Only about half of Americans believe that San Francisco is a safe city—an almost 20% decline since 2006, according to a recently released Gallup poll.
The poll, which was released on Monday, aimed to gauge how Americans felt about public safety in 16 metropolises.
The City by the Bay ranked 10th—tied with Washington, D.C.—with just 52% of U.S. adults saying they consider the city “safe.”
San Francisco was also named by Gallup as one of three cities—including Seattle and Minneapolis—whose perceptions of safety have dropped “precipitously,” according to the report.
In 2006, 70% of Americans said they felt safe in San Francisco.
“These three cities, along with Chicago, have seen increases in crime in recent years,” the report said. “In 2006, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Seattle ranked among the highest in terms of perceived safety.”
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report and San Francisco Police Department data, violent crime has decreased in San Francisco from 831 reported incidents per 100,000 residents in 2006 to 658 reported incidents per 100,000 residents in 2022.
However, property crime in San Francisco has increased from 4,704 reported incidents per 100,000 residents in 2006 to 6,086 reported incidents per 100,000 residents in 2022, according to the same data.
Americans said they felt most safe in Dallas, which polled at 74%, and Boston, which came in at 72%, the poll showed. The cities Americans felt least safe in were Detroit, who ranked last at 26%, and Chicago at 27%.
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, Boston and Dallas had more violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents in 2021, tallying 892 and 864 respectively, compared with San Francisco’s 613 during that same period.
San Francisco, however, had significantly more property crimes reported per 100,000 residents during 2021 compared with the Gallup poll’s top two cities with 5,641 versus 3,582 in Dallas and 1,765 in Boston.
America’s political affiliations played a large role in how they viewed the public safety of San Francisco and other cities, according to Gallup.
Although 74% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents said they felt safe in San Francisco, only 32% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents answered similarly, the poll showed.
San Francisco has been a favored punching bag for conservatives for some time, with Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently filming an ad on a dirty city street corner for his campaign.
San Francisco has 34,468 registered Republican voters, versus more than 318,000 registered Democrats, according to Department of Elections’ data last updated on Tuesday.