I was in San Francisco just last week for a couple of days, and found it to be considerably more pleasant than what the article here implies. I stayed in the Pacific Heights area, which is rather upscale and away from the tourist areas, but I had time to travel around and see the sights.
It is still a beautiful city - filled with lovely parks and Victorian-era architecture and surrounded by a sparkling bay that itself is ringed by towering hills that come right down to the waters edge, especially across the Golden Gate in Sausalito. San Francisco is also largely cleaner than what I had been led to expect, but squalor is clearly present as soon as you venture into one of the less desirable areas.
The results of liberal political dominance are certainly evident. Bums and panhandlers are ubiquitous, far more so than in any city I have visited in the last twenty years or so. Many of them are quite possibly in need of psychiatric help, being oblivious to hygiene or the condition of their clothing, and possessed of the tendency to speak out loud to whatever person they imagine might be there. I always find it more sad than scary: a testament to the cruel results of liberals' needs to feel smugly compassionate, in this case by allowing the ill and frequently addicted to wander freely in the streets while they safely Uber between their jobs and their multi-million dollar condominiums.
As a side note, my wife and I stayed in the Hotel Majestic, a Victorian-era survivor of the 1906 earthquake. We spent two nights in room 407, a suite which was reputed to be haunted by the spirit of an original owner's daughter, who lived in that very room. The room itself contains a fireplace and is decorated with reproductions of Impressionist art from the late 19th Century, classic furniture of the period, including a very tall four-poster bed. The bathroom has been updated somewhat, but still includes an old brass shower head set barely six feet above tub level (I had to duck to wet my head). We were informed that the claw-footed tub therein has been known to mysteriously fill with water, by itself during the night, but in spite of a low-level spooky mood to the suite, we experienced nothing unusual during our stay.
