I live in a very poor state and yet: > I'm well off, as well as my temporarily unemployed neighbours, there are no beggars in the streets, the roads are paved

I live in a very poor state and yet: > I'm well off, as well as my temporarily unemployed neighbours, there are no beggars in the streets, the roads are paved nicely and I can visit a doctor without him bankrupting me. ...is pretty well entirely true for me - the temporarily unemployed seem to do OK, there's no homeless people, roads are very well paved, doctor is relatively cheap, while... > They also live in gated communities with armed guards, have to put up with theft and batter, carjackings, etc. Sounds like some alien civilization. I've never even seen a gated community, I have never, nor known anyone, who experienced theft or battery and certainly not a carjacking. About ten years ago there was a carjacking a few miles down the road from my parents. I understand that in some urban areas there are places like this, but I hesitate to put that too strongly since I've never seen them in the cities I've been to. It is certainly not representative of the country as a whole.