I grew up in Indianapolis, where the violent crime rate is 8.7 per 1000. Growing up, we had plenty of trips to Columbus, OH (16.6), Detroit, MI (21.8), Cincinn

I grew up in Indianapolis, where the violent crime rate is 8.7 per 1000. Growing up, we had plenty of trips to Columbus, OH (16.6), Detroit, MI (21.8), Cincinnati, OH (8.9), and, yes, Chicago, IL (9.9). Granted, sometimes we'd visit smaller, safer college towns, like Purdue's Lafayette Indiana University's Bloomington, or Ball State's Muncie, IN. Only Muncie had a lower crime rate than NYC. Then again, Notre Dame's South Bend (17.3) University of Evansville (10.1), and Rose-Hulman's Terre Haute (14.6) kind of dispelled the idea of college town safefy. My current town is at 36 violent crime per 1000 residents, but the statistics are collected differently, so it may not be an exact comparison. NYC isn't safer than the majority of the country. But, compared to where I've been, it's felt pretty safe every time I stopped by.