East Coast Question

[Noyka]

Accordimg to our media Boston is on fire with crazy crime and crazy everything

My parents are going to the east coast and asking me about Boston in particular

Is the harbor safe for tourists or is everything as bad as its made out to be?
They were also asking about the freedom trail?

Tgey are going to nyc but their friends have been a few times and know the areas to avoid there.

I know areas of la are in fact that bad same with sf (which has cleaned up a lot recently) and oakland which sadly seems to be getting worse but have never been to the east coast and cant answer

[Methuselah Honeysuckle]

This a stormy question given the area you are asking about.

[jawn galliano]

so there is this pervasive idea amongst townie cranks that boston is a free-fire warzone, and i assume this is probably true of conservatives more generally, as these narratives are all over those social media circles. i see it all the time on the odd occasion i check in on facebook. these views come from people who do not live in the city, do not even live near the city, and do not even go to the city because they are deathly afraid of it. i personally know several people like this! my pet theory is this fearmongering mostly stems from boston having a triple-threat mayor (woman, gay, asian). as soon as they get another white hard-on bearer in, the chorus will die down, while the city carries on as usual.

ANYWAY

boston is fine, especially the touristy areas and places like seaport (nick and i had lunch here many years ago before it was called seaport), are all totally fine. the worst you'll run into is panhandlers in high foot traffic areas and the occasional crazy person riding the T. like any other major city. i'm in/around boston all the time, i have never had a single problem. none of my friends who live in the area, even in the less-nice/not-yet-gentrified neighborhoods, have experienced any kind of violent crime, robbery, mugging, etc, and many of those people have been in the area for well over a decade.

it's like any other major city - far too expensive and run by a government that largely serves as an avatar for property speculators and the financial interests backing them. so i don't recommend trying to move there, because it is crushingly expensive. and i don't recommend driving in the city either because that just fucking sucks. but there's plenty of great stuff to do in and around the city, and the chances of being victimized by roving bands of feral nonwhites and woke bluehair types are, i think, pretty slim on the whole!

are there bad and impoverished areas? of course. you're not gonna stumble into them walking the freedom trail, going to the symphony, or any other typical old person tourist activity

[Noyka]

Yeah I had a strong suspicion it was pretty safe justuse common sense. They overblow the isdues with san fran alll rhe time most of the city is fine its just a few areas that were/are the way they say like any city. Only one that is that bad is Oakland at least the cities Im familiar with.

Public transportation is a crapshoot in most major cities its baaaddd on the buses here due to crazies i am so thankful there is uber now. I used to take the same route that was from san jose downtown to gilroy and saw lots of things I cant unsee was absolutely vile felt so bad for families. This was 9 years ago Im undure if its cleaned up like other areas or not.

[Mesarthim]

this isn't just a boston thing, there's been a media / social media push against all major cities in the US that is trying to drum up a rural / urban divide. anyone that actually lives in said cities usually remarks with "what the fuck are you talking about?!" while these lies are pushed hard out in the sticks. why? you know why. and it's all fucking nonsense.

[zim]

having grown up in the sticks, the biggest city i've ever been to was just last year in portland oregon. we didn't spend a lot of time downtown but we did drive through some areas where i felt some real culture shock / uneasiness at the amount of homelessness and weird shit on the sidewalks. i might have just been going through a bad part of town but it was weird to see that stuff in person.

though places like louisville and lexington kentucky have been perfectly fine for me. plenty of panhandlers but nothing like what i've seen in portland or nashville.

[Noyka]

this isn't just a boston thing, there's been a media / social media push against all major cities in the US that is trying to drum up a rural / urban divide. anyone that actually lives in said cities usually remarks with "what the fuck are you talking about?!" while these lies are pushed hard out in the sticks. why? you know why. and it's all fucking nonsense.

A lot of cities like LA and SF are mixed bags there are super safe, super clean areas then there are spotsxthat are umm questionable.



Homelessness is a large part of LA and SF’s issues there is an entire industry that profits iff of suffering now and one side wants to pretend homeless aren’t people the ither wants to feed the broken machine. We need more resources to help with addiction and mental illness but its impossible to help people who don’t want help.

[Methuselah Honeysuckle]

having grown up in the sticks, the biggest city i've ever been to was just last year in portland oregon. we didn't spend a lot of time downtown but we did drive through some areas where i felt some real culture shock / uneasiness at the amount of homelessness and weird shit on the sidewalks. i might have just been going through a bad part of town but it was weird to see that stuff in person.

though places like louisville and lexington kentucky have been perfectly fine for me. plenty of panhandlers but nothing like what i've seen in portland or nashville.

Having grown up right outside of Baltimore and spent a considerable amount of time there as well, it doesn't even phase me when I roll into a new city and come across shit like that.

[zim]

having grown up in the sticks, the biggest city i've ever been to was just last year in portland oregon. we didn't spend a lot of time downtown but we did drive through some areas where i felt some real culture shock / uneasiness at the amount of homelessness and weird shit on the sidewalks. i might have just been going through a bad part of town but it was weird to see that stuff in person.

though places like louisville and lexington kentucky have been perfectly fine for me. plenty of panhandlers but nothing like what i've seen in portland or nashville.

Having grown up right outside of Baltimore and spent a considerable amount of time there as well, it doesn't even phase me when I roll into a new city and come across shit like that.

what made me feel like a giant pussy was seeing a bunch of that stuff followed by some cute petite sexy leopard elevator walking through all of it without a care in the world

[Noyka]

You aren’t a pussy it absolutely is shocking if you aren’t used to it

My bus dituation i literally had a homeless hard-on bearer spit on me because he had episodes and some reason my presence triggered ghim on his bad days

Same man would ask me for gatorade on good days, normal to me but one time he spit on me (i wore a hoody for safety at work and kept it on to cover my head if i had to be near him) and there was another lady who freaked out. You kinda forget whats normal snd not when you deal with city life.

I mean i work with special needs so i am used to having tvs, chairs, and tables thrown at me so if someone is just gonna spit at me (i did move/go to another stop to avoid him when possible im no dummy) it kinda doesn’t phase me to start with to this day


Folks that would throw punches id sometimes miss my bus to avoid because that shit is scary and you don’t get used to getting hit no matter how much it happens. Again my job I used to get hit semi often because behaviors. I am now in a much safer job being in homes thank god.