I've accidentally walked through a few "bad" neighborhoods while traveling and mostly found them just fine. I think the thing is that they might be fine to trav

I've accidentally walked through a few "bad" neighborhoods while traveling and mostly found them just fine. I think the thing is that they might be fine to travel through once or twice because the odds really aren't all that high you'll get mugged, but if you travel through there every day of your life because it's where you live, you're much more likely to at some point have witnessed or experienced first-hand the violence. So it's understandable that locals might steer you away, even if it's still not especially likely that you'll have a bad experience on the one time you pass through. That said, I often get poor advice from wealthier residents of "dangerous" cities, because they tend to sequester themselves from the poorer parts of town and think it absurd that any traveler would want to visit or pass through. I suspect in that case there is some kind of classism or other prejudice involved that as an outsider you are immune to because you didn't grow up in the environment that produced it. Either way, although locals can provide you with some data points, I think ultimately when you're traveling you have to make your own risk assessment based on the situation. And this is true whether you are in a city or the countryside - I think it's an awareness that most frequent travelers develop over time.