[widdershins]

Fine, but also how to explain the crazy claims flying around the internet that London is a warzone and a no-go area? I live here and... seriously, nothing has changed. I feel perfectly safe and always have.

Yeah sure, there's some phone theft, it's not great. This phone theft wave is just a symptom of everyone carrying £500 devices around. Big cities have always had theft, pickpocket and snatching crimes. But it's nothing astonishingly new or different. I know one person who had their phone snatched, never seen it happen myself.

So how to explain this massive wave of social media posts making out that London's unsafe? There is definitely a narrative being pushed, whether by Russian bots or not, I cannot say.

[fidotron]

Because everyone that experiences the crime stops tolerating it and leaves. This is why the area around the greenbelt so closely resembles the inner cities of 20 years before. This isn't some new phenomenon - Lee Kuan Yew famously described the newspaper purchasing arrangement at Piccadilly Circus in the 1950s, which was incomprehensible by the 1980s.

I'm old enough to remember when they had posters telling people not to wear iPod white earphones because that will get you mugged (and it would) - pure blaming the victim nonsense.

If London defenders were half as enthusiastic about cleaning up their city as they are about attacking anyone pointing out the all too obvious problems they genuinely would be in utopia.

[skippyboxedhero]

I lived in South London a few decades ago, it was the exact same situation.

Lived in central London, close to 100% of the crime was happening from one area. Police refused to go into that area because of "community relations". No crime in areas that didn't abut this location but no desire to fix. Police pretend to police.

Moved to South London, crime more prevalent but, again, certain areas are worse. Police won't go to these areas, "community relations" even worse. Cash machine near housing estate treated like lootbox. Next election comes round, candidate spends most of their time canvassing on estate. Police only go onto the estate to attend events with "community" telling them they are bigots. Crime continues.

Everyone who works this out either leaves or, if they get enough money, move to safe areas of West London. Today's Londoners do not realise everyone has left, it is just a bunch of people who moved there in the last ten years telling everyone how brilliant it is and pretending they have lived there for years before being forced to leave too. Property prices suggest that actual long-term citizens are continuing to leave in large numbers.

[fidotron]

> Everyone who works this out either leaves or, if they get enough money, move to safe areas of West London. Today's Londoners do not realise everyone has left, it is just a bunch of people who moved there in the last ten years telling everyone how brilliant it is and pretending they have lived there for years before being forced to leave too. Property prices suggest that actual long-term citizens are continuing to leave in large numbers.

Painfully accurate.

The fact even Lily Allen, of all people, made a music video about delusional Londoners telling themselves it's all fine, when it's not, speaks volumes, and they're still at it. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmYT79tPvLg )

[cameronh90]

What are we supposed to do to “clean up our city”? I live in one of the worst areas, statistically, for crime and haven’t experienced anything beyond porch piracy and someone trying my car door.

My girlfriend walks to/from the train station daily in the early morning and late night without any trouble and personal safety isn’t even something we spend any time thinking about. Obviously crime happens, but against other comparable large cities it’s only really Tokyo and a few cities in semi-authoritarian countries that seem that much safer to me. Big European cities are about the same and US cities are much worse.

Beyond reporting anything I see, which I do, I’m not sure what kind of cleaning up you expect me to do? Obviously it’s a factor in how I vote, but it’s not even a top 3 issue to be honest.

[fidotron]

> My girlfriend walks to/from the train station daily in the early morning and late night without any trouble and personal safety isn’t even something we spend any time thinking about.

You understand this is the kind of thing those of us that lived there have heard a million times?

It's exactly what people say before the thing that happens that makes them leave.

> US cities are much worse.

This also is not the case, and it's amazing how propagandized the UK has to be to think it. If you lot were aware of the true standard of life in most of the US you'd riot.

[foldr]

Ok, so we can either listen to

(i) people who live in London, or

(ii) people who left London because they were victims of a crime.

I'm genuinely sorry that you were the victim of a crime, but people in group (ii) are obviously likely to have a negative perception of London regardless of how much or how little crime London actually has.

By way of analogy, consider that there are people who experienced a traumatic air accident and who have never flown again. I don't blame them. But their experiences don't countervail the statistics showing that flying is safe.

>> US cities are much worse.

> This also is not the case, and it's amazing how propagandized the UK has to be to think it. If you lot were aware of the true standard of life in most of the US you'd riot.

I've lived in London and DC, and DC (at the time at least, 2007-2011) was uncontroversially much more dangerous than London. And of course it's only 6 months ago that the President of the USA declared a public safety emergency in DC ;) You're not wrong about the overall standard or living, but you are wrong about crime and safety.

[cameronh90]

Bad things can happen anywhere. A one-off incident wouldn’t make me leave.

I visit the US often and have been a victim of crime there more often than anywhere in Europe. That’s not to say I don’t love the US. San Diego is probably my favourite city in the world. But apart from one or two exceptions, large US cities suffer from far worse crime than anywhere in the UK. I got mugged at gunpoint by a crackhead in Philly. Quality of life can be fantastic of course. My aunt lives in a gated community in LA and drives to work so she never has to interact with the real world, so to speak, and her QoL is amazing. But large parts of the city are absolutely dystopian.

Try walking from Fashion District to Chinatown and tell me where you’d find something like that anywhere in London, let alone Z1. I don't even know if I've seen anything that bad in actual third world cities.