While it offends in many ways the moral and aesthetic sensibilities of any right-thinking person, San Francisco is not a 'hard' city. Other than a few circumscribed locations at various housing projects, where you shouldn't go if you're sensible and/or white, it is not intimidating.
The Critical Mass people are granola-sucking emaciated Morrissey-listening punks, goths, hippies, and what have you. They are whiners and not fighters, and so this thing with the minivan is an anomaly.
I have been riding motorcycles on the streets of SF for 15 years, and my steel-capped riding boots have yet to impact the soft and yielding flesh of a Critical Massh0le, though I have come across that event many times. They are highly annoying, yes, but they just don't tend to make real trouble.
Across the bay, though, we have Oakland and Richmond. Those are the places to avoid. San Francisco is altogether mellow in comparison.
So by all means don't shy away from a tourist trip to SF. The most per-capita restaurants of any city in the US, I think it is. You are guaranteed to leave having had some good meals, and a renewed appreciation for how much saner, cleaner, and better your present living location is.
The Critical Mass people are granola-sucking emaciated Morrissey-listening punks, goths, hippies, and what have you. They are whiners and not fighters, and so this thing with the minivan is an anomaly.
I have been riding motorcycles on the streets of SF for 15 years, and my steel-capped riding boots have yet to impact the soft and yielding flesh of a Critical Massh0le, though I have come across that event many times. They are highly annoying, yes, but they just don't tend to make real trouble.
Across the bay, though, we have Oakland and Richmond. Those are the places to avoid. San Francisco is altogether mellow in comparison.
So by all means don't shy away from a tourist trip to SF. The most per-capita restaurants of any city in the US, I think it is. You are guaranteed to leave having had some good meals, and a renewed appreciation for how much saner, cleaner, and better your present living location is.