David Zhong

Professor Zugnoni
UWP-001Y
4 June 2019

Comparing Two Different Cities

Hey, fellow city explorers! Exploring cities has always been interest of mine as I hope
you would agree. My name is David and I live in San Francisco and Davis for university. I have
always wondered why the atmosphere of Davis is so different from San Francisco. Perhaps it is
because San Francisco is a traditional metropolis while Davis is a small college town. Since
exploring and visiting places in a city is so fun, I decided to take a closer look at these two cities
to determine the differences between the two, mainly noting safety. I think people who live in
California or are interested in American cities would be interested in this topic. Is Davis a safer
city than San Francisco? Let’s find out. I expect to find that San Francisco is less safe than
Davis from personal experience and word of mouth.

In Davis, I observed two locations, Regal cinemas and the surrounding area of
downtown. In Regal Cinemas, I found that the interior of the theater was spectacular. The lobby
of the theater was very well decorated and renovated especially the lobby of the theater. It was
colorful, with a large desk in the middle with refreshments and tickets. In fact, many of the
theaters of SF aren’t as fancy compared with Regal Cinemas in Davis. This was a surprise as I
thought Davis would be less developed because of the smaller population. One explanation for
this observation would be that Davis is a relatively rich area. Davis has many businesses and
good housing because it is a college town and the university is the main source of money in
Davis. The theater was relatively noisy in the lobby with many groups of people standing around
talking or waiting line. Many were lining up for refreshment while others were lining up for tickets
or to redeem their tickets. During a movie, the people were quiet and mostly focused on the
movie but many clapped or yelled during exciting moments in the movie.

After watching a movie and taking my notes, I observed the surrounding area in
downtown Davis. I walked around about a square mile of Davis and found that the atmosphere
of the city was calm and quiet. There were few cars around and few people walking on the
sidewalk. It was quite peaceful. The people that were on the streets usually did not have a
backpack on and many had drinks or food in their hands. There were a lot of people walking in
groups or in pairs talking while walking and a few homeless people around the place sitting on
the sidewalk. During my survey of downtown Davis at night, I encountered no situation in which
I felt threatened or nervous because of suspicious people around. In fact, it was a new
experience for me, letting my guard down in downtown after getting used to being vigilant at
night in San Francisco. In a study done on crime in universities, the researchers found that the
level of fearfulness of crime in a university correlates with a stronger desire to avoid night
classes. (2) Perhaps my view that universities are a relatively safe place isn’t entirely correct. I
myself try to avoid night classes but it is not for safety, but my preference for earlier classes.

During my visit to SF for the podcast, I observed two locations as well: Balboa Park and
Downtown, specifically Market and 4th street. Balboa Park is a relatively peaceful area. There
are almost no people walking around the sidewalks during the day and few cars pass by the
area. The park itself isn’t as sparse, there are people playing tennis, basketball, and badminton
in the multiple courts in the park. There are also people jogging the circular track the runs
around a large grassy area. In the grassy area, some are playing catch with a football or a
tennis ball. Others are flying kites or walking their dogs. A few visited the swimming pool near
the center of the park. There was also 2 people learning how to ride a bicycle around the
circular track. Overall, this area is peaceful with little disturbances and is what you would expect
from visiting a park but not from SF in general.

Downtown SF is the second area I visited, and it was quite a bustling place, even at
night. The streets still had many cars the roads and the stores there were still filled with people.
Many were walking towards their cars or the subway stations because it was getting late and
because people were getting off work. The streets started to empty as time went on and the
streetlights turned on. Most of the people on the streets or in their cars looked tired and
impatient. As the people started to depart from downtown after work, the streets began to clog
up with cars and traffic crawled to a standstill. There were also countless unfortunate homeless
and vagrants lying on the dirty streets. During my time there, it was tense, and I was constantly
watching my back as San Francisco quite well known for opportunistic muggers. In a study done
on crime and disorder in a city, the researchers found “Disorder in a community” like litter,
noise, homeless, drug addicts on the streets seem to be correlated with more fearfulness in the
community.(1) From my observations San Francisco has a lot of disorder in it, which contributes
to even more disorder such as unfriendliness and littering. It seems that the more densely
populated an area is, the more “disorder” there is in a community.

From my observations, Davis is a safer city than San Francisco during the night. People
on the streets were also friendlier and there were a lot less suspicious people around during the
night. There is much less disorder on the streets of Davis than on the streets of San Francisco.
If you are interested in this topic, I recommend visiting the areas I visited for this podcast and I
think you would find a stark contrast as I have. Thank you for listening to this podcast and have
a wonderful day.

Work Cited
1. Forde, David Robert. “Perceived Crime, Fear of Crime, and Walking Alone at Night -
David Robert Forde, 1993.” SAGE Journals, 1993,
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1993.73.2.403.
2. McCreedy, Kenneth R., and Brent G. Dennis. “Sex-Related Offenses and Fear of Crime
on Campus - Kenneth R. McCreedy, Brent G. Dennis, 1996.” SAGE Journals, 1996,
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/104398629601200106.