Not the OP, but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving (e.g. running reds including cops, ppl cutting across three lanes to make a left from the right lane, etc), guests who visited me were flashed by randos, a dude was jerking into a newspaper box by the BART, neighbors would smoke inside nonsmoking apartments with shared ventilation, etc.
I'd move back again for work if I have to, but it would take a lot of $$$$ to convince me.
Got off BART at Civic Center station at about 11:00 AM last Saturday. Walked past two guy sprawled in a hallway in the station smoking heroin or something from a piece of tin foil, and past another one doing the same as I climbed the stairs to the street. At the top of the stairs were a handful of guys gathered around a stereo smoking weed and, based on what I was seeing, selling it too. A few minutes later, just as I passed the tent city near City Hall, I ran into another guy torching something on a sheet of tin foil.
More shit than I've ever seen on any city streets. Every doorway, tree, and wall reeks of piss. It's no way to live.
"but while I was living in SF I saw drugs sold on the street, needles left on the ground in public parks, people stealing registration stickers off license plates, smashed car windows, people blocking sidewalks and harassing pedestrians, ridiculously unsafe driving" ...things I've also seen in Chicago, NYC, Miami, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Portland (among others).
Not saying that's ok, just that SF is hardly unique in that regard.
Many of these are absent in New York, including very visible homeless encampments, so no, these are not in “just about every big city”; many of these are specific to West Coast cities due to a failure in public policy.
I'd move back again for work if I have to, but it would take a lot of $$$$ to convince me.