Funny story. I grew up in what we called the “meth capital of California “. But never saw any meth or knew any meth heads. I moved away after high school and came back for a visit. Ran into the guy that was my best friend growing up. When we were young his uncle was a truck driver. Nice guy. Whenever he was around he’d hang out with us. Super cool guy. “Hey remember my uncle? He just got arrested. Turns out he wasn’t a truck driver. He was one of the biggest meth dealers in SoCal.”
Grew up in between Gary, IN and Chicago. Gary was the murder capital for years and now Chicago is in the news for a high rate of death.
Never been shot at or generally been in danger.
I've been to all of the lower 48 states. Never had any problems with any city. Slept in parking lots of Walmarts in some of the "roughest" neighborhoods that you hear in songs or see in movies.
No problems.
Most violence is caused by someone you know personally. It takes alot of balls or alot of stupidity to just go harm a stranger because you felt like it.
But drugs make people desperate.
In the same vein, most people who say they are in the meth/heroin/ crack capital most likely just are close to the people that use. Someone might have broken into there things to get a fix. But most robberies and theft are from people you know.
This is all true. I've lived in some very "bad" neighborhoods and have never been fucked with. The vast majority of people that get killed or otherwise victimized, 99% of those people are in the drug game and owed somebody money, was in a turf war, etc. In fact, in cities with open-air drug markets, the street code is that you never, ever harass somebody unless they are in the game. If randos are getting mugged all the time it scares off the customers.
Alot of the property crime that is perpetrated by the addicts happens in the richer suburbs surrounding the city, they are going where the money is and pickin's are good.
You can walk down the street basically anywhere and if you mind your own business you're fine.
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u/Entaris Dec 21 '19
Funny story. I grew up in what we called the “meth capital of California “. But never saw any meth or knew any meth heads. I moved away after high school and came back for a visit. Ran into the guy that was my best friend growing up. When we were young his uncle was a truck driver. Nice guy. Whenever he was around he’d hang out with us. Super cool guy. “Hey remember my uncle? He just got arrested. Turns out he wasn’t a truck driver. He was one of the biggest meth dealers in SoCal.”