denverpilot
Tied Down
Agreed. It's pretty easy to spot the tweakers.
The problem with most large cities is, the benefits almost never outweigh the need to constantly be watching for said tweakers when in certain areas.
Saw a woman shot in the head for $20 at an ATM by a crackhead in Chicago about two minutes after he fired the shot and long before the body was covered up by the PD. Nobody I knew was dumb enough to ever use that ATM located in a location between streets that had expensive renovated townhouses and a very sketchy neighborhood only a couple of blocks away. The homeless shelter I lived and worked at was basically on "the border" between those two worlds.
The one place I refused to wander much at night was the telco central office surrounded by razor wire in Newark. If the parking spots were all full inside the razor wire, you didn't park elsewhere and walk in, even in broad daylight, but that was because your rental car would be stripped five minutes after you were out of eyesight and earshot. Not so much a personal safety thing.
A cabbie probably saved a co-worker who was more bold a hospital trip or worse there one night...
Cab pulls up as he's walking to the hotel...
"Get in the cab."
"No man, I don't need a ride. I'm only going a few blocks."
"You don't understand. Get in the *******ed cab. Now. I'll explain later. Don't turn and look. Just get in."
As the cab pulls from the curb...
"Now look behind us."
Gang of eight guys was headed up the street with obvious blunt weapons and at least one knife already out.
"They'd followed you for four blocks. I went around the block to pick you up."
Newark. What a hell hole back then. Doubt it's gotten better.
It's been clearly shown that if you remove the crime statistics from Chicago, NYC, and LA from the U.S. stats, we end up not just being one of the safest places to live on the planet, but so insanely so, it's amazing. Way WAY safer than all sorts of places one would consider "1st World".
Many use those statistics on both sides of the gun control argument, but both groups miss the forest for the trees. When you pack humans together like sardines, you end up with a really high semi-permanent crime rate that you can't get rid of.
Urbanization literally creates crime and opportunity for crime through both condensing poverty and increasing the population that is willing to do anything because they literally have nothing to lose.
There's obviously similar poverty and problems in rural areas but the people aren't usually packed in quite so close and a little annoyance by the neighbors or seeing a rich person doesn't become a homicide for $20.