This is all we had in the beginning; I did all my meets on a basketball court next to a police station because I was a teenager, and that’s where I would meet people from forums to sell my other stuff online like X-men cards and MTG cards.
Walmart/Target parking lot or Caribou Coffee here. Craigslist was (is) the best. People are still good, our "social" media just tells us otherwise. You have to be street smart to be able to do this stuff... if you go to meet afraid, a maybe-mugging is a sure-thing-mugging. Most people just wanna do business and be done, some of them may take an opportunity if it's there so don't give one beyond doing business. This is true in all of life, so meet in courts by the police stations "and stuff"... be smart. I've used CL as recently as last year in SF, and in 3+ cities over 10 years. No free lunch, if it looks too good to be true it probably is, don't take free candy from strangers, tell a friend where you're going, etc...