Crime in San Francisco displayed as elevation

Doug McCune has created a series of topographical maps showing crime centers in San Francisco using government data from 2009.

If San Francisco crime were elevation

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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Bill Simmon

I’d just like to point out that Shotwell and 19th, along with apparently having the highest rate of prostitution in SF, is also the cross st. for the EFF. What are those lawyers up to???
- Anonymous
  
  Cheap rent.
Anonymous

I live atop the West Warrant Foothills. You’d think the view would be better.
Anonymous

Has anyone been able to figure out how to do this as a Google Maps mashup? I’d love to be able to do this for anywhere.
gerg

at first i thought it was a negative topography, with crime levels being shown a gaping holes in the ground, which would have looked much cooler :)
Teller

I used to run with a girl on Shotwell. Now I know why we always met outside.
Anonymous

Seriously, is prostitution a crime in SF? It concentrates nicely around all the big hotel chains where businessmen stay during their business trips. Great graphs :-)
sdmikev

Looks like the Tenderloin is well represented..
Brainspore

This is as interesting for what it doesn’t show as for what it does. Hunter’s Point (that little outcropping on the bottom right) is almost flat in most of these despite being one of the most impoverished residential areas of the city. So does this mean the neighborhood is safer than it looks or that crime just doesn’t get reported there?

I’d also be interested in seeing a version of this series adjusted for population.
Shroomy

Cool! Now I know where to go for some hookers!
Anonymous

What those maps display is the relative density of San Francisco Police Dept. patrols.
- Anonymous
  
  That’s a good point on the data used here. I feel like that should have been disclosed by the author in a disclaimer or methodology statement.
Andrew

This is great, the low point in all of these graphs is the Castro. The gays run a tight ship.
- Teller
  
  I’ve read the SF Chronicle for 20 years. It’s never reported a single crime in the Castro. Not a theft, assault, hit-and-run, drunk & disorderly, nothing, nada, ever. It’s an amazing utopian paradise unlike any place in the world.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    It’s never reported a single crime in the Castro
    
    There are dozens of people on the street even at 3 AM.
3kul

Wow. Next visit to SF I’m heading to the Tenderloin and Shotwell St areas to request the services of those employed in the world’s oldest profession.
metafactory

Wish they had white collar and corporate crime mapped out here as well.
MrsBug

I must say, this is a really interesting way to present the date. Works well for a visual person like myself.
UnnecessaryUmlaut

I climbed Mt. Loin with Tenzing Norgay, or at least that’s what she said her name was.
arielturnip

Is it just me or do the assault and vandalism graphs look identical? I wouldn’t consider those to be crimes that fall together like assault and battery do.
Sork

If this was Sim City I’d know where to place a few more police stations and fire stations.
Zadaz

I’m pretty curious about Hunter’s Point being so flat as well. I’ve walked through the Tenderloin in the middle of the night hundreds of times and not had any problems. But I’ve had bullets pass through my car twice in Hunter’s Point and I’ve only been there like 50 times.

It also looks… a little sloppy. Or maybe blurred. SF neighborhoods (and the crimes committed in them) change incredibly quickly. One side of the street can be entirely different from the other. For example take 5th and Mission st vs 6th and Mission st. The first runs right by downtown’s biggest, reasonably high end shopping area. The latter is a hive of scum and villainy (or at least tons and tons of the really unplesant drugs) that the cops call a “containment zone”.

For a nice interactive map of SF’s crime:
http://www.sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=1618
octopod

a map showing hipster density would be useful in planning an evenings diversion.
bklynchris

This is a thing of pure unadulterated beauty!
nutbastard

hey, it’s reason #839,637 why I avoid SF like the plague!

I did most of my growing up in San Jose, which is the lowest crime city with a population over 1m in the USA. Even so, I’ve had a couple stereos and bicycles stolen, and a friend had her car stolen.

When I go to SF, all I notice is that 80% of the city smells like a poorly maintained outhouse, 15 minutes is the longest one can go without being confronted by some crazy asshole, and it’s impossible to park your car anywhere convenient and/or safe without paying upwards of $10.

My youth was spent in the Santa Cruz mountains with the closest neighbor being over a quarter mile away, and the front door of my parents house has not been locked in over 30 years. Living packed together like insects is not only unappealing, it’s completely alien. Paying out the ass to do so is straight up insane. Hey, only $1100 for a 400 sq ft studio that you have to park 2 blocks away from while offensive ethnic food with a hint of sewage wafts perpetually in ones window and sirens, meth heads and garbage trucks wailing throughout the night?! WHAT A DEAL!

Yes I know there are nice(r) areas, but really, if Stockton is the butthole of California, then SF is the infected foreskin of the Golden State.
- Anonymous
  
  Please stop stalking me and stop staring at my big, uncut megalopolis.
- sfnate
  
  Thanks for sharing. I printed out your post and fed it to my dog. He gagged a little but seemed to enjoy it.
  
  I feed my dog quality blog posts every day so that he can savor the bitter taste of bilious drivel.
  
  He’d eat this stuff all day if I let him.
  
  Cheers!
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Well I’m sure not going to let your views dissuade me from visiting SF, but I do like your “time before being confronted by some crazy asshole” metric.
- Brainspore
  
  Please let me be the first to thank you for avoiding our city.
Anonymous

I want to know the methodology. The value for the Z-axis and the modifier by numbers of crime could create any exaggerated topology. This leaves a lot to be desired in terms of geovisualization.
Anonymous

I’m interested in the methodology as well.

Maps like this would be pretty easy to create in ArcScene. I imagine by make point shapefiles with the respective data then extruding the highest frequency on the z axis in ArcScene, but there are many different ways one could make something like this.
Anonymous

I assume the “no crime area” is just an area with no available data..
Dewi Morgan

Goddamnitt, light comes from the TOP LEFT!

I know it’s just a UI convention, but for art that’ll be viewed on monitors, when there’s no other hint about up or down, it’s an important convention.

And the same applies for all topographical data: craters, mountain ranges, valleys…
someguyyouvenevermet

The Artist Abigal Reynolds made a series of cardboard sculptures using this same idea http://www.abigailreynolds.com/mntF/mntFEast.html