It has been many decades since I've been to San Francisco so I would not know whether it really looks like a third world country or whether this is simply how the media choses to sensationally portray it because it sells. Often in person these problems seem less than we thought they were. This was the case with the Portland BLM riots. The media made it appear as if the whole city had gone up in flames and broken storefront windows, when in truth it was a small area of downtown. This is also true of the homeless problem. Their trash laden 'campgrounds' are plenty bad... but they are not nearly as prevalent as the media would like us to believe.
I was in Oakland in February for a memorial service. One wrong turn and it was like an urban scene from the Walking Dead. Block after block of trashed RVs, all manner of debris in the road, forcing me to zig zag to get through it, drums with fires burning. This wasn’t the whole town, but there were other disaster areas.
The hotel where we stayed had a fence around it and a 24-hour security guard at the entrance, who would ask for your room number. I stayed at the same hotel 21 years ago, and it had no such security measures then.
The Enterprise rep was adamant that we not leave anything visible in the car after parking. He said that they have 50-60 break-ins every month.
I’ll put it this way - it was much worse than the Portland I visited in Oct ’21. It seems San Fran is the same or worse.
