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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think villages are safer than towns than cities

122 replies

skybluee · 19/12/2018 13:09

What are your thoughts?

Villages > towns > cities?

Or is it just perception?

Also interested in whether dark is safer than light, or whether it's simply linked to the time of day (6pm vs 9am).

OP posts:
LaurieFairyCake · 19/12/2018 13:48

I feel safer in London than anywhere else I've lived. I do accept that's likely because I'm not hanging about at 3 in the morning outside a club.

Daily living feels very safe to me.

hellsbellsmelons · 19/12/2018 13:50

I live in a lovely village.
Unfortunately crime has massively increased over the last year or so.
Machete attack in local express shop.
Allotment sheds being broken into
Car tyres being slashed
Things thrown at house windows
Lots of horrible things (dog poo etc...) being thrown at cars and van as they are driving around.
Loads of vans being broken into.
Bullying.
Shooting of cats and dogs with pellet guns.
Even a DV death!

Yep, it's great around here!

Original poster
skybluee · 19/12/2018 13:51

Yes, maybe you're right. I'm sorry if I'm overreacting. What prompted this is basically I moved ages ago and I moved somewhere for the first time I felt safe. I thought it was amazing here. But for some reason it's recently changed and basically about an hour ago there was a man on a bike circling around the car park and he had a balaclava and sunglasses on. It may have been nothing because people wear those kind of things in the winter. Just it isn't that cold and it looked really weird and it made me feel weird. So then I started thinking about whether it is perception, or reality, that makes you feel unsafe. And I guess the answer is it is a mixture of both maybe.

OP posts:
tenbob · 19/12/2018 13:51

A village where an ambulance takes half an hour to get to you in an emergency probably puts your life at greater risk than living in a city where they are a few violent crimes every month

So it depends what your idea of 'safe' is...

SilverySurfer · 19/12/2018 13:54

I lived in London as a child and most of my adult life and experienced the following?

murder - no
rape - no
assault of any kind - no
being robbed - I did have a purse stolen which was filled with dried peas for my allotment
being followed - no
having something done to your property - no
anything that is unsafe. - no

I now live in a town - still no to all of the above.

I know someone who lives in a village who can say yes to two of the above so think what you want but it doesn't make it true.

longwayoff · 19/12/2018 13:56

Oh jacques, I love a local paper. "Cherry trees in Bloom" is a shocking front page I recall from Lancaster.

hellsbellsmelons · 19/12/2018 13:56

Oh yeah - and theft of a car at gunpoint!

Original poster
skybluee · 19/12/2018 13:56

Silver so do you mean that it is more your perception of it that causes the feelings of unsafety than the reality... ie its how you think about it...

or do you mean you think the idea that villages are safer is false?

I am possibly thinking of moving away from the city, something I had never considered before to be honest.

OP posts:
JacquesHammer · 19/12/2018 13:57

"Cherry trees in Bloom" is a shocking front page I recall from Lancaster

Hold the front page indeed Grin

longwayoff · 19/12/2018 14:02

I lived in London for 50 years, never had so much as a disagreement with a neighbour. Always felt safe. Now live in small provincial city. Feel safe here also.

Severide08 · 19/12/2018 14:03

I live in a small rural village .We do get occasional break in's but very infrequently .If i go into a city i feel out of my depth, so many people and so busy .I love it ,grew up here and dont intend to move .

LittleLionMansMummy · 19/12/2018 14:03

My parents have lived in a village for around 6 years. In that time, there's been a couple of burglaries and some sheep rustling (I'm not kidding you).

I live on the outskirts of a city - nice, generally quiet, suburban area, mostly families and young couples, relatively low crime rate. There's been a fair few spates of car crime in the past few years, a couple of spates of burglaries and a few violent crimes - including stranger on stranger violence (stabbing). Despite this, I feel safe walking around after dark in most parts of the area. Some of the really quiet, dark areas I wouldn't walk in though.

I've always lived in the city and in the city centre while I was growing up. You sort of just risk assess and do what you can to reduce it without really thinking. I think if you feel in control somehow then you feel safer. The only personal crime I've been subjected to was that my car got broken into on my driveway, twice, where I currently live - ironically I was never a victim of crime while living in the city centre.

QuestionableMouse · 19/12/2018 14:04

It depends on the village.

Mine has people out lamping constantly, and a couple of weeks ago there was an attempted burglary. It's pitch black, pretty isolated and we rarely see any police.

This time last year ~10 cars were broken into in one night, including my mam's. They took her bag and purse (left in the car accidentally because she'd been unwell) and presents for the grandkids.

Police were called but weren't interested!

Original poster
skybluee · 19/12/2018 14:06

I think I want to live on the Isle of Scilly :o

OP posts:
formerbabe · 19/12/2018 14:08

Lived in London all my life...am late thirties.

Never been a victim of crime...we were burgled once when I was a teenager but that's it.

AdamNichol · 19/12/2018 14:09

Perception of crime has been shown to be linked more to coverage than to actual instance.

However - lived in Surrey Downs, worked in Croydon.

Croydon front page - Teens stabbed in toilet
Home front page - Temporary traffic lights in high street branded a nuisance

When I lived in a (slightly rough) town, there were repeated instances of teens driving at high speed, lobbing bricks at other cars from their car.

But, I reckon if you counted the population of a village, then asked the same number of city dwellers their experiences; probs much the same.

DonDrapersOldFashioned · 19/12/2018 14:13

Crime is rife in the countryside but it tends not to be the same sort of crime you typically find in towns and cities. In fact, a recent report suggests that rural crime is on the up, increasing at the fastest rate since 2010. Tends to be things linked to farming - theft of expensive equipment & livestock.

MrsFezziwig · 19/12/2018 14:15

The other slightly illogical part of the argument is that the newspaper article quoted the percentage of people who felt unsafe, not where the most crimes were committed (obviously for per capita reasons that would be cities rather than villages). The measurement of peoples’ feelings is not the same as the crime rate.

I live in an average sized town but think I would feel more unsafe in an isolated house in the country.

Rosehip10 · 19/12/2018 14:19

There is often bad anti-social behaviour from teenagers in villages due to boredom.

Many villages also have a bad drugs problem, maybe more hidden than a city, but don't kid yourself its not there.

ConferencePear · 19/12/2018 14:19

You can check the crimes in your local area by putting your post code into this site ............

www.police.uk

alltoomuchrightnow · 19/12/2018 14:25

I lived in London. No issues in all that time, even when there were parking wars my car never got vandalised.
I now live VERY rurally.. outside of a village. It's rife around here with nightly break ins of houses and work vans. Villagers are considering taking things into their own hands as the police do nothing (live near a notorious site that made the news due to slavery...) Animal cruelty also a big issue..abuse to horses, then there's the hunting brigade...

knittedjest · 19/12/2018 14:27

When I lived in London I always felt unsafe but not because of crime as such, crime happens every where, but because I've experienced war I'm bit more paranoid than most and think of disasters or viral outbreaks or zombie type situations and London always felt very claustrophobic. I felt like a sitting duck living there because it would be so hard to get out in an emergency. Now I live in a small market town just outside Oxford and feel much more safer even if there still is the occasional vandalism of the atm.

MrsStrowman · 19/12/2018 14:30

PIL live in a tiny little village (in a very naice area) and there have been two murders there in the last five or six years, there will be more than that in a city but if you look at it as percentage of population you're more likely to get murdered where they are. DH calls it midsummer 😁

I think there's a lot of unreported crime in villages too, DV, drink driving etc.

juneau · 19/12/2018 14:31

The crimes are different. If you live in a city I reckon you're more likely to be mugged or physically attacked. In the country you're less likely to be involved in any crime, but burglary, particularly of isolated properties, is always an issue. I was a victim of crime several times when I lived in London, but never in the country area where I grew up.

alltoomuchrightnow · 19/12/2018 14:31

also had purse stolen since moved out here, although that was at work