Link posted not for the story, which is paywalled, but the comments. Which are exactly what you'd expect, and crystallize something I've been thinking about for some time. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ALyANXXqX/

(If you can't or don't want to follow a Facebook link, here's the original story, albeit without the comments I'm talking about: <https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/01/28/london-is-far-safer-than-violent-viral-videos-will-have-you-believe>.)

To paraphrase #UptonSinclair, it is difficult to get people to understand something when their sense of who they are depends on them not understanding it. And for a whole lot of people who don't live in the world's great cities, part of their identity is believing that they're different from and better than those who do.

It's been thirty-five years or so since I was regularly walking around #London late at night. At the time I was young and strong and healthy and it was easy to believe I was immortal. But I wasn't stupid. I knew there was real danger and did my best to avoid it. Most of the time I succeeded, sometimes I didn't.

(My fellow GIs' reaction to my habit of taking off for the weekend was amusing. "You go to London? And stay there? BY YOURSELF?" Dude, it's fine. The Blitz has been over for fifty years, and you may have heard that the folks there speak English.)

The early '90s were a violent time on both sides of the Atlantic. London's #homicide rate declined somewhat through most of the decade with a spike toward the end, jumped again in the early '00s, and since then has been on a downward trend. Other #violent #crimes have declined steadily since 1990-1992. The place is measurably *more safe* now than it was when I was passing a jug of cheap wine outside King's Cross or watching my tablemate get glassed at a pub in Southwark.

Oh yeah, there are no "no-go areas." Grow up.

Naturally, a lot of commenters refuse to believe it. "You're just a privileged snob who never leaves your nice safe neighborhood!" "Bullshit, it's full of Muslim gangs!" And of course, the single-emoji "🤣" response, always your sign of quality internet discourse.

This is not a problem limited to London. For many people all over the world, the nearest city significantly bigger than where they live is *always* a wretched hive of scum and villainy. So the biggest city in any country—London, #NewYork, #Tokyo, whatever—must be the wretchedest and scummiest and most villanous of all.

It happens on a much smaller scale too. I've run into more people than I can count who live less than an hour away from #Denver and are positive that Colorado's fair capital makes Snake Plissken's New York look like Disneyland by comparison.

There's also the opposite effect: lately I've seen a number of people from places like #Chicago and #Philadelphia making fun of the idea that anyone in #Minneapolis is really tough. "You think ICE is having a hard time there? Let 'em come here and they'll learn what real resistance is like!" I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were Muscovites sneering at #Stalingrad, back when.

Of course I am quite sure that you, my dear readers, would ever engage in any such absurd self-aggrandizing rhetoric. Right?