5 ms·

I feel like this is a chicken and egg problem. In many western cities - and I won't name names - the downtown area is not pleasant due to anti-social behaviour

I feel like this is a chicken and egg problem. In many western cities - and I won't name names - the downtown area is not pleasant due to anti-social behaviour. So even when they do make it walkable, I don't want to walk there, I'd rather drive to a suburban mall and reduce my chances of an altercation. Until that's fixed it's a non-starter.

albertgoeswoof 5y ago
Is this a problem that America has generally? I.e there are areas where most people are scared to walk through in every city? I know many parts of the world have problems like this, but Europe doesn’t have many places like that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I wouldn’t say danger and unpleasantness are the same thing here. Every decently sized city has higher and lower crime rate areas. Locals tend to be more sensitive to this than tourists and the higher crime areas often have their own charms, because the crime isn’t really visible. True unpleasantness is only found in a few notable cities, is very visible, and both locals and tourists avoid it or have developed a coping framework or take a mission-based approach to their encounters with it. But those unpleasant areas don’t necessarily come with a greater chance of mugging or stray bullet shooting or auto part theft.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  Yes, it's a known problem. Lax law enforcement, most social services are also "downtown." While the commenter said they wont name the cities, it can be Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, etc. It makes it unpleasant, and if you do have to live in the middle of downtown or such, not only are you paying more - you have to for safety. Safety of a living place, safety of controlled entry, safety of a garage for your car, etc. In General it's all depressing, you'd imagine downtown cores would be the "best" of a city, but in the USA they generally are not. Now whether or not it's true insecurity, fear or such can be up to person/gender but criminal statistics do not lie. You can pull up a map and see where the majority of crime is reported of happening - and there you go. Then you can look at the threshold and severity. But nowadays we live in an era of political correctness or wokeness, so saying or making direct observations of that data can become very faulty quickly, especially once you bring up age, gender and race of the perpetrators. So eh.
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    > especially once you bring up age, gender and race of the perpetrators Is there sufficient social support for the families of young black males? If not, it may make sense economically to provide it, if it would make American cities functional again.
    - xenihn 5y ago
      You'll have to get past the entities that profit off whatever problem(s) you are proposing solutions for first.
    - wrycoder 5y ago
      “social support” is what caused the problem in the first place.
      - Wiseacre 5y ago
        If I'm not mistaken they never received any kind of reparations, so they've been a permanent underclass since slavery.
        truffdog 5y ago
        He is referring to 20th century social services meant to fix slums, that wound up making marriage something that could get you kicked out of public housing and on-books work something that could get you kicked off financial support. This is often blamed for making everything worse and contributing to the social disaster zones that were the large public housing projects in northern cities.
        dr_dshiv 5y ago
        Any links or references to share? Does this have a name?
        truffdog 5y ago
- thanatos519 5y ago
  > Is this a problem that America has generally? I.e there are areas where most people are scared to walk through in every city? The problem is more that America has areas where most of the inhabitants are living in fear.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wffurr 5y ago
Cities with shittier weather, e.g. in the Northeast or upper Midwest, don’t seem to have this problem as much. Much less antisocial behavior than in California cities, which seem uniquely bad in this respect.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  You would think so, but we still get plenty. What used to be a nice, safe neighborhood near uptown no longer is. Leave your car doors unlocked if you park on the street overnight, or else you'll find the windows broken by morning by kids looking for stuff to steal (happened to a coworker, the one night her husband forgot to not lock the doors). In the last two years, theft of catalytic converters from cars, as well as carjackings, have skyrocketed citywide. It has definitely changed the mood on the streets. We also have homeless camps, which get cleared out when the annual deep freeze comes through (amazing that people try to sleep outside when the temp can drop to -40). Those same encampents leave used drug needles all over public parks adjacent to schools. Granted, I'd have the problems we have over what CA cities have to deal with, but then again I also chose to bail entirely to live out in the countryside.
  - throwaway2331 5y ago
    Do you live in the PNW? Because that sounds a lot like the PNW. The northern east coast is what I believe the GP was referring to. We don't really have homeless people. I've honestly never seen a homeless person before, until I left. Neither has anyone tried to "get something" out of me, until I went down south or out west. I think it's cultural. The people who had moved out West were those that weren't necessarily successful or prosperous in their homelands (e.g. Britain, Russia, or the original 13 colonies, comprising mostly of the propertied class). So what you get is a bunch of grifters, drifters, and people who didn't "fit." And well, if that's what your communities are comprised of, I expect them to be antisocial. The saddest thing is I have family there, who have children; and seeing those children slowly take on the typical West Coastian attitude (and believe that property, violent, and sexual crimes are simply the way the world is), has been heartbreaking. I'm sure they will perpetuate the cycle of shit, in their own unique way -- even if it is minor.

albertgoeswoof 5y ago

Is this a problem that America has generally? I.e there are areas where most people are scared to walk through in every city? I know many parts of the world have problems like this, but Europe doesn’t have many places like that.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
1123581321 5y ago
I wouldn’t say danger and unpleasantness are the same thing here. Every decently sized city has higher and lower crime rate areas. Locals tend to be more sensitive to this than tourists and the higher crime areas often have their own charms, because the crime isn’t really visible. True unpleasantness is only found in a few notable cities, is very visible, and both locals and tourists avoid it or have developed a coping framework or take a mission-based approach to their encounters with it. But those unpleasant areas don’t necessarily come with a greater chance of mugging or stray bullet shooting or auto part theft.
rootsudo 5y ago
Yes, it's a known problem. Lax law enforcement, most social services are also "downtown." While the commenter said they wont name the cities, it can be Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, etc. It makes it unpleasant, and if you do have to live in the middle of downtown or such, not only are you paying more - you have to for safety. Safety of a living place, safety of controlled entry, safety of a garage for your car, etc. In General it's all depressing, you'd imagine downtown cores would be the "best" of a city, but in the USA they generally are not. Now whether or not it's true insecurity, fear or such can be up to person/gender but criminal statistics do not lie. You can pull up a map and see where the majority of crime is reported of happening - and there you go. Then you can look at the threshold and severity. But nowadays we live in an era of political correctness or wokeness, so saying or making direct observations of that data can become very faulty quickly, especially once you bring up age, gender and race of the perpetrators. So eh.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  > especially once you bring up age, gender and race of the perpetrators Is there sufficient social support for the families of young black males? If not, it may make sense economically to provide it, if it would make American cities functional again.
  - xenihn 5y ago
    You'll have to get past the entities that profit off whatever problem(s) you are proposing solutions for first.
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    “social support” is what caused the problem in the first place.
    - Wiseacre 5y ago
      If I'm not mistaken they never received any kind of reparations, so they've been a permanent underclass since slavery.
      - truffdog 5y ago
        He is referring to 20th century social services meant to fix slums, that wound up making marriage something that could get you kicked out of public housing and on-books work something that could get you kicked off financial support. This is often blamed for making everything worse and contributing to the social disaster zones that were the large public housing projects in northern cities.
        dr_dshiv 5y ago
        Any links or references to share? Does this have a name?
        truffdog 5y ago
thanatos519 5y ago
> Is this a problem that America has generally? I.e there are areas where most people are scared to walk through in every city? The problem is more that America has areas where most of the inhabitants are living in fear.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wffurr 5y ago

Cities with shittier weather, e.g. in the Northeast or upper Midwest, don’t seem to have this problem as much. Much less antisocial behavior than in California cities, which seem uniquely bad in this respect.

zdragnar 5y ago
You would think so, but we still get plenty. What used to be a nice, safe neighborhood near uptown no longer is. Leave your car doors unlocked if you park on the street overnight, or else you'll find the windows broken by morning by kids looking for stuff to steal (happened to a coworker, the one night her husband forgot to not lock the doors). In the last two years, theft of catalytic converters from cars, as well as carjackings, have skyrocketed citywide. It has definitely changed the mood on the streets. We also have homeless camps, which get cleared out when the annual deep freeze comes through (amazing that people try to sleep outside when the temp can drop to -40). Those same encampents leave used drug needles all over public parks adjacent to schools. Granted, I'd have the problems we have over what CA cities have to deal with, but then again I also chose to bail entirely to live out in the countryside.
- throwaway2331 5y ago
  Do you live in the PNW? Because that sounds a lot like the PNW. The northern east coast is what I believe the GP was referring to. We don't really have homeless people. I've honestly never seen a homeless person before, until I left. Neither has anyone tried to "get something" out of me, until I went down south or out west. I think it's cultural. The people who had moved out West were those that weren't necessarily successful or prosperous in their homelands (e.g. Britain, Russia, or the original 13 colonies, comprising mostly of the propertied class). So what you get is a bunch of grifters, drifters, and people who didn't "fit." And well, if that's what your communities are comprised of, I expect them to be antisocial. The saddest thing is I have family there, who have children; and seeing those children slowly take on the typical West Coastian attitude (and believe that property, violent, and sexual crimes are simply the way the world is), has been heartbreaking. I'm sure they will perpetuate the cycle of shit, in their own unique way -- even if it is minor.