A good point about the sex differences. Many women do not feel comfortable going out alone at night, more so going out when you've got tweakers and opioid users who may see women as an easier target to rob, intimidate or even assault.
It's one thing for men to feel safer (particularly white males), but the perspective changes depending on one's sex because obviously men - heck, even trans who identify as women* - tend to have physical attributes that can make self defense easier. Perspective can also change depending on ones sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and age.
The reality is that downtown is not as safe as it should be and that impacts all of us, regardless of our personal experiences down there. It keeps people from being willing to visit it and it impacts business. There are numerous reasons why people are choosing to avoid it either as patrons or business owners. Shifting the blame to suburbanites and saying well they're just too scared to go out is silly as well. If that's true, that says more about downtown than anything else because a downtown should be able to exit without relying on them. There's simply not enough to do down there, it's expensive, it's unsafe and evidently all of this is working against it. Acknowledging and accepting that reality isn't a bad thing. It's unfortunate, sure, but at least it gives us a sense of what's wrong and how we may be able to improve it. Things like more shops, cultural venues, police/security presence, better lighting etc can all be ways to make downtown desirable, but if you've got people nodding off on opiates or breaking into cars everyday, people will opt to hang out elsewhere. And yeah that goes on in the suburbs as well but it's less immediately visible.
* Before anyone has a knee jerk reaction about this statement, I bring it up simply because there are still going to be physical differences that matter greatly when it comes to self defense. That tends not to change until after many years of transitioning. There are still physical differences, as something like height for example can make it easier to disable someone.
It's one thing for men to feel safer (particularly white males), but the perspective changes depending on one's sex because obviously men - heck, even trans who identify as women* - tend to have physical attributes that can make self defense easier. Perspective can also change depending on ones sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and age.
The reality is that downtown is not as safe as it should be and that impacts all of us, regardless of our personal experiences down there. It keeps people from being willing to visit it and it impacts business. There are numerous reasons why people are choosing to avoid it either as patrons or business owners. Shifting the blame to suburbanites and saying well they're just too scared to go out is silly as well. If that's true, that says more about downtown than anything else because a downtown should be able to exit without relying on them. There's simply not enough to do down there, it's expensive, it's unsafe and evidently all of this is working against it. Acknowledging and accepting that reality isn't a bad thing. It's unfortunate, sure, but at least it gives us a sense of what's wrong and how we may be able to improve it. Things like more shops, cultural venues, police/security presence, better lighting etc can all be ways to make downtown desirable, but if you've got people nodding off on opiates or breaking into cars everyday, people will opt to hang out elsewhere. And yeah that goes on in the suburbs as well but it's less immediately visible.
* Before anyone has a knee jerk reaction about this statement, I bring it up simply because there are still going to be physical differences that matter greatly when it comes to self defense. That tends not to change until after many years of transitioning. There are still physical differences, as something like height for example can make it easier to disable someone.