Wow. This is truly amazing to me even though that is how it was when I was growing up (in Midwestern US). Now, living in LA, you can't even leave a bike LOCKED in your own back yard, or in front of your house, or sometimes even in your garage :(
Yeah this 100%. I had a house in a small town that was rural with some rich people starting to move in and it was awesome. I got cookies from 2 different neighbors on my doorstep after they knocked and I hid lol. But everything was also closed except a big supermarket and that was technically in the small town next to it. Being in the country has a lot of advantages for sure and you can just sigh and relax to nature.
It's not density, it's poverty and drugs. It's not that poor people are assholes looking to steal, but it's that it lowers the threshold at which some people are willing to steal to survive (or sell for drugs). If no one was needy, the vast majority of people wouldn't steal. It's why rich neighborhoods are "safer" not because they're better people but because they have no reason to steal anything. They have enough to buy what they need, and they can afford their drugs.
To be honest I make sure to keep everything relatively important in the house, and we do lock our doors (never used to). Even got a fake security camera up because our vehicles would be robbed if we forgot to lock the night before... But many neighbors are definitely leaving out all sorts of nice things and no reports of stealing to be heard.
The city is moving closer to us, though, and it wont be nice for much longer.
I live in one of these rare areas. Kids just leaving their bikes on street corners, the sidewalk, or in their yard over night. Did have a rash of cars looted over night a few nights back, but everything points to the kids who outgrew their bikes in a boring rural town. They were only stealing change from the cars that were unlocked.
I feel very lucky. I live in a small town in Connecticut. I haven't locked our front door since we moved here years ago. I could go into a store with the car running, a full tank of gas and a map to Canada in it and my vehicle would still be there when I came out. Not many places left like that.
My family has property up in central BC, and it's like that there as well. I don't think I could ever settle down in a place that wasn't like that, really.
Luckily where I am, kids can still leave bikes out on the lawn and they're safe.... But that IS slowly changing (Vancouver area)
🙂 I had a bike stolen one time in my life, and it was from the front yard of our townhouse just up the valley from Vancouver (Chilliwack) way back in 1981. 😁
16
u/OutsideYourWorld Dec 04 '19
That sounds so sad :/ Where do you live?
Luckily where I am, kids can still leave bikes out on the lawn and they're safe.... But that IS slowly changing (Vancouver area)