this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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The thing is, I don't feel less safe walking down the street. I can't really relate to people who do. That drives the divide further.
That's definitely part of the problem. I had an incident recently where an older family member had a minor panic. Because I left my (mfg in 2006!!) vehicle running in the driveway while I ran inside. During the day. In a very safe suburban neighborhood. Just a flat out absurd concern and she leapt right to it, instantly. She's always been concerned, she's a grandma, but she wasn't pointlessly terrified like this years ago.
I think many of us don't realize how badly this irrational fear has taken hold, or maybe I should say how effectively this irrational fear has been deployed. Otherwise ~reasonable people are walking around thinking the worst is going to happen everywhere at all times, based on absolutely nothing - worse than nothing, it's based on weaponized deception.
That's really the problem. When I friends from small towns come and visit I can see they're on edge the entire time while I'm just doing what I do every day. Yes there's a person sleeping there. Yes someone is screaming a block down. There's traffic noise, and the subway isn't the cleanest - but it's normal, that's what I'm used to. It takes a bit of thicker skin, but once you realize nothing is really unsafe about it it gets easier. Problem is voters from tiny 20,000 population places vote with that fear already, and think that cities are unsafe. We can't bring everyone to the city and hold their hand.
Many of them still believe that cities are full of buildings burnt down by BLM and immigrants are raping people in the street. They will never visit, and thus will always believe this.
it's all vibes, you are way more likely to get hurt from a car crash than crime yet people have no problem driving.
Here in my city we just opened up a rail line extension. I've seen literally hundreds of comments saying it's not safe, all calling back to a stabbing in February. Which is horrific I know. But that's one death in a decade.
No one seems to know what to say when I call out the average 100 traffic fatalities every month in our state. That's just normal apparently, but city bad scary when 1 person in 10 years is killed