[kortilla]

Affected and “victim of” are different. Higher population densities mean more people are affected by a murder (more witnesses, more people disrupted by the crime scene, more people that go ‘I go to that train stop every day, that could have been me’).

Rational or not, proximity of crime freaks some people out much more than probability of being the victim.

[watwut]

Isnt it the case that the people most scared of cities are the ones who dont live there?

[kortilla]

Yes, there is a correlation with people who don’t like cities for any reason (not just crime) and living away from them.

[reducesuffering]

Yes there is a good case to be made for density causing crime to be more in your periphery while not targeting you. But I assume we’re talking about actual physical safety, not the perception of safety.