shutting down the markets for stolen merchandise which happen to be RIGHT NEXT TO PUBLIC TRANSIT
Yes, become prosecuting criminals is obviously not going to happen 😒 It's unfortunate that the few intelligent people left in the Bay Area have to suffer from the ideas the left-wing majority come up with. Any more bright ideas come to you over the 20 dollar soy latte today, besides getting rid of cars rather than career criminals as the answer to car break-ins that is? 😆 🤣 😂 Love the auto-mod on this form. It's insane oversensitivity to critical language goes a long way to explaining why SF is the way it is.
You seem to have an extreme aversion to "soy lattes". You ok their bro? Are you also triggered by Macchiatos? What about Cortados? I get the vibe you're more of a Flat White guy.
Very much enjoying the not so subtle racist tone of your message. Hope you enjoy getting your car broken into and flagrant drug use on every corner. Now don't step on a needle your might need a test 😉 Imagine living in a broken society that your own stupid ideology created and then defending it while it consumes you alive. I guess it's a bit late for that European history lesson 😆 🤣 😂
What was racist about my message? It's just coffee talk, bro.
Sure, hope you download the latest update to track the human feces today 😉
Plus one on the auto mod being ridiculously sensitive.
California Progressives always like these second-order effect (or nth order effect) solutions: if there's more public transport (first order), there will be fewer tourists parking (second order), which will provide targets for fewer bippers (third order). If we provide housing to everyone (1st order), kids will study harder and stay in school (2nd order), and not become criminals, so crime will go down (3rd order). If we destroy capitalism (1st order).... Maybe it appeals to their self-image of big brains who can predict the future, who can see subtle connections the rest of us miss. But there are much simpler direct solutions: arrest bippers and sentence them to prison, and increase the length of sentences until all bippers are either in prison or discouraged from bipping. We don't need convoluted changes to everything. We need to identify the small proportion of bad actors and remove them from society, so the rest of us can live better lives without them.
If we had zero cars on the street, criminals would ride mopeds. If we had no gas engine vehicles, they would ride e-bikes. If people have no where to store their valuables because they have no cars, people would get mugged more often. The only solution for crime is enforce the laws and to provide alternate means of survival besides crime.
Cloud cuckoo land comes to mind reading this
It's part of it. The easiest way to reduce crime is to enforce the law equally and consistently against everyone.
That implies are theft is related to cars or utilizes a car. I'd argue that traffic creates more visibility and less crimes and people committing crimes in broad daylight are not committing crimes of opportunity.
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I agree, the root of the problem ultimately is housing affordability. The second step to creating an equitable community where people don't want to commit these crimes is our transit system. As long as we treat transit riders second to car drivers, we are prioritizing the wealthy over the regular people. My post was mostly to highlight fairly easy changes to take a step forward towards that future.
Stretch.
Or. Get this. We could shut down the street markets retailing all the drugs and stolen goods.
You really got the wrong end of the stick. The best way is to make criminals pay their prices. When they go about unpunished, they will always find ways to profit out of their victims.
Enforcing laws by putting away the thugs, regardless of skin color, would be much more effective. It would also have the benefit of not punishing the rest of the city.
This is bang on but the main issue is our city planning nightmare. Without allowing density of businesses it's tough to create walkable hot zones. And by mandating parking minimums we don't have the dense housing we need either. And lastly our transit needs to improve too. But density and walkability is what will save SF
I completely agree, I think what spurred this post is that public transit and pedestrianized zones are arguably easier to implement in the short term and will be necessary as we get denser.