We certainly have an urban/rural divide in this country. I’m sure there’re some racial elements in this division. However, stereotyping each other isn’t going to bridge this divide.
Right—and like I said, I honestly don’t think that’s what you were doing.
However, I kind of wonder the degree to which this whole perception of risk thing is connected to familiarity, or at least familiarity of a sort. (That is, not just personal familiarity, or familiarity due to those we know well telling us about things, but also familiarity due to widespread cultural assumptions.) It does feel, after all, like a lot of the discussion in this thread has involved people contrasting their experiences through different sorts of familiarity, and an argument between which type of familiarity is more useful.
Yes, people assess risks differently. They also feel differently if they have some control over the risks (e.g. driving in one’s own car gives one some control). A student can avoid a raging drinking party to control the risk but she can’t avoid walking to her apartment late at night, for example.
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USC is in a dangerous area. A police officer was shot near there last night. The suspect was killed. Over the last few years, students have been killed. I would definitely check the crime statistics before enrolling my child in a college.
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There was a story we read as children called “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse”. We have a tendency to fear what we don’t understand or aren’t familiar with. It’s easier to lump people together in categories and label them than to consider them as individuals especially when we don’t have a lot of obvious similarities. I think this is exacerbated by social media and it’s quick opinion bites. We don’t really ever get to understand the person’s point of view or they yours. Most of the time what we think is far more nuanced than what we write down in a tweet, a text or even a forum like this. It’s easier to judge others than to have a conversation with them. It’s easier to see them as stereotypes. I think that’s true for ALL people.
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Way back in my college years my roommate and I had T-shirts made up that we liked wearing around on occasion. Mine said, “Country Mouse.” Hers was “City Mouse.” When I visited her she taught me all about navigating the city (DC). When she visited me I taught her all about navigating the country. It was a lot of fun. We never ran into trouble in either location and this was well before cell phones!
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Yes, we all have our own biases and we tend to stereotype other people we’re less familiar with. Internet, and especially social media, are certainly reinforcing those biases. They were supposed to bring us together, but instead, they’re driving us into our own little circles that are separated further and further away from each other with fewer and fewer commonalities. The divisions and polarizations aren’t even confined within our borders. They’re global.
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I do not have examples specific to people warning others away from rural colleges or not, but as someone who grew up in a depressed rural region, I most certainly have heard people say all sorts of disparaging remarks about those type of areas, including mine specifically. So, I cannot relate to the sense “they get a pass” that you suggest.
Statistically, if one looks at FBI crime data, metropolitan areas have the highest rates of violent and property crimes, followed fairly closely by cities outside metropolitan area, and then there is significant decrease to nonmetropolitan counties. Nonmetropolitan counties had about half the violent crime rate as metro areas. So whatever perception people have about metro areas being less safe in general is not contrary to the stats. Are there differing examples within each category? Of course, but overall the concept that rural has lower crime rates holds true.
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That happened a mile away and no students were involved. How far away from a campus do you have to be before you’re out of a school’s neighborhood?
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More than a mile, I hope-some students live off campus. Many are likely to walk a mile at some time, so for a random murder to occur within a mile of campus would worry me. But a domestic murder of a current or former spouse/lover could be much closer to campus and I wouldn’t blink an eye. Not a threat to me.
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At USC, a significant majority of students live off campus. The campus is one of the few that are gated. Students are reimbursed for ride-hailing service if they’re within certain distance from the campus.
The area around USC is so dangerous that they put one of the space shuttles permanently on exhibit at the science museum across the street. I do suspect that if the school was in a relatively poor, white neighborhood rather than a relatively poor mixed race and ethnicity neighborhood, people would have a different impression as to its safety.
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The shuttle doesn’t mind getting harassed, followed or insulted. I do.
Just a guess, but that hasn’t ever occurred to you, has it?
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Probably many Black men can relate, since they sometimes get harassed or followed, although often by proxy (people calling the police on them even though they are doing nothing that is illegal or appears illegal).
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It is actually pretty annoying to be told not to worry about my physical safety because after all, a used old rocket ship is there, or have it implied that such concerns, in an area in which police were recently murdered, are somehow racist.
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A single criminal act doesn’t mean an area is necessarily unsafe—murders happen in the otherwise safest of neighborhoods, and crime happens in places that would usually be described as “a quiet residential neighborhood”.
If it’s possible to show a pattern, sure—but proof by anecdote is unhelpful for these sorts of discussions.
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That’s a nonsensical statement. Nobody is going to place a space shuttle exhibit in an area where visitors are threatened. The shuttle is located across the street from campus in an area that’s full of museums and two sports stadiums.
The school recently built a whole slew of dorms that house thousands of students across the street on the north side of campus. There are no fences surrounding the dorms. If the area was that dangerous, there would be. A lot of people are complaining that the area is becoming too gentrified.
USC isn’t the safest place in the world, but there are plenty of campuses located in less pleasant surroundings. I feel more uncomfortable walking near the Berkeley campus than I do the USC campus.
I wonder if the people complaining about how unsafe USC is have ever been anywhere near the campus? I have the feeling most of them haven’t and have simply bought into the unsafe reputation without seeing it with their own eyes.
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USC has, deservedly or not, a reputation as a school for the “rich and famous”. Its student body is very different demographically and socioeconomically from that of UC Berkeley. Many expensive luxury apartments have been constructed in the immediate vicinity of the campus to accommodate students who can afford them. Gentrificaiton and enhanced security measures have pushed poverty and crimes further out somewhat.
However, USC is a very large school with very limited on-campus housing. There’re lots of students who must live off campus and whose family aren’t well-off enough to afford those luxury apartments. They have to live further away. The accumulative risk of becoming victims of violent crimes in their daily routines over their years in college isn’t negligible. Those families have to deal with the reality and they have every right to weigh such risk without being accused of having some racist perceptions.
Incidentally, having a museum in the vincinity has zero relevance. Nearly all visitors to the museum come in their cars. They don’t walk the streets, certainly not everyday like the students who must.
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Are you saying that because UC Berkeley has a student body with a less upscale reputation than USC’s that the neighborhood around Berkeley’s campus should be less of a concern?
UC Berkeley and USC aren’t all that different demographically and socioeconomically. Berkeley is about 10% more Asian than USC, and USC is about 10% more white than Berkeley, but otherwise they’re very similar. The average family income of Berkeley students is at the 74th percentile of family income in the US, while USC’s is at the 78th percentile. So I get the feeling you’re basing your arguments on stereotypes and reputation rather than direct, firsthand knowledge.
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I haven’t read all the responses. I’ll only say that I look up crime statistics for every city I want to visit. I research the areas to see if my hotel is in a decent part of town. And restaurants or whatever. I don’t care if it’s white crime or black crime or green crime. I don’t care. But if there is much of it I’m not visiting and certainly wouldn’t live there.
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