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I started to think about this thing how people percieve safety. Taking to the extremes, is a safe neighbourhood for you a place you know every neighbour or a one you don't get shot every time you walk outside?
What are the factors which are included in a 'safe' neighbourhood? Knowing people, cleanliless, children, attitude of the people, gang culture, the level of drug and alcohol addiction, police presence?
What do you percieve as a 'dangerous' neighbourhood? A high level of crime is a given, but what else? Is a poor area by definition dangerous, are highrises dangerous, are inner cities/suburbs dangerous? Do you feel some low-crime hoods are dangerous?
And how much of danger and crime can you take living in that area? Are or would you be bothered if a person is mugged or even killed on your street? If you live in an area with high crime relative to your country, are you ok with it?
And finally, if living in a dangerous neighbourhood, with how much crime could you cope with just standing next to it? Child prostitutes, drug mafia, hitmen, asymmetric civil war, when is the time to rat?
Safe neighborhood = I know most of the close neighbors; my children can play outside alone; as a woman, I can walk alone any direction during the day or night without worry about personal safety.
I feel very fortunate to live in such a neighborhood. I would not be happy or comfortable living with any amount of the crime the OP describes.
Safe - to live in the city. You just must know the places you should to avoid.
Unsafe - to live in a suburb. The night time is not a good time for a walk.
For me safety is a place where you won't be killed, robbed or hitted by a car.
Safe neighborhood = I know most of the close neighbors; my children can play outside alone; as a woman, I can walk alone any direction during the day or night without worry about personal safety.
I feel very fortunate to live in such a neighborhood. I would not be happy or comfortable living with any amount of the crime the OP describes.
Ditto.
I like that I could probably forget to lock my doors and be gone two weeks - and come back to find that nothing had been disturbed.
Like you, I have absolutely zero concerns about walking anywhere, at any time of the day or night, in my neighborhood. At any given time up till dark, I can look out my windows and see children playing happily outside - riding their bikes, or their scooters, etc - families walking together, couples or singles walking their dogs. If I'm outside working in the yard, it's very common for a neighbor or two to stop and talk a bit. I might even ask them in for coffee and they might take me up on it - even if we've only met in passing before.
To me - that's a safe neighborhood, and it's a great blessing to live in such a place.
I would say that an important factor in percieved safety is a neighbourhood that I'm familiar with. I know where the dark alleys are, where the streets go, and what usually goes on on the sidewalks. So a more rugged neighbourhood feels safe to me than a safer neighbourhood I'm not familiar with. Would you agree?
The other important factor is lighting. A dark area is by definition more unpredictable than a well-lit one, obviously. Third, I feel much safer biking than on foot. As there's not a gun problem here, with a bike I can outrun any maniac who might do harm.
The neighbourhood I currently live in is very safe. Well, not "no need to lock your door" safe, but you know what I mean. Though it's generally a lower middle-class hood there's not much to do here. There's no nightclubs or places of interest, just some stores, a couple of restaurants and pubs, so there's really no reason for people to come to my corners. There might be some occational vandalism on weekends and rowdy behaviour, but that doesn't concern me.
The most safe neighbourhood I've lived in was in Helsinki, as one of the main police stations were just a stone throw away. You technically saw more cop cars than normal ones. Generally, a very good aspect of Finland is that the little gang culture we have is not in any sense territorial, so there's no problem with "our" or "your" areas, and the hooligans are teenagers mostly bothering other teenagers.
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