[paganel]

"Feeling safer" has almost nothing to do with the Government watching you and it's almost entirely caused by the local social norms. Case in point and to partly answer your question: I have a woman colleague who has recently moved to London from Bucharest. She told me that while living in Bucharest she had no issue at all going back home alone at 2 or 3 in the morning, while in London she avoids going out all by herself after 8 PM, because she does not feel safe.

Doesn't matter that London is one of the most camera-surveilled cities in the "Western" world while Bucharest has almost no cameras, all it matters is that there are more people in London ready to physically and verbally harass a person walking on the street all by her/himself compared to a city like Bucharest. I have no idea on how one would change those social norms, I'm just saying that adding cameras hasn't solved the issue and will probably not solve it.

[wozmirek]

Oh, I agree with you m8. I'm terrified with the surveillance stuff. I'd exchange then my "safe(r)" with "more sense of "safety"" (double quote deliberate).

Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest? Just wondering if it's the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin while she feels safer in Krakow.

[paganel]

> Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest?

Yeap, she has lived her entire life until this summer in Bucharest (she's approaching 30 now), and she hasn't grow up and live in the "posh" parts of town, so to speak.

> Just wondering if it's the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin while she feels safer in Krakow.

It's funny because said colleague (and friend) has moved out to London for a Polish guy, I guess that's where the better-paid jobs are.

[wozmirek]

I'd chalk it up to the stress of moving. I used to live in US and then moved to Germany. It's normal.