How SF compares with other big cities

Pedestrian · #1 Posted **Feb 17, 2017, 7:13 PM**

Quote:

By Lizzie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle Updated 4:53 pm, Thursday, February 16, 2017

A thick stack of benchmark reports comparing San Francisco with other municipalities was released this week, and while much of the information confirms what residents already know, it’s interesting to see how the city stands out.

San Francisco has more rush hours per day than other cities. It also has the highest cost of living, population density and average household income, at $112,459, coupled with the lowest percentages of children and African American residents. San Franciscans love their libraries, logging an average eight visits each per year, and visiting their parks . . . .

New York City isn’t in the group because it’s too large to compare reasonably with San Francisco, a spokeswoman in the controller’s office said — they try to stick to apples-to-apples comparisons, a policy that excludes the Big Apple.

The findings come from data gathered in 2014 . . . .

The average speed of San Francisco’s buses is 8.1 miles per hour — the slowest among its peers. On average, residents hopped on public transportation 272 times, a number that is 65 times higher than other cities’ systems . . . .

The city uses 42 gallons of water per day, well below the 68 gallons per day average. San Francisco ranked No. 2 in air quality, with 301 good air days compared with San Mateo’s 332 — Los Angeles ranked last at 28 days.

San Francisco’s pavement-condition score was 68 out of 100 in an updated 2015 analysis, the second-highest among its peers behind Denver, which might chagrin San Francisco residents who complain about the city’s pothole-riddled streets . . . . Through voter approval of the street bonds in 2011, we have seen a steady improvement of the pavement condition. We’re going after the Rockies’ road score.”

. . . The city’s Recreation and Park Department spent more money per resident on services, at $213 per head, compared with $151 on average in the other cities. Residents also spent more time in the open spaces, with 33 visits per capita annually — more than double the 14 per-capita average . . . .

Residents also spent more time in libraries, with eight visits per capita, three more than the average. It ranked No. 2 in the category, only lagging behind Seattle . . . .

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...s-10939013.php

The report is here: http://sfcontroller.org/sites/defaul...n%20Health.pdf

The cities to which SF is compared are :
 Baltimore, MD
 Boston, MA
 Chicago, IL
 Denver, CO
 Long Beach, CA
 Los Angeles, CA
 Miami, FL
 Minneapolis, MN
 Oakland, CA
 Philadelphia, PA
 Portland, OR
 Sacramento, CA
 San Diego, CA
 San Jose, CA
 Seattle, WA
 Washington, DC

tech12 · #2 Posted **Feb 17, 2017, 9:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...s-10939013.php

The report is here: http://sfcontroller.org/sites/defaul...n%20Health.pdf

The cities to which SF is compared are :
 Baltimore, MD
 Boston, MA
 Chicago, IL
 Denver, CO
 Long Beach, CA
 Los Angeles, CA
 Miami, FL
 Minneapolis, MN
 Oakland, CA
 Philadelphia, PA
 Portland, OR
 Sacramento, CA
 San Diego, CA
 San Jose, CA
 Seattle, WA
 Washington, DC

Well, i already see one error with that study: SF does not have the lowest black population of the cities on the list, as is claimed. San Jose does.

hughfb3 · #3 Posted **Feb 17, 2017, 10:58 PM**

What is this study?? Are they comparing the city of SF or the metro. If so... doesn't the Metro SF Bay Area include San Jose. I'm so confused by this comparison. SF city limits is tiny, yet they want to compare apples to apples. Los Angeles city limits are HUGE in comparison to SF if it's a city limits to city limits. Also San Diego is Huge in land area as well. SF is about the size of downtown LA and into Koreatown and Boyle heights... no more. Or it would be SF in comparison to the City of Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood. The graphs in this study clearly show LA as a much worse off city. But this is not an apples to apples comparison. Come on SF

Pedestrian · #4 Posted **Feb 18, 2017, 12:15 AM**

^^ Try the link for the actual report but since it's put out by the city Controller's office responding to a requirement put on them by a city ordinance, I assume it's just the city.

coyotetrickster · #5 Posted **Feb 19, 2017, 7:01 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by hughfb3

What is this study?? Are they comparing the city of SF or the metro. If so... doesn't the Metro SF Bay Area include San Jose. I'm so confused by this comparison. SF city limits is tiny, yet they want to compare apples to apples. Los Angeles city limits are HUGE in comparison to SF if it's a city limits to city limits. Also San Diego is Huge in land area as well. SF is about the size of downtown LA and into Koreatown and Boyle heights... no more. Or it would be SF in comparison to the City of Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood. The graphs in this study clearly show LA as a much worse off city. But this is not an apples to apples comparison. Come on SF

The purpose of the study is to provide performance metrics on service delivery compared to similar populations. SD is close to SF in population, so I think is is still fair to include it in the measurements. However, that apples to apples claim falls apart with LA. LA has almost 4 million people, so it should not be included in the metric.

Reverberation · #6 Posted **Feb 21, 2017, 4:54 PM**

Boston.

Honorable mention to New Orleans (excluding the east Parish). Same approximate land size, old housing stock, hard geographical constraints. Totally different everything else.

Pedestrian · #7 Posted **Feb 21, 2017, 7:40 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverberation

Boston.

Honorable mention to New Orleans (excluding the east Parish). Same approximate land size, old housing stock, hard geographical constraints. Totally different everything else.

Interesting because as a San Franciscan I love New Orleans (and enjoyed Boston the one time I was there) and feel very much at home there. One thing it certainly has in common with SF is the obsession with food.

ChargerCarl · #8 Posted **Feb 21, 2017, 7:43 PM**

Relative to it's walkability SF's rail infrastructure is really, really bad.

Pedestrian · #9 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 6:54 AM**

This is another article about the report:

Quote:

Benchmarking San Francisco versus Sixteen Peers
February 21, 2017

San Francisco had the highest average household income ($112,459) among its peers (which averaged $78,923), but also the highest cost of living (164 percent of the national average) and 63.4 percent of its housing units are renter-occupied (the third-highest among its peers which averaged 55.5 percent).

At the same time, there are over 100,000 San Franciscans living in poverty, a rate of 12.4 percent versus a peer average of 11.9 percent. Sixteen (16) percent of San Francisco’s population is food insecure – meaning they lack access to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle – compared to a peer average of 13 percent. And as of two years ago, San Francisco’s homegrown rate of homelessness was 66 percent higher than its peer average but below that of Washington D.C., Boston and Denver.

San Francisco has the highest population density (18,176 people per square mile) versus its peers (which averaged 8,863 people per square mile), which might provide some context for MUNI’s average bus speed of 8.1 miles per hour while in service, the slowest bus speed among the peer set which averaged 11.2 miles per hour.

San Francisco provides 121 acres of park space per square mile (versus a peer average of 86) and spends over $210 per resident on parks and recreation (compared to a peer average of closer to $150).

San Francisco’s population has the highest incidence of Chlamydia and prevalence of HIV.

And while San Francisco appears to have the second highest property crime rate among its peers, its violent crime rate was the seventh lowest and roughly 15 percent below average.

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2...er-cities.html

Kenneth · #10 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 2:19 PM**

Based off the information provided SF cant be compared to Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami or Washington DC because all these cities have extremely high African American and children populations. These two statistics were iincorporated into your comparison, so the cities I listed cant be used since these are two important items.

ChargerCarl · #11 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 7:13 PM**

Yeah property crime in SF is absurd.

Pedestrian · #12 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 7:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Yeah property crime in SF is absurd.

Apple Picking . . . ROTFL. But it happened to my best friend.

mhays · #13 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 8:20 PM**

Property crime is apparently more likely to be reported in cities with less violent crime, so rates can be misleading.

homebucket · #14 Posted **Feb 22, 2017, 11:25 PM**

I knew SF was bad for property crime, but I'm surprised to see Seattle isn't too far behind.

Pedestrian · #15 Posted **Feb 23, 2017, 12:25 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by homebucket

I knew SF was bad for property crime, but I'm surprised to see Seattle isn't too far behind.

Places with with both wealthy young techies and some entrenched hard core welfare-dependent poverty I suspect. The former walk around with cell phones and computers with crime the last thing on their minds. In SF (and maybe Seattle) you also have tourists with obviously expensive cameras dangling around their necks wandering in some dicey neighborhoods with easy-to-miss borders with tourist zones.