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What the hell? How did the whole question become racist? The point isn't about racism at all in the safety questions..or don't YOU get that! The over-paranoid family members mentioned sound like they need some psychiatric help - Seriously! LOL People who are asking for advice, are NOT asking where non-minorities live, they want to be sure they aren't going to rent in areas where gang type activity is prevalent or high incidents of muggings. Granted, this is everywhere but there are some areas that are hot spots and that is the advise being sought here. There are plenty of places that do NOT fit that category and the relevant question is...tell me where the spots are to avoid, especially if one had to walk to a bus stop or T alone. Knowledge is power...if you know where incidents occur most, like a cabbie says he won't go there...that is GREAT advice...you know YOU DON'T WANT TO GO THERE...I don't care WHAT nationality live there! Get REAL!
I find endlessly interesting how much the topic of "safety" comes up on urban forums.
....
So, really, I'd like to know. Why is this such a popular discussion topic?
Funny you should ask. Just yesterday my sister and I compiled a list of apparently trivial words/expressions - so over-used, abused and confused - that they have come to grate on our nerves too badly not to think about patenting it and publishing them in an actual "Nerve-grating" dictionary: . We decided to co-author it
Choices, making the right choice, activities, "good job!!" (addressed ad nauseam to children or "corporate children", as needed), organize, community, hard work, human resources, achievement,...and yes, safety/safe/unsafe - are just a few that come to mind.
These are all words with huge propagandistic potential. It is amazing to witness their social engineering effects, especially when propagated often enough, cleverly enough, and aggressively enough - which the Powers that Be have turned into an art form by now.
As someone who grew up in a culture where normal childhood environment was something that would land today's western parents straight in jail - GUARANTEED! - and who emerged with incredibly fond memories of childhood, I am often having a hard time dealing with what I perceive to be contemporary world's "safety" hysteria.
The hysteria has, of course, nothing to do with the "best interest of the people". It is commercially-fueled and anyone not able to see this has either an IQ problem or is a highly successful product of the aforementioned social engineering, brainwashing, you name it.
Or likely both.
I just about lost it a few days ago when my 5 yo had "THE NERVE" to step out of the house and make 20 steps to our neighbor's house because he had seen their kids outside and wanted to play with them - bad a*s.
We didn't see him stepping out but realized he had done so after just a few minutes. We rushed over to make sure he was not "intruding", "bothering" etc. Apparently, the only thing the neighbors had to say when they saw him was a sour "does your mother know you are here?".
Even after I showed up, they never bothered to retain him, invite him to join their kids to play, whatever. She just told me that she was concerned to see him out there because "it is not safe".
Of course, anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together would realize, if they saw where and how our house is situated, that even if you were an actual psychopath wanting to hurt your child via neglect, allowing him to be "alone" in front of the house, on purpose! - you would have zero chances at it.
That being said, I have attached a document which is a pathetic txt. copy of a much more expressive but un-loadable here Ppt. doc (with nostalgic sound and all the jazz), and which I received recently from a fellow co-national. It is about our childhood, during the "B.S." ERA (B.S. as in "Before Safety".)
She grew up in the same place and about the same time I did - and emerged with similarly beautiful and fond childhood memories.
Something my children will never have the chance to do. I see this every day and I weep inside.
(I translated them as they were written for those of us, in our "ethnic" community. The sound is probably best lost as many would likely find the soundtrack a bit too sentimental for their "objective and scientific" tastes anyway ).
Are you really that surprised that people constantly ask about safety on this forum? This website may serve a number of different functions, but a BIG one is to give people information on areas that they may be moving to (many times, without ever having been to an area).
Since many people use this forum to gather information on places they've never been, it's only logical that safety would be a big topic. You can do research on real estate prices and commute times to/from certain areas relatively easily online. Crime data is a little more iffy. You can check some asinine Forbes rating or look at some numbers (like city-data's rating system) but it's hard to put a lot of stock in that stuff. Many of these people have kids or are living alone. It's perfectly reasonable to be very concerned about "safety" in an area you're completely unfamiliar with.
Many of the RESPONSES to those questions are a different story. Too many people post safety "info" with incredibly little knowledge of an area. It's maddening at times. This is constantly the case with the small and mid sized cities commonly referred to as "gateway cities" in Massachusetts (Worcester, Springfield, Brockton, New Bedford, Lowell, Fall River, Lawrence, Haverhill, etc). We all know that many of these cities are past their economic peak (most of them, in fact). However, I'm shocked at how many people think that no one should live in any of them and write the ENTIRE cities off as "dumps" (their words, not mine). It takes a fair amount of ignorance to be able to label an entire city as a dump. Any (even the worst) city on earth has SOME redeeming qualities. In fact, every one of the gateway cities in MA has plenty of them. These cities are a good fit for the right people and too many people write them off entirely (again with VERY little knowledge of what they're actually talking about). Every one of those cities has more affordable housing than you'll find in most places in MA. Many of them have excellent services and attractions. Some (I'm thinking Worcester, Lowell, New Bedford, Haverhill and a few others) are doing a LOT better than they were a few years back and seem to be reinventing themselves. Sure, schools in many of them are bad and there is some crime in pockets. However, no city in MA is just AWFUL in terms of crime, and most (even ones with terrible reputations like Lowell, Worcester, and Haverhill) have VERY reasonable crime rates. The ignorance and generalizations regarding these cities are just tiresome.
Ignorance leads to fear and ignorant fear leads to some of the idiotic comments you hear on this community. Ethnicity plays into it a LOT. Closet racism is not a new thing in this country. Many people fear people who are different from them. "New" ethnic groups that are growing rapidly draw ire and hate from the people who have been here longer. As far back as this country's history stems, this has been the case. If you need recent examples, think of the Italians in the North End. In the 50's and 60's the North End was regarded as a "slum" and a ghetto. The Italians were new and that's where they settled. As they became more established, they became more accepted. Today, the neighborhood is a gem that's overrun with tourists and residents trying to get a taste of that working class Italian culture (it's almost "disney-fied" at this point with some of the authenticity lost to gentrification). The same is true with South Boston and the Irish (or the Portuguese, or the Eastern Europeans, French-Canadians,etc elsewhere). Today, many of the Latin-American groups draw the spite, hate, and fear of locals (same can be said for immigrants from Caribbean nations settled in Boston). In a decade or so, these groups will be established and there will be some new group to hate on. It's an unfortunate part of history that repeats itself. There will always be groups of people who fear other groups.
While the original question wasn't about "racism," the two go hand in hand. Many people see large numbers of a working-class minority group and assume an area is unsafe. If you've never noticed other people do this, then you're probably the one doing it. Many of the ignorant responses about neighborhoods and whole cities can be directly linked to this. It's easy for some suburbanite soccer mom who's never left the 'burbs of Boston to simply assume that every hip-hop looking person with a different skin color is a hoodlum.
Furthermore, if someone has even ONE "personal connection" then forget about it... they're point of view is tainted forever. I'm amazed at how often I hear something along these lines (exaggerated a bit for effect): "My friend's cousin had his car broken into in that neighborhood in 1991." They state it as if it's proof that it's a horrible place. Never do they consider that other factors go into it. We'll stick with this example-- 1) could the friend have been stupid and left valuables sitting in the open? This gets people's cars broken into even in the safest of 'burbs. It says nothing about the neighborhood. 2) Neighborhoods change. A personal reference from a decade ago is often irrelevant with regards to crime. rranger can attest that Bedford-Stuyvesant is a different neighborhood than it was in the 80s. Gentrification changes places, but reputations are harder to do away with.
Questions about safety are reasonable and should be expected. The irresponsible replies are dangerous. Negative replies are weighted much more heavily than positive ones. Most people assume that local pride will influence replies to be a bit more positive so they adjust for that. Also, more often than not the negative replies are not supported with any evidence (except, maybe, an irrelevant personal reference). You see this all the time with comments like "Stay away from _________, that city's a DUMP!" What's sad is that many people take those comments more seriously than the person who can leave a page-long reply with all the evidence in the world testifying to the contrary. The reason is, fear. Ignorance and fear are at the root of many (if not most) of the negative responses. We just have to hope that most people are smart enough to root through all the junk. My best advice is to tell the people to visit an area (if possible) before making a decision. See for yourself.
rranger - It seems to me that you are a man, not a woman. And it's fine for a guy to live wherever he'd like to. But for a woman, or a family with children, I think that it's a very valid question to ask about the safety of areas that the questioner isn't familiar with.
That said, I'm a woman that lived in all kinds of neighborhoods when I was in college and the decade afterwards. My parents said that I was "slumming it" but as someone on a tight budget, I couldn't afford to rent in the better neighborhoods. Personally, I always felt safe, but I was a woman that lived in blue jeans, sneakers and t-shirts. I was a tomboy, and I also had commonsense. I did have one apartment break-in and had my stereo stolen. I've also done many road trips across the US and all on my own. And to save money, I've also slept in my car.
But for the average woman, they like to dress nicely and carry expensive Coach handbags. So to live in a sketchy neighborhood, wouldn't be wise for them. And who wants to feel that they need to be on high alert while walking late at night? And I've also found that in the more ethnic neighborhoods, the guys are more forward about wanting to flirt with attractive women. And they also notice those people that don't look like they grew up in their area, and that's when perhaps they stare and even harass those outsiders passing through. Just like those bullies that tortured the poor girl that finally committed suicide. And sometimes, they harass outsiders because they resent their neighborhood getting more gentrified and expensive due to developers.
And in the rougher urban neighborhoods, there are more drug dealers and prostitutes hanging out on the street corners.
And yes, the world is a more dangerous place to live in than when I was a child. There are more predatory people out there, mostly men, that assault women and children. And I think that's due in part to having more people on this planet and those with mental issues not getting the help they need.
And yes, the world is a more dangerous place to live in than when I was a child.
Evidence?...
Also, did people in the past get more help for mental health problems, and now they suddenly don't get anymore?
If anything, you could say that in the past there were fewer people with mental problems simply because they didn't live the isolating, alienating and frantically competitive lives we live in today.
Exaggerated fears about "safety" contribute to this sense of alienation and meaninglessness, multiplying it many times over.
Then you will see more mentally Ku-ku individuals (pedophiles, sexual weirdos, rapists, killers, etc), and I guess you'll get even more scared, which means you will isolate yourself and your children even more, so will most people...and so on. The vicious cycle continues and here is the monster society we have created.
The trouble with the modern world is that it creates some really nasty problems in the first place, then turns around and triumphantly comes up with solutions to those problems...which ...oh, "how could have they have been offered without all these modern advanacements and technology!"
I say "pathetic".
As for "urban safety"...for many years I walked from my university to the train station, at midnight, in the downtown of what many posters on this forum classified as "the most ghetto city in the country" (thread available for review on these boards, not my qualification). This was Atlanta. I would often see guys (yes, minority guys, 'hoods, rap, "boogy man" looks and all the jazz) hanging out right at the entrance of the metro station. They would say "Hello Miss" when I'd pass them by, I would smile back politely and that was that.
There was only one time when I heard one guy following me and calling me "Hey, Miss!!". It was pitch dark...and I just about froze. I thought that my sense of safety was finally about to become a false one.
When he approached he said "you dropped something". I had indeed dropped a letter I was caring in a folder.
He gave it to me, I said "thank you", he said "good night", that was that.
These midnight walks in the "ghetto" area happened regularly for a few years in a row, when I was a graduate student. I had late evening courses and I would always stay in the lab to chat on the Internet with my family overseas, as I didn't have a personal computer at home at the time.
Nothing EVER hapepned.
Once the university police saw me walking, they stopped the car and scolded me for walking that late at night by myself in that area - and why didn't I call them to accompany me at the train station?
I said "because I never felt unsafe".
rranger - It seems to me that you are a man, not a woman. And it's fine for a guy to live wherever he'd like to. But for a woman, or a family with children, I think that it's a very valid question to ask about the safety of areas that the questioner isn't familiar with.
As a woman, I do find that men and women sometimes have different definitions of safety. For a man, it might mean, "What are my odds of being the victim of a serious crime?" But for a woman, it can also mean, "Am I going to be stared at when I walk down the street? Are men I don't know going to follow me or yell things out of car windows? Are there lots of poorly lit streets where I might feel unsafe late at night?" I don't think there's anything wrong with asking these questions. Why shouldn't you feel comfortable where you live?
I do very much agree with lrfox's point that it's foolish to dismiss entire cities as "unsafe."
As a teen, I walked and biked all over town on my own, taking shortcuts along the train tracks and other remote areas. My parents never warned me not to talk to strangers. In the decades since, there have been many incidents of child assaults and abductions in the US. If I had a young child now, I'd want them to be always be in the company of friends, and to not walk alone. I would warn them to be cautious around strangers and to never get into a stranger's car. I'm not a paranoid person, but I do read the news. If you aren't worried about your son, then that is your personal choice.
On a similar note, while I don't have children, I do have dogs. And I've read more than a few news stories and craigslist lost notices about people whose dogs have been stolen out of their yards and cars. And I don't recall reading stories like that when I was a kid.
When I was in college and immediately afterwards, I used to do a lot of things on my own. I'd go to live music clubs on my own and meet all kinds of people and the musicians and just go hang out with them afterwards. I worked in South Providence doing two part time jobs, with one being a night job. I never had any problems. Nowadays, the young women have to worry about getting roofies slipped into their drinks and date rape.
I'm really glad that I'm not a child, teen or young woman now.
It's hard to tell whether or not it's becoming more dangerous nowadays. There's more media coverage and instant access to even the most personal news today than there ever has been. You never heard about the crimes that happen all over the country in the past because only the worst made the news. Today, I can go online and find out who in the world who burped in science class today. Does it mean more people are burping in science class than ever? No. It means we have more access to information and news (even minor stuff) than we've ever had in the past.
News today lingers as well. If a woman is groped while leaving a bar in Boston and it's publicized, a quick google search will reveal similar cases from the past 20 years all around the world. The knee-jerk reaction is to say that "this is a problem that's getting worse and worse! Just look at all these incidents! This never happened in the past!" The truth is that it likely did happen just as much (if not more) in the past. We just didn't have the means to instantly make the connections. To get the same information in 1965, you'd have to call ALL over and hope someone will dig through decades of paperwork (which probably wouldn't have been filed because fewer people would report that type of behavior in the past) and MAYBE find a related story. The frequency of all of these crimes was just as high in the past as they are now... we just were never able to get all the info at our finger tips at once like we are today which makes it SEEM like it's gotten worse.
Furthermore, awareness and activism puts crimes in the spotlight that were overlooked as normal in the past (child abuse, domestic abuse, even rape in many instances). People today are encouraged to come forward with stories of these attacks because there's more of a chance of the victim winning a legal battle than there was before. How many women in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s ran to the police because some pervert inappropriately groped them on the bus? A hell of a lot fewer than will do it today. What about the church molestations that are only coming to the surface this decade? Many of these crimes happened decades ago, but the victims chose to keep it to themselves until now. Many rape victims, especially those in relationships, kept the crimes to themselves because of the very real fear that the legal system would say a wife (or even girlfriend) couldn't be raped by her husband (don't even think about a man reporting a rape). If the rapist was a third party, the victims would often keep it to themselves so as to keep the peace in the relationship. We've all heard this stories. Fewer people are keeping these crimes to themselves (which is a good thing) and we're hearing about them more than ever before due to progression in reporting and advanced instant media.
The reports of animals being harmed and animal cruelty is actually an excellent example. Be honest, even if someone cruelly killed a cat or dog in the days before cable news and internet, would it be headline news? You wouldn't hear about it on craigslist, that's for sure (maybe a flyer attached to a tree). I think it's a bit naive to believe that it didn't happen before (or happened with less frequency). The difference is that back then, no one had cell phone cameras to capture the torture of some runaway cat. Kids couldn't get caught bragging about it via email, facebook, twitter, aim, etc. At the same time, Pet owners didn't have the outlets to voice their outrage at these crimes. The tale of a murdered cat wouldn't leave the little neighborhood in the past, but today it makes headline news (again due to increased publicity and people being more proactive and progressive about animal and human rights). Furthermore, what would the police do about it? Slap on the wrist... if that? I think crimes like that were handled differently back then. I also believe that unlimited media access puts it in some peoples' heads that these crimes are happening with exponentially more frequency; when really, we're just hearing about it more.
I'm of the belief that crime is no worse today than it was decades ago (I'm inclined to believe it's better). Many of these crimes are tossed into the media spotlight today and they weren't in the past. Furthermore, more people report them today than did in the past. If anything, I'd be surprised if crime rates aren't equal to or LOWER today than they were in the past. We're just all a bit more paranoid and everything's a little bit more public now.
I think that the actual number of crimes are up. And I think that makes sense since the population is much higher. And there are more types of crimes due to copycats and bad people thinking of more ways to do evil. Certainly there are more sophisticated scams. Then there is the internet and pedophiles trying to lure the underage into compromising situations. Roofies weren't around when I was young. And morals have gotten looser. Young people are losing their virginity at a younger age. It's more acceptable to have children out of wedlock. Dance moves have gotten even more sexually suggestive to the point that the moves in the movie Dirty Dancing seems very tame. No one asked me to be an FWB when I was young, and that sort of relationship is commonplace now.
I'm of the belief that crime is no worse today than it was decades ago (I'm inclined to believe it's better). Many of these crimes are tossed into the media spotlight today and they weren't in the past. Furthermore, more people report them today than did in the past. If anything, I'd be surprised if crime rates aren't equal to or LOWER today than they were in the past. We're just all a bit more paranoid and everything's a little bit more public now.
I think crime is certainly higher now than it was in, say, the 1950s, but statistically, I don't believe it's any higher than it was in the 70s or 80s. I think you're right that crimes are publicized more now--24 hour news has to cover *something*--which makes us suspect that society is more dangerous. I'm glad that in my neighborhood, I do see lots of preteen kids riding bikes, playing basketball, and going to the pizza parlor without paranoid parents in tow.
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. We decided to co-author it 
).
