> From: "Dana Tierney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 00:48:34 GMT
> Thread: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm/method=messages&threadid=10655&forumid=5#97302
>
> Yes, I do. As measured by the safety of the average person walking around,
> Albuquerque, Portland or San Antonio are far safer than Washington DC.
>
> I walk around at midnight all the time here. I frequently take the last bus
> to UNM and walk to my office when the library closes at midnight. I have
> never been accosted, robbed or felt even slightly unsafe. And it isn't as
> though I live in some rarified suburb. I ride the bus down Central Avenue,
> a main east-west artery notorious for drug sales and prostitution. I take
> night classes at UNM, in the heart of town. I hear a lot of people bemoan
> how "bad" it is here and I am highly amused by this. I see drunks and lots
> of homeless people but they are either friendly or minding their own
> business, which is all that I ask.
>
> The difference between here and DC as I see it is in the nature of the
> "badness."
>
> The District of Columbia has an underclass society for whom there are very
> few options outside of drug sales and robbery. Schools do not educate them
> and and because of poor skills many of them cannot get jobs. Women really
> do have babies to get the welfare money.
>
> Imagine a mentality in which $300 a month is your best option. These people
> have no hope for their own future and therefore they have few qualms about
> shooting you for the ten dollars in your pocket. This may also be true of
> other east coast cities like New York or Philadelphia. I am honestly not
> sure. I would say it was (somewhat less) true of Jacksonville Florida at
> the time I was there.
>
> The main avenues of Dupont Circle and Georgetown are fairly safe primarily
> because they are well-lit. If you park a car on a side street there is
> always a chance that someone looking for a few bucks will be waiting in the
> dark for someone like you, affluent and possibly a little drunk. Obviously
> size and gender will also play into whether you are selected as a target.
> But if you think that there are no predators there you are simply fooling
> yourself.
>
> I do not think that a new city administration, however honest and
> well-meaning, can have given hope to all those people. Not in three years.
> That is the bottom line -- the DC projects are full of people who do not
> see any opportunity for themselves and for whom jail is not that bad an
> option.
>
> While Albuquerque has outbreaks of violence, they have a different
> character. There have been two or three shootings in the immediate vicinity
> of UNM. All involved mentally ill homeless people. Prostitution takes place
> in stylized transactions which are invisible to those not in on the code.
> There are no women standing around in bikinis and high heels like you see
> at 14th and R. Drug sales take place in hotel rooms; again, drugs are there
> if you are looking but there are no open air drug markets like 10th and M,
> or whatever corner they are on this year. Above all the sellers do not
> shoot it out on street corners. When they do attack one another, which is
> rare, it takes the form of a home invasion. Granted that is a pretty severe
> sort of violence, but it does not affect you if you are not in the drug
> trade.
>
> Gangs are a problem in some parts of town, yes, but they attack one
> another. They do not rob random bystanders. I live on the West Mesa in an
> allegedly "gang" neighborhood. The fact is that if you are not a gang
> member, you are neither good nor bad for those people and you do not exist
> for them. Their presence in the area reinforces my decision to continue
> home schooling rather than use public schools -- I have a thirteen-year-old
> son, and the local school has had gun incidents in the past few months --
> but gangs here affect me otherwise not at all.
Ahem. Noticed the following when I checked the news this morning.
http://www.governmentguide.com/community_and_home/morganmostdangerouscities.adp
Since it was once *the* most dangerous city in the country (around 1987?) I
guess fifth most dangerous is an improvement, but it's still up there. So
is Baltimore.
Now, there are other factors to quality of life besides safety, and DC does
shine on some of them. Nightlife and museums come to mind. But safe it is
not.
Dana
>
> I think that there are cultural reasons for the difference. The local
> Hispanic culture is family centered and entrepreneurial. While New Mexico
> is a very poor place demographically there is no economically isolated
> underclass as there is in many east coast cities.
>
> Dana
>
> > Wait you live in Albuquerque right? My grandmother and two uncles have
> > lived there for years. Central is disgusting. The gang problem is insane.
> > You really think it's better there than here?
> >
> > Tim
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