heh no, America was taught by Hollywood to be afraid of Baltimore (The Wire)
I lived in North Philadelphia throughout college and a couple years after. It isn’t a lie to say you are operating at a different level of vigilance. Your behaviors change. So no, Hollywood didn’t tell me anything about North Philly, my experience did.
It’s quite amusing how everyone is saying US cities are safe and great like Baltimore, while they’re also saying “if you mostly stay in the gentrified or well established areas”. Is that even Baltimore then? Or a bubble within Baltimore?
If it's in Baltimore, then yes, it's in Baltimore. Why wouldn't it count? If a foreigner says, "America is unsafe" and you say, "Well, my suburb is safe," can they say, "Oh, that's not America"?
My biggest problem, though, is the fact that schools are unsafe. The fact that schools need to practice shooter drills is heartbreaking.
It's just that Americans in those cities have learned to normalize this violence all around them. They're OK with abnormally large rates of homicide, burglary, theft, rape, and acompanying ill like school shootings, police killings...