I lived there 20 years ago. It was not an "unimaginable disaster". Yes, there were pockets of extreme poverty in The Tenderloin, but overall, it was a fantastic experience. What timelines are you talking about? (No, I am not here to deny the current state of affairs, and its well-documented dramatic fall.)

And this comment: "most interesting city in the world" is just weird to me. It only has 750K people. How much culture can it possibly create? Not much. And it isn't very old, so it doesn't have any ancient history (sorry, hat tip to natives who lived there hundreds of years ago, but almost none of that culture remains). Mostly, it is a beautiful European-_looking_ city with a bunch of rich people in the Northwest Quadrant who can buy nice things. Most of the other three quarters are downright dull. It's not very important without Big Tech just outside its doorstep in the Valley. For example, New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Rio, Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan, Mumbai, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing produce vastly more culture. Wouldn't they be more interesting?

First went there 10 years ago. I'd never seen people defecating in the street before.

I've lived in the middle east, so I've lived in places with a lot of history. That is interesting in its own way of course.

But SF is interesting because it's where the future exists.

Why do you think it’s the most interesting city in the world ?

I visited it as a tourist and I while the homeless problem makes it interesting and it was fun to see it in real life after being exposed to it so much in movies and video games, I didn’t see that many interesting things. At least compared to much older cities in other parts of the world.

SF is interesting because it's where the future exists.