Where Violent Crimes Happen

At Trulia, we work hard to help you find the best place to live and we’ve been exploring the seedy underworld of crime, so that you don’t accidentally buy a home and move to the bad part of town.

Last year, we brought our Crime Maps to life, which illustrated where crime happens in 50 U.S. counties and later did an investigation into when crime happens. Most recently, we launched Trulia Local which expanded the coverage of our original Crime Maps across the entire country (while also providing insights on schools and neighborhood amenities) to help house hunters answer the question: “What’s it like to live here?”

What we’ve done up to this point for our heat maps is show you crime density — that is, where are the areas with the most crimes? As you can see in San Francisco, there’s a lot of action in the Tenderloin, some in the Mission and Downtown, and not much elsewhere. Given the Tenderloin’s reputation, most people (who think they know the the city) would say that sounds about right.

But is it right? Ask any native San Franciscans and they’ll probably balk and say, “what about Hunters Point?” (FYI, this neighborhood has a notorious reputation. In fact, the NY Times described it as being “one of the city’s most violent neighborhoods.”)

Well as it turns out, Hunters Point, which is located in the southeast part of San Francisco, doesn’t experience a ton of crime — but when it does happen, they’re violent: fights, shootings and assaults.

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