SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Fear of crime is on the rise across the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly when it comes to returning to large urban retail areas, according to a poll released Thursday by the Bay Area Council.
Jim Wunderman, the council’s president and CEO, called those fears “a serious deterrent” as businesses attempt to rebound from two years of COVID restrictions. Of the Bay Area residents asked, 65% said they were avoiding going to big city downtowns because of crime.
“Fears about crime are a serious deterrent to getting people back onto transit and back into our downtowns and business districts,” Wunderman said in a news release. “Bringing the hammer down on crime and ensuring public safety isn’t a debatable question, it’s a fundamental responsibility of local government and law enforcement. The deep concern reflected in these poll results should be a clarion call to our local leaders to do what’s necessary to make our cities, neighborhoods and transit systems safe for everyone.”
The Bay Area Council is a business-sponsored, public-policy advocacy organization for the nine-county Bay Area that regularly surveys local residents about living in the region.
Thursday’s poll focused on crime and the results were eye-opening.
Crime and safety ranked third on the list of top local concerns among those asked just behind homelessness and high housing costs. Perceptions of the Bay Area as a safe place to live have plummeted from 63% in 2019 to 47% in this year’s poll.
According to the poll, 65% of those asked said they were avoiding going to big city downtowns because of crime. Concerns about crime and safety were also mentioned as a reason for leaving the Bay Area. That’s a dramatic shift from 2018 when crime barely registered as a reason to relocate.
When asked about crime in general, the respondents overwhelming cited fears of becoming victims of car and home break-ins. That was closely followed by violent crime, the public drug use and panhandling and public nuisances.
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The poll of 1,000 Bay Area respondents was conducted by EMC Research on behalf of the council between March 2-9 and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.1 percentage points.
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.