Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
We spent a couple days in the city in August when we moved my daughter into her dorm. Without a doubt, San Fran has the worst homeless problem of any city I've ever been to... with L.A. a relatively close second. I don't doubt that law enforcement philosophies and city policies have the effect of making the problem more visible to tourists than other cities; police didn't seem concerned with open drug use (not pot, which doesn't bother me at all) or with homeless basically camping in some areas, which I'm sure makes it more obvious than in cities where users have more incentive to remain in the shadows/stay out of "better" (more touristy) areas. Most cities have ways of steering their homeless to places visitors are less likely to go, which makes for a more pleasant tourist experience even if it doesn't do anything to address the actual problem, but I didn't see much evidence that San Fran tries to do so.
But that said, it didn't impact our enjoyment of the city. Unlike a lot of the above posters, however, I wasn't walking around with an image of how it used to be in my head - I think that can be really make-or-break with enjoying a flawed place as-is (I'm guilty as hell about it when it comes to WDW; the memory of the things that used to be better is an overlay on my experiences that sometimes makes me judge the place more harshly than perhaps I should). We visited Fisherman's Wharf, spent a day in Golden Gate Park, shopped in Haight-Ashbury, etc. without incident and without ever feeling unsafe. I loved the Japantown area and wished we had more time to shop (and eat!) there. I'm really looking forward to going back in January and letting DD act as our guide, now that she's been there a few months and has gotten to know the city a bit.
I actually had a harder time with the homeless in L.A. and Anaheim, but to be honest, that was largely the juxtaposition of all that tourism money sloshing around the Disneyland area and literally walking past beggars and people sleeping on the sidewalks to get back to our hotel in the evenings. It just felt so wrong, not guilt exactly because I know the problems of the homeless are complex and not readily solved by money alone, but just very jarring. And in the other places we went, some of the panhandlers were fairly aggressive and unsettling.
But that said, it didn't impact our enjoyment of the city. Unlike a lot of the above posters, however, I wasn't walking around with an image of how it used to be in my head - I think that can be really make-or-break with enjoying a flawed place as-is (I'm guilty as hell about it when it comes to WDW; the memory of the things that used to be better is an overlay on my experiences that sometimes makes me judge the place more harshly than perhaps I should). We visited Fisherman's Wharf, spent a day in Golden Gate Park, shopped in Haight-Ashbury, etc. without incident and without ever feeling unsafe. I loved the Japantown area and wished we had more time to shop (and eat!) there. I'm really looking forward to going back in January and letting DD act as our guide, now that she's been there a few months and has gotten to know the city a bit.
I actually had a harder time with the homeless in L.A. and Anaheim, but to be honest, that was largely the juxtaposition of all that tourism money sloshing around the Disneyland area and literally walking past beggars and people sleeping on the sidewalks to get back to our hotel in the evenings. It just felt so wrong, not guilt exactly because I know the problems of the homeless are complex and not readily solved by money alone, but just very jarring. And in the other places we went, some of the panhandlers were fairly aggressive and unsettling.