Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
Most Dangerous Cities
The results are in, and the good news is that I'm not living in the most dangerous city in the U.S. Oh no--we've chosen to raise a family in the third-most dangerous city. For three years, however, we lived next to the #1 most dangerous city: Camden, New Jersey, right across the bridge from Philadelphia. On the other hand, my cousin living in Newton, Massachussets will be happy to know she's in the safest city in the U.S.
Actually, I'm not in the city of St. Louis--just the St. Louis metro area. I'm sure that the placid suburb where we're living has nothing near the crime rate of the city itself; I've read the police reports in the local paper, and theft (sometimes from unlocked cars) seems to be the biggest problem around here.
I feel bad that I'm not at all familiar with the downtown St. Louis area. We've taken a few touristy trips to the Arch and Laclede's Landing, but for the most part we confine ourselves to the surrounding towns. Sometimes I miss working in Center City Philadelphia, where I could go for walks on my lunch hour and pass the Reading Terminal Market, Ben Franklin's grave, the Liberty Bell, and Independence Hall.
Actually, I'm not in the city of St. Louis--just the St. Louis metro area. I'm sure that the placid suburb where we're living has nothing near the crime rate of the city itself; I've read the police reports in the local paper, and theft (sometimes from unlocked cars) seems to be the biggest problem around here.
I feel bad that I'm not at all familiar with the downtown St. Louis area. We've taken a few touristy trips to the Arch and Laclede's Landing, but for the most part we confine ourselves to the surrounding towns. Sometimes I miss working in Center City Philadelphia, where I could go for walks on my lunch hour and pass the Reading Terminal Market, Ben Franklin's grave, the Liberty Bell, and Independence Hall.
posted by Tess | 5:34 PM
2 Comments:
I liked that about working in downtown Cincinnati, too. The city centers are often fun, vibrant places full of people in work clothes, surrounded by nasty areas you have to drive through to get there. Which is why I don't think people do to downtowns unless they work there or have some tourist destination in mind. I met people in Westwood, the neighborhood we lived in that was still very urban, who had never even been downtown. They were too scared by all of the news reports of violence. But the city center itself wasn't like that.
I'm afraid I'm becoming one of those people. I'm not afraid of downtown (it's hardly the highest crime area around here), but I don't have much reason to go there. It tends to perpetuate itself--since I don't go there, I don't know what's there, so I don't go there....
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