As a former full-time resident of one of the towers on the 300 block, who still stays in the condo frequently, I have an opinion on the sketchiness of the area. I'll probably get it from both sides, but that's okay.

As I've said, the main place that gave me the heebie-jeebies was the area from the intersection of Bryant and Main to just past the bridge overpass. On the north side of the street, there were dark recesses (now brightly lit when I walked by on Friday night) on either side of the Portside's parking gate. On the south side, the short stretch of Bryant along the pump station is dark and spooky.

If I was walking from the Embarcadero, I would make a loop and walk on Spear St. specifically to avoid that area. The thing is, getting stabbed to death wasn't something that ever crossed my mind; for me, it was just that one area (and there are a few others, but I never had reason to go to them) and that was because I didn't want to get mugged.

The thing to keep in mind is that the general vicinity is overflowing with Google and Mozilla employees who are viewed as easy prey—nerds with couple of phones, a laptop or two in their backpack, sometimes a nice watch, new AirPods, and, as a bonus, cash in their pockets. It's very easy to pick one off and hop on the bridge.

There's an international fencing operation shipping the items I listed above out of the country in bulk. As long as they're in business, there's going an army of low-level street criminals who go out and procure those items in return for a commission.

There is private security, but it's a large area and they can't be everywhere at once. Since the YouTube shooting, Google has made their security very in-your-face. They're out on the sidewalk day and night, but they're on Spear St.

Homeless people do walk through, but they're not erecting tents or doing the things they do in other parts of the city. People in the area aren't buying drugs from street dealers, so there's none of that.

So is the neighborhood as a whole sketchy? A few places are; most are not. I moved because I wanted a yard and more space.