How common are drones (UAV, UAS) in urban environments?

Pretty common.

Here's a map showing drone detections in my neighborhood (Ocean Beach / Outer Sunset, San Francisco, CA USA) for the past ~2 weeks [since December 1 of this year (2024)].

Each dot represents a detection, and there are more than 20 unique drones pictured on this map.

We've been capturing Drone Remote ID data in San Francisco for the past month, and one thing is clear: People fly drones every day (no surprise!)

What is interesting is that these tracks (and more) were captured by the single sensor we have in place near SF General Hospital ZSFG - our longest Drone detection was > 2 Miles away! I can imagine that a wider distribution of sensors would see more activity across the city.