I was worried about all those stats until I clicked on a 20 most dangerous cities in the world and Cleveland, the closest city of any size to us, was on the list. I don't feel unsafe walking in Cleveland. I would not feel safe in some areas but I don't need to go there. Should not be too difficult to acquire local knowledge about where to avoid and how to avoid.
I can tell you that the NYC writers never like Cleveland and they have never been here except through our airport.
Yeah, Cleveland certainly was picked on quite a bit in the past. Never really understood why. Course, the South gets unfair criticism too.
One really just needs to keep your wits about you when walking around a city. Is an area neat and orderly or full of trash and cigarette butts? Does one see broken windows, boarded up businesses, security signs for alarms, or barbed/razor wire on fences? How are people acting?
Do YOU feel comfortable? One is likely to pick up on things especially from peoples behavior.
We have been to Dublin a couple of times, spent almost two weeks there in total, and walked every day but one. There were a few areas were my Spidey Sense went up a notch. We were walking near the Guinness Store House going back to where we were renting a house. The area had razor wire up in places, trash on the sidewalks, burglar alarms and some boarded up places. No people out and about either. Which could be good or could be bad.
Nothing happened because there were no people. It was kinda funny because the wind had picked up, it was quiet, no people and the wind was blowing trash down the road and sidewalks and reminded me of a urban tumble weeds in a Western movie.
However, there was at least one homeless person living under a bridge we walked beside every day. Never saw the person but one would see signs if one was paying attention. Dublin has a bad homeless problem, some of which is drug related and they would be seen sleeping on monuments.
We were getting groceries in small local stores but one day, at one of the stores, there were 10-15 teenagers hanging around the store front. Spidey Sense went back up. They were not overtly misbehaving but groups can cause problems quickly. There were two security guards in the store if one was paying attention. The guards were in plain clothes and looked like bouncers. The store was not paying them because everything was peaceful all of the time.
We were staying at an AirBnb and the area was "safe" from what I could tell. A year or so after we left, I read a homeless man had been beaten to death by two teenagers in the alley behind the town house. I wondered if the two kids were hanging around the grocery store and if this was the guy who was living under the bridge....
An American visitor was attacked by three teenagers last year. The attack was not in a bad area, nor a tourist area, and if we had not walked where he was attacked, we where within a 100 feet or less. Never read WHY he was attacked but they beat the heck out of him and he was in the hospital for a month or two. There were a couple of other tourists attacked in the tourist part of the city last year. They were targeted by a groups of people which made it even more unusual.
A man attacked a bunch of school kids at a school in Dublin last year. Again, if we had not walked past the school, we had walked within a 100 feet or so, and I would not have considered the area unsafe. Strangely, we found out later that an Irish Man we had met in southern Ireland had a grand daughter who attended that school. Thankfully she was not physically injured.
Even in "safe" areas, it might not be safe. One has to pay attention.
Saw similar issues in the NL, though not as much, which was interesting.
