San Francisco loses 2 big conferences

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And that's from the front entrance -- not counting getting from one hotel to another.

I've gone to dozens of conferences in Las Vegas -- so much so that I know the name and location of the meeting rooms in many of the hotels. I can compare that to attending several dozen conferences elsewhere, from Hanover to San Francisco to Orlando to ohgeez so many other places. Las Vegas has benefits, but the travel issues cause me to ALWAYS stay at the conference hotel whenever possible.

My primary reason for commenting was simply to add my anecdote. People tend to overvalue anecdotes, and I thought it unfair that my experience was not represented in the anecdotes already in the thread. So I added it. There was no "argument" present except to add perspective.

> Are you seriously arguing as someone that lives there that it’s not a shitshow?

As somebody who lives here, I do have my gripes. Commuter foot traffic has not fully recovered, and that has impacted local businesses and public transit significantly. I don't care too much about the Nordstroms of the world, but the smaller local businesses were hard hit, and that was tough, as many of my favorites went out of business. Homelessness and open drug use seems to have increased a bit, though it looks worse due to the lower foot traffic. It's always been a heartbreaking issue and so it's always been important to me to vote and donate in a way that I believe will help.

But like I said, I've had no issues with actual crime personally. I know that SF's violent crime rates are trending down. I know there's issues with car break-ins and some property crime, but again, nothing that I've experienced. If anything, when I walk outside my apartment, I'm far more worried about getting hit by a driver than I am about being a victim of that sort of crime. (Driving behavior seems to have gotten far more dangerous in the area since the pandemic)

As for the positives: the location is central to all SF public transit, so it's easy to visit all the excellent neighborhoods SF has to offer. Golden Gate Park in particular has improved dramatically since JFK was closed to cars, and it's easy to visit. The new T subway is excellent to get to Chinatown quickly! It's also easy to visit/commute to the greater Bay Area via regional rail. Chase Center and Oracle Park are conveniently located, so there's opportunities to go see the games. Not to mention that the area gets a nice vibe when the Giants are playing a home game. There's convenient access to the highway when you do need to drive. Despite the pandemic-driven small business closures, there have been new local businesses opening up that are real gems, so that's been exciting to see. The new Salesforce Park is absolutely beautiful too. And there's been recent facelifts to a lot of the local streets to make them more bike-friendly, which has been really welcome: it makes getting to the Ferry building (another great local perk) easy.

So I guess what I'm saying is: yes, there are ways that the area has gone downhill. But it started out great, and continues to improve in other ways, mostly ones that don't get flashy HN posts. So no, I don't think it's a shit show.