Great idea... in a safe city
Wonder like a local. Look casually disinterested just like you're walking home from work.
I moved from one of the most dangerous cities in the world to one of the safest. Wandering in the latter is fun, in the former - it's Russian roulette. You have to go from A to B, as fast and carefully as possible.
I have wandered all over a bunch of Mexican cities, and still have only ever been mugged on a hiking trail in the N. Georgia (US) mountains.
No muggings, but a number of fellow citizens were very curious about whether I would like to buy stuff from them.
even in the rare occasion of some type of confrontation, most people want to resolve it without violence, and certainly not death. people have varying strategies for such confrontations--congeniality, causticity, evasiveness, etc.--and it's worth developing yours through practice, rather than living in fear. as alluded, most of the sketchy characters in the tenderloin are druggies, not thugs, and really don't care about you at all.
the biggest threat in our urban walking lives is really cars[0], and even that isn't so large that we should remain in a state of constant fear.
[0]: pollution is actually the biggest (external) threat, since it's estimated to be responsible for millions of lives lost annually worldwide, but that's regardless of urban walking, so it's beyond the scope of the argument here.
I’m American so I’d love to hear locals tell me how wrong/right my belief of luck/foolishness was.
That said, I often get poor advice from wealthier residents of "dangerous" cities, because they tend to sequester themselves from the poorer parts of town and think it absurd that any traveler would want to visit or pass through. I suspect in that case there is some kind of classism or other prejudice involved that as an outsider you are immune to because you didn't grow up in the environment that produced it.
Either way, although locals can provide you with some data points, I think ultimately when you're traveling you have to make your own risk assessment based on the situation. And this is true whether you are in a city or the countryside - I think it's an awareness that most frequent travelers develop over time.
We are talking of a city where mobs close a highway tunnel with automatic guns, stop traffic, and rob every car stuck in the tunnel. On broad daylight. Life is not worth much, neither theirs nor yours.
Maybe before heading out, memorise a few no-go zones next time?
In general I think people are actually quite good at perceiving the risk present to them. That doesn't mean 'always correct' but it does mean 'has a good idea of which places are at much greater risk of turning dangerous at 2am'.
Finally, don't forget survivor bias: people who were killed or whatever in a random dangerous area simply cannot go on to report how unsafe an area or activity is. Overall your chances of a bad outcome might still be low in terms of absolute risk but being in the wrong area could easily be hundreds of times more dangerous than anywhere else you've been.
humans consistently overestimate the dangers of the unknown and consistently underestimate the dangers of the known, often by orders of magnitude. we're also wired to be highly overconfident in our estimations of just about anything. your conjectures include prime examples of such mis-estimation, e.g., "much greater risk" and "hundreds of times more dangerous", implying all that avoidance behavior is justified. but death by firearm, for instance, is caused 90+% of the time by the self or familiars, yet we spend all of our time and resources worrying about strangers and extremely rare scenarios (armed robbery, home invasion, mass shootings, terrorism, etc.) rather than the common (suicide, accidental shooting, crimes of passion, etc.). mostly, we worry about the wrong things most of the time.
Hotel Essex, at the corner of Ellis St. and Larkin St., in The Tenderloin, San Francisco.
https://gedris.org/node/327.html
Close but no cigar:
https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/479000110337911544/
Up from the deep: The Tenderloin
https://upfromthedeep.wordpress.com/uptown-tenderloin/commen...
>Hotel Essex. 684 Ellis Street. Hotel with 128 rooms and seventy-two baths. Architects: Righetti and Headman. 1912.
>Though unique amid the surrounding architecture, the Art Nouveau-inspired facade of the Essex was nevertheless crafted to blend in by its designer, James Francis Dunn. The hotel’s neon blade sign is especially fine. Now owned by the Community Housing Partnership, the Essex began undergoing renovation late in 2006.
>Night-Sign---Essex
>By the end of April 2008, its renovation was complete. The paint job is unfortunately garish and unbecoming, but the new marquee and restored blade sign are spectacular, although it seems the latter may still have some electrical problems. Even so, the corner of Ellis and Larkin is utterly transformed after dark by the torrid glow of neon.
Nice neighborhoods are nice to walk around.
Sure some cities are complete cesspools that shouldn't be walked around at all, but in general people aren't going to walk around those cities, so mentioning that doesn't add much to the conversation.
But in a truly dangerous city, size won't help you - even a kid can kill you with a gun or a knife.
A 60kg skinny man can worry less tham a 60kg gym going woman.
that seems like a weird take. Most of the time I'd think people wandering unfamiliar streets will be accosted by assholes looking for money than looking for someone to sexually harass. Even catcallers will have various motivations which might not involve intent to sexually harass (even though that's usually the effect).
Men have a lower risk of being sexually assaulted while a mugger or a scammer will happily target individuals of either sex if they think they can get away with it. Men do tend to the preferred target for someone looking to start a fight however which can make a difference depending on the area and how territorial the local thugs are.
Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle. In either case if someone assaulted me I would be targeted because I'm being perceived as weak and vulnerable, and in only one of those scenarios would I be in a position to quickly give an assailant cause to reassess and back off.
Staying aware of your surroundings and taking sensible precautions when wandering (anywhere) is good advice for anybody.
Generally, even in this situation, men are more able to defend themselves. Women have 60-70% of the upper body strength of a man of the same weight.(see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/brzycki/fi...)
Some places are just genuinely scary. Some aren't. Let the stats be your guide.
TripAvisor is the next closest thing, but it's not exactly the same.
I will say that I have felt more uncomfortable walking in certain parts of LA, NYC, Oakland, Chicago, and yes SF (I lived SOMA in early '90s, before the boom), than I have in Mexican cities. (Not minimizing the carnage, if you live outside of the nice parts, I'm sure it's hell.)
Would you please read up on the kinds and degrees of relationships between perpetrator and victim in the statistics? You will find that the vast majority of cases involve two people who already have a prior relationship, and typically a close relationship either in a social or business sense.
Random murders happen so rarely, you can be confident in the assumption that your family is safe unless you get involved with some sketchy people. But then, it's your responsibility to avoid those people, not the city's job to do that work for you.
It could mean there are dangers in every city. Thus, don't look for a safe one.