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UPSG -> RE: "America's Emptiest Cities" (2/20/2009 10:05:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TheUtopian
As someone that's traveled extensively throughout all the non-tourist areas of nearly every state in Mexico, I have no reason to post here and bs you about Mexico City. Trust me....its a real shithole.
Evey time I think of the place, this vision of bodies sprawled all over on the side of road, in alleys, in store-fronts, etc, comes to mind. I don't know if they were drunk, dead or just taking a siesta - but I've never seen so many people laying '' flat '' out like that in ANY city I ever visited. Seriously....their bodies wern't half-cocked against a wall like you'd see in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, they were completely sprawled out like they were dead.
C'mon.....you can't not have visted Mexico City and then watch ''youtube'' video that glorifies it, and then come back here and proclaim its great because of the video.
Really....You ever think seriously about moving down to Mexico, hit me up on the other side. You've got Veracruz and Chiapas--stay out of Tuxtla Gutierrez---, which are far less expensive, way more beautiful, and a whole lot safer.
And by the way.....San Cristobal de las Casas is the most beautiful city in Mexico, not Mexico city.
- R
TU, you are reading more into my comments than what was there. It should be rather evident why I chose Mexico City to contrast Detroit and not say London or Berlin. I have stated Mexico City is one of the great cities of the world not because of a video (which by the way was about bullet proof clothing) but because it is regarded internationally as one of the "Great Cities of the World."
The fact that is so profitable to kidnap people in Mexico City even suggests there is a lot of wealth in that city. Professional kidnappers could never make as profitable a livelihood in Milwaukee as they do in Mexico City, and that is not simply because of police and judicial corruption but because there are more wealthy people living in Mexico City than in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The video showed Mexicans walking around by the way, as they do in many American cities (well Detroit maybe more abandoned than Mexico City). I'm well aware of Americans view of Latin America as a whole. They believe the people dark, exotic, and their violence exotic and unknown. But violence (including child abduction - which though not regarded as kidnapping hear in the U.S. is in fact a form of it) is known here in the U.S.
In fact U.S. military medical doctors used to lead the civilian sector in advances in trauma care. This was always true coming out of Vietnam but in the late 1980's that began to reverse. Now, the U.S. civilian sectors lead and their techniques in trauma care have been used in Iraq to save many U.S. service men and women lives. It is estimated that if the U.S. still had the level of trauma care it did in the 1970's there would be between 30,000 to 50,000 more homicides annually in the U.S. (which would consequently then place the U.S. national homicide rate about equal or more to the Brazilian national homicide rate) Now we have walking scarred or young men permanently confined to wheelchairs due to surviving gun violence (one of them is a friend of mine now incarcerated for homicide and attempted homicide who has survived two separate shootings himself - one of which left a long, thick scar running below his adams apple down to his lower abdomen, from being gunned down at point black rage by 5or 7 shots from a 9mm on a basketball court, he was in his late 20's at that time). This is why even though in the years Milwaukee hospital would treat 600 to 800 or so people for being shot in disputes, usually only 100 or so actually died - became homicides. In contrast, if you are gunned down in Rio de Janeiro, especially if you are poor, the odds are (mathematically) you will die - become a homicide.
All of this can be researched up and you don't have to take my word for it.
Given that violence is not democraticlly spread out in the U.S. it is very likely there are sections of Detroit as dangerous as some (not all) parts of various Latin American cities. But then even in Latin American cities violence is not often exactly evenly spread out either. Admittedly, kidnapping for ransom has been a very rare occurance in the U.S. but is quite frequent in many Latin American cities. But then, I'm not exactly sure if any other nation on earth has as many professional sports stars gunned down as the United States does. One NFL player has recently been confinded to a wheelchair for the rest of his life after being gunned down sitting in a car. Then we hear about the NFL player that was found knocked out and robbed on a street in Las Vegas. As for Mike Tyson, the rap artists 50 Cents (himself a survive of gun violence as Tupac was until he was gunned down for the second time) has been mentioned in connection or association with the people that murdered his bodyguard.
This information is a bit dated because a number of these Latin American cities have already greatly reduced their homicide rates. Santiago Chile - though the U.S. State Department issues a crime warning for U.S. travelers traveling there - is probably less dangerous than many European cities. It might be noted with irony that U.S. State Department does not issue warning for U.S. travelers traveling to Detroit (nor Florida where many U.S. and European tourists are routinely robbed, rapped, and murdered).
The only gun violence exotic to me in Mexico are the fantastic - and from my angle, novel - gun battles these drug cartles have with the cops in movie like fashion.
Here is some rate on homicides in Latin American cities and countries.
http://www.iadb.org/sds/doc/SOCTechnicalNote2E.pdf http://www.cerac.org.co/pdf/Comparative_Trends_in_Violent_Crime.pdf
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