Jello wrote:
] in downtown, and mid-town... I've never feared for
] my safety in 5 years.

!! Really? I've known people who've been mugged in the past 6 months as far north as Dunwoody. I lived downtown for 5 years. I wasn't "afraid" but there was certainly a lot of crime. Beggars are a constant annoyance. Peachtree street crawls with prostitutes and pimps after dark. Any car that had anything valuable in it overnight had a smashed window in the morning. Mine got smashed one night for no reason at all other then that it was the last car in a parking lot one evening. On a regular basis chop shops would start up in the neighborhood and all cars of a certain make and model would disappear over the course of a month or so. People were constantly on the street selling crack and brandishing firearms. Then the muggings....

After my window got smashed I started walking to work. Did it for about a month (December). Went out of town for Christmas. When I got back I picked up a paper and found out that 5 people had been mugged by a perp with an **UZI** in the area I had been walking through at about the same time of day. I sat at the Krystal on Northside in the drive through one night and watch a couple guys hop out of a van at the gas station across the street and beat the living hell out of some dude who was filling up. Still went to that gas station though. I'm not afraid of these people, and the folks who run that station are good folks. But I certainly don't think of it as "safe."

I'm not a good mark. I'm a 20 something male, rarely "well dressed," and I'm big. Only one person has ever tried to mug me, and the guy was stupid, and he failed. But if I was 5'5, female, and attractive, I don't know if I could handle it downtown.

And what is the city doing about it? Well apparently they've cracked down on Graffiti. Great. Wonderful. Now the suburban kids aren't coming down to draw murals on the walls with krylon. Who gives a fuck. Downtown seems to be a lot more populated by actual residents then it did when I lived there before, but the streets seem just as sketchy as they ever were.

The fact that we brought in someone from New Orleans is interesting. I hope the guy gets results. New Orleans used to be the murder capital of the United States. Now Washington has that honor. But I was in NO for a week and I saw someone boost a car right in front of me in broad daylight not two blocks from the french quarter. It ain't NYC or SF by a long shot.

Part of the problem is police. Part of the problem is jobs. Part of the problem is culture. Government can address two of those problems, but everything is going to take time. There is a reason that people in other countries think American cities are dangerous. Its because they are dangerous. Toronto isn't Disneyland either, but it sure as hell isn't Atlanta.

RE: Atlanta is the most dangerous city in America