Duelling opinions! (Not really -- downtown SF has had a lot of trouble in the last few years, though as Noah notes, it's been feeling a bit better lately).

However, the trajectory isn't quite that clear, at least over a longer timeline and across the whole city. Back in the 1990s, a lot of downtown was very dodgy feeling, though mostly a block or so away from Market. Market itself varied across its length -- by the time you got to Van Ness it was becoming sketchier. Its status dipped and weaved as the city's fortunes shifted -- not necessarily corresponding exactly to economic success, but by 2011 downtown I think it was fairly "back'.

Other neighborhoods did not do so well during that time, to my memory. The strange thing about 2011 was that San Francisco survived the 2008 crash fairly well economically, so on the surface it was doing well, especially by comparison, but underlying it was a big upswell in the problems that would overtake it in 2015-2022. I'm not sure they were visible everywhere in the city.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that San Francisco is a heavily boom and bust city, with lots of neighborhood variation in fortunes -- I think plenty of people would argue that Market's upturn has come at the expense of pushing problems out to the periphery. But I wouldn't disagree that it's still digging itself out of the COVID hole, five years on, and despite a lot of potential tax income from the current boom.