For decades, San Francisco enjoyed a reputation for welcoming outsiders: hippies, gay people, assorted weirdos who went West in search of freedom and ended up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Now, thanks to a tech-fueled cash bonanza, it’s increasingly a city of clean lines and affluence, home to ultra-rich Silicon Valley barons and vagrants of the digital era David Talbot calls “Stanford assholes.” But despite the new tech bubble, rising property values, and hipster enclaves, the city’s underworld—and the gangs that fuel it—are still rollicking along, often right next door to the new money.
Judging by the number of security guards Mark Zuckerberg has hired to protect his $10 million mansion, Facebook’s boss probably had some idea that the rapidly gentrifying Mission District can (still) be a dangerous place. By sheer volume of reported incidents, the neighborhood remains the second most risky place in town, closely following South of Market (SoMa), where many tech startups rub elbows with homeless shelters and mental illness treatment centers.