You're right, I've lived and worked in both areas (several times during 2000-2016).
SoMA varies a LOT by exact location (at a per-block level) and changes with time of day, time of year, and has changed in cycles over the years. The area where this incident happened was historically one of the safer parts of SoMA, but not the safest, pre-Covid; I don't know how much worse it's gotten but directionally worse.
When I lived in TL (136 Taylor) I had someone brandish a firearm at me, witnessed two murders (in one incident), a bunch of people fighting other people, public drug use, etc., but SoMA is where more people I know personally were assaulted (partially because they're more likely to be walking around there...). I had a few non-consensual interactions which luckily stopped short of escalating too far, and a few times had to abort trips to an office, store, etc. to avoid stuff.
SoMA varies a LOT by exact location (at a per-block level) and changes with time of day, time of year, and has changed in cycles over the years. The area where this incident happened was historically one of the safer parts of SoMA, but not the safest, pre-Covid; I don't know how much worse it's gotten but directionally worse.
When I lived in TL (136 Taylor) I had someone brandish a firearm at me, witnessed two murders (in one incident), a bunch of people fighting other people, public drug use, etc., but SoMA is where more people I know personally were assaulted (partially because they're more likely to be walking around there...). I had a few non-consensual interactions which luckily stopped short of escalating too far, and a few times had to abort trips to an office, store, etc. to avoid stuff.
TL at least had better food.