We have all seen the discourse on places like reddit or whatever, where even the positive comments about rough neighborhoods is like “just keep your head up, don’t use headphones, pay attention and you will be fine”
Like how much of this is just white people playing out fantasy scenarios in their cop brains? I feel like most of “bad neighborhood” discourse just comes down to
Like sure there are places where you are more likely to get your place broken into or whatever and systemic racism tends to result in certain outcomes but I feel like most places like this are in the minority, and in fact this must be the case or gentrification wouldn’t happen
So I was robbed in SF many, many years ago. In retrospect, it was likely because I looked like an outsider and I was in an unfamiliar part of the city late at night after a comedy show. It fucking sucked, but I was prepared, with money and a BART card in my shoe (as my friends from Oakland had advised me), and a hundred dollars in the wallet so they didn’t take my ID (Classic take the money, just please don’t take my ID it’s a pain in the ass to get it from another state). All they got was my shitty phone and some cash. I didn’t even bother filing a police report, as it would have taken more time and they never would have caught the guy anyways.
That said, I went back there a year later after acculturating to the Bay area and was just fine, didn’t get harassed or anything for being in the ‘wrong neighborhood’. Just wrong place, wrong time probably. That said, getting to know some of the people who grew up around there, tech-people are seen as ‘gentrifiers’ and ‘rich’ regardless of the actual circumstances (though tbf they are probably both those things) so they are equal opportunity for both punks and neighbors to fuck with, because they are rarely seen as part of ‘the community’, which again tbf they do not actually see themselves as a part of.