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Old 10-31-2021, 11:47 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lieqiang View Post
I don't get the feeling safer than USA thing.

Don't get me wrong, I think the dangers for the average expat are greatly overestimated by many, but it almost seems like the pendulum swings too far the other way for some when folks say they feel safer than USA. There are good parts and bad parts of of Mexican and USA cities, but lots of things in safer areas are different. Nice upper class neighborhoods with bars on the windows and barbed/electric wire around the roof, being used to not taking out your cell phone near where could be snatched, feeling comfortable walking on streets alone later at night, not driving on some rural roads at night, etc.
I think you are right on this and you don't even talk about the safety of roads, especially being a pedestrian. What Mexico isn't is this land of incredible risk that will end up badly for an expat or visitor that some want to portray it as. What it isn't is safer than is a similarly positioned US area. Just facts and common sense point this out. If someone feels safer that's great and I hope it ends up that way for them. But to be blissfully unaware that there is some ongoing dangers to living in Mexico does no one any good.
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Old 11-02-2021, 05:37 AM
 
Location: Spain
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Se le quitaron las respuestas groseras del mancito ese, no pudo apoyar sus argumentos sin afrentas.
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Old 11-02-2021, 06:35 AM
 
Location: Spain
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I'd agree with that Willy702. We don't stress too much about the crime in Mexico, one gets used to taking reasonable precautions like everyone else there. I think it strikes me the most when we're back in USA and realize I can more safely do some things that I wouldn't consider doing in Mexico.

We're in Santo Domingo now and the crime seems a bit worse here than in GDL and CDMX. I haven't actually witnessed crime but little things like private security guard at restaurants (including McDonalds and KFC) has a shotgun or there are cages over apartment balconies five floors up.
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Old 11-02-2021, 07:51 PM
 
Location: Somewhere on the Moon.
9,778 posts, read 14,616,562 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lieqiang View Post
We're in Santo Domingo now and the crime seems a bit worse here than in GDL and CDMX. I haven't actually witnessed crime but little things like private security guard at restaurants (including McDonalds and KFC) has a shotgun or there are cages over apartment balconies five floors up.
Bars on windows has always been the case for cement homes (and now apartment windows), but not for homes made of wood. Often times you'll see the two types next to each other. This is actually a Spanish tradition inherited from them and passed down through the generations. Go to Spain and you'll see bars on windows everywhere. Can't judge a neighborhood based on that (though it can be done in the USA when those bars appear in rough areas only.) In the DR people also use bars on apartment balconies to hang flower pots, they could be afraid of heights (begs the question why someone afraid of heights live high in the sky, but whatever) and a host of other things. Notice you will see bars on balconies in high floors too, but there are balconies closer to the ground in many of the same buildings and they don't have bars. Make any sense of that?

As for the rest, that's how it is. Crime is actually lower than in much of Latin America and depends where in Mexico. The population is psychologically conditioned to see guards with shotguns to feel safe, though most of those shutguns don't even have bullets.

In the following report about Mexicans in the DR, one that lives in Santo Domingo mentions the crime. He is from Mexico City, so the comparison is from there. I'm assuming you know Spanish, so put attention what he says starting at 10:22.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8-Plh2Hi5Y

Yeup, guy lived for many years in Santo Domingo by the time of this interview and he himself says the crime level is not even comparable to what he was used to in Mexico City. Hearing that his wife is out with the kids doesn't worry him, which could had been cause for worry in Mexico City (though I think he's exaggerating with that, but whatever.)
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Old 11-03-2021, 08:02 AM
 
Location: Spain
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AntonioR View Post
Bars on windows has always been the case for cement homes (and now apartment windows), but not for homes made of wood. Often times you'll see the two types next to each other. This is actually a Spanish tradition inherited from them and passed down through the generations. Go to Spain and you'll see bars on windows everywhere. Can't judge a neighborhood based on that (though it can be done in the USA when those bars appear in rough areas only.) In the DR people also use bars on apartment balconies to hang flower pots, they could be afraid of heights (begs the question why someone afraid of heights live high in the sky, but whatever) and a host of other things. Notice you will see bars on balconies in high floors too, but there are balconies closer to the ground in many of the same buildings and they don't have bars. Make any sense of that?
Actually my observation is that bars/cages are far more common on lower floors, although there are exceptions like you mention. It's a very frequent pattern, everyone on first floor has bars, most people on the second floor, then fewer as you get higher up.

I've been to Spain, the area where we stayed the businesses on the first floor would close up with gates but apartments from 2nd floor up I don't remember any of them having cages over the balcony like so many 2nd floor apartments in Mexico have. Are jagged glass on top walls, razor wire, and electric fences an old Spanish tradition as well?
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Old 11-03-2021, 02:25 PM
 
Location: So. of Rosarito, Baja, Mexico
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Answering this thread is a mismush for me having lived in Mexico City for 3yrs {mexican wife} and now in Baja Rosarito for 25yrs. Being an American in MC I was theft bait by friends? using the term loosely. Here in Baja I am theft bait galore being the only gringo here with anything of value compared to the neighbors. House broken in with ID stolen and used at the border and in SD using my name and home phone number at MD clinic. He had the B****. Computers and TV also gone. In big words they STEAL ANYTHING OF VALUE TO SELL HERE. My home that I built here is half wood aqnd other half concrete block/brick.Steel bars on the window as of now but they will use bolt cutters if the need is there or just pry the bars out of the windows as was done with me and a Mexican friend nearby, Few yrs back the local Police chief who lived two blocks over had his head cut off and placed on a bridge post. Back to MC. Was having breakfast at a woolworths. Heard sirens with a lot of police action that a bank across the strewet was being robbed, Turned out that security guards on roof with rifles had NO ammo, Security is a Joke. Guaqrd at the doorway of a Toy store? Whaqtkind of money can a place like that have? Basically my feeling is the security tewrm should be a featherbating position for idle workers. $5 a day to sweep the same street 5 days a week. YEP, that is my experience of past and up tocurrent day.
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Old 11-04-2021, 01:43 AM
 
101 posts, read 96,432 times
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Default tj cops

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Bagu View Post
Safe to live in Mexico can be a scrap shoot depending where your staying( living).

Look at todays news on the past weekend.
I have walked down many streehe in MC and was never given a 2nd look while here in TJ another thing.
In Jan in TJ coming home at night was pulled over by their finest and had some money taken while searching my car.
Could of been worse....my error.
My pet peeve has been burglarized of my home and valuable documents stolen..ID theft used.
Never but NEVER bring any major ID other then the basic needs...trust me on that one.
Pays to hav a trusted Mexican friend be it a Male or Female...I had both in MC.

Had the same here, Mexicans and American Vets.
Sorry to day that they were younger them me and have passed on and now I am lonely.
Who wants to be friends with an golf frat (89).
Wish I were young again..those young girls at the cantons in MC were nice company...lot better then what's local.

Pista Bacsi

are the worst. Rep for being criminals. were you sober?
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Old 11-05-2021, 09:26 AM
 
Location: Somewhere on the Moon.
9,778 posts, read 14,616,562 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lieqiang View Post
Actually my observation is that bars/cages are far more common on lower floors, although there are exceptions like you mention.

It's a very frequent pattern, everyone on first floor has bars, most people on the second floor, then fewer as you get higher up.
Anyone can check Santo Domingo (much of the world for that matter) on Google Maps.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lieqiang
I've been to Spain, the area where we stayed the businesses on the first floor would close up with gates but apartments from 2nd floor up I don't remember any of them having cages over the balcony like so many 2nd floor apartments in Mexico have. Are jagged glass on top walls, razor wire, and electric fences an old Spanish tradition as well?
It's the same in South Africa. Very high crime rate in places like Johannesburg, but will not see a balcony with bars. Either thieves don't penetrate homes and apartments, even those in say the 15th floor, through balconies and windows (lets all giggle a little) or whether there are bars or not is more of a cultural phenomenon than anything else.

Its also not common to see gated balconies in the US, not even in rough areas where bars on windows are much more present. However, the US has a different culture where bars is synonymous with crime. Not so everywhere in the world.

Are you from the United States? An American?

Last edited by AntonioR; 11-05-2021 at 10:38 AM..
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Old 11-05-2021, 09:48 AM
 
Location: Somewhere on the Moon.
9,778 posts, read 14,616,562 times
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What do you have to say about this? It was written in 1871 (about 150 years ago) by an American from New York City visiting the very same city you're visiting right now.







Now, today in many areas it isn't as safe as it was back then, but the idea that the usage of bars is akin to the crime level is outrageous. It is understandable if it comes from an American, because in the USA not even in colonial times the usage of bars has never been universal and it's a sign of crime levels, found for the most part in high crime areas. For an American looking out the window with bars produces stress, the same that produces the "touches of a home being complete" and instead of stress, produces calmness and relaxation. Hence, bars will be in apartments way up, as anyone can see in Santo Domingo via Google Maps. In Johanbesburg, South Africa not so much.

The rest of the world isn't like the USA. You can't go to other countries and assume what something means in your home country means the same elsewhere. There is this thing called culture and tradition that gets in the way.

Hey, in the USA you can point with your finger and it's fine, do the same in Japan and not so much.
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Old 11-06-2021, 04:38 AM
 
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I've lived in eight countries long enough to get a feel for it (including Nayarit), and I think the central factor is that a foreigner may never acquire that "sixth sense" that natives have grown up taking for granted. Being able to read the body language or shifty eyes of someone you should not trust. In your own country, you pull off the interstate for gas, and you immediately feel the pulse of whether you're in a dicey area or not. Abroad, you don't know how to read that, at first, or maybe never.
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