This is a very good list, and I'd like to expand on point four: even among city-life-specific dangers, murder generally ranks fairly low. Where I live, the ann

This is a very good list, and I'd like to expand on point four: even among city-life-specific dangers, murder generally ranks fairly low. Where I live, the annual pedestrian and bicyclist death count is is comparable to the St. Louis murder rate. And, of course, far more evenly distributed across neighborhoods. Add in car crashes and I'm probably at far more risk here than I would be in St. Louis. I'm at more risk from smog and water pollution just by living in a city, and to fight that I should move not to Toronto but to a ritzy suburb. But dense populations mean good emergency response times, which argues for city again! The list continues - you're absolutely right that safety isn't the only goal, but even on that basis it's not clear that murder is the statistic to observe.