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Comment by Sponge5 | Hacker News Reader

For Zurich this might be true, but there are definitely examples of European cities where the safety debate happens regularly (at least in my personal circles). Brussels and Paris come to mind with their explicit no-go zones and Naples and Rome are notorious for their pickpockets. Even Honest Guide[1], which is the main guide for my city, has half of its' videos dedicated to scams.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/@HONESTGUIDE

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I've lived in Paris for over four years now, and I have no idea what these no-go zones people are talking about. I've never heard anyone in Paris talk about them. There is no neighborhood in Paris that I would flat out refuse to go to, even though there definitely a very small number of sketchy areas where I would be more on guard (the Barbès metro comes to mind). There is nothing here that is near as bad as the misery on display in the Tenderloin, or Skid Row.

I have also lived five years in San Francisco, and Paris overall feels much safer to me.

Seconded, lived in the Bay Area for years and Paris for two years so far. Not even vaguely the same ballpark.

As a Canadian, northern parts of Paris, (Seine-St.-Denis and some parts of the 18th) are really sketchy. Maybe not like some parts of American cities (fewer guns to start), but the 18th put me on guard in a way you'd never see in Canada.

No Go Zones are complete nonsense, but there's a gradient of safety.

What parts of the 18th? It is a historic place with artsy locales and historically was the place where all the raunchy sex shops were pushed.

Are you referring to the Barbes Rochechouart area?

The Stalingrad-La Chapelle area, mainly.

Yeah other parts of the 18th are really nice.

Also to note, I make it a point to avoid, say, inland Baltimore or South Detroit. Whereas I did go to North Paris, which speaks the difference.

But compared to Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto Paris is certainly still a level below in safety. I imagine the Japanese would say the same of Canada.

>The Stalingrad-La Chapelle area, mainly.

Ah ok I see. Its been a while since I've been there (2015). Its wasn't too bad back then, has it gotten worse?

Last I went it had a tent city along the rail lines, people BBQ'ing metal barrels, the whole thing.

It looked really rough.

One thing I’ve noticed is that cities in the USA seem to grow bad areas that are considered “don’t stop, don’t slow down, run a red light at night, the cops won’t care” - whereas the cities in Europe seem to have times when an area becomes an epicenter for something, but then everyone disperses.

The short video clips may seem similar, but the lived reality is vastly different.

I also lived in Paris. What Americans get from their media as "no go zones" are areas with a large population of African immigrants or poor people. Yea, they are sketchy at night and I wouldn't go there alone if I was a woman, but it's nothing like sketchy areas I've seen or heard of in Chicago or SF.

>and I wouldn't go there alone if I was a woman

When an area rules out half the demographic then there's no way to sugarcoat it.

> Yea, they are sketchy at night and I wouldn't go there alone if I was a woman,

So they are no-go zones. I'm glad you've cleared this up. I can now tell my liberal friends that a Parisian has confirmed the existence of such and it isn't just American conservatives telling lies.

There are zones like this i very city though?

Maybe start to subscribe to the bipartisan view that being a woman alone at night generally sucks.

The claim isn't that European cities are safe. The claim is that you don't see arguments over whether safe cities are safe.

Never thought about it like this. Yeah, nobody would question the safety of many European cities even if something like this were to happen. It would be considered a freak incident.

To be fair, most of the scams exposed by Honest Guide are targeted at tourists, not locals.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, as tourism is a big contributor to Prague's economy, and I don't like when people are getting scammed. But this doesn't affect much the average Tomáš' life.

Here in Sweden there’s very intensive public debate on the subject.

It was just a few years ago that bien-pensants denounced Trump for repeating what others (including the authorities [1]) had said about no-go zones in Europe. I have since observed a slow but steady change in the European zeitgeist for what is happening, with a perceptible acceleration since Trump's departure from the White House; presumably, it is less embarrassing to acknowledge that he might have been right when he is no longer in office.

[1] <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-security-police/fr...> <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-...>, for example

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