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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

> Not sure why this is an article. This is just normal life in many parts of rural America from Pennsylvania to Washington to Arizona.

Plenty of people have no idea that there are people living like this in America.

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This is true. Whenever I see people on TV or the internet or wherever raising money for clean water and basic sanitation or basic electricity in other parts of the world, I think about the THOUSANDS of homes I've seen in West Virginia, Tennessee, and especially Texas that lack water, toilets, and electricity.

Somehow America's dirt poor aren't as exciting or trendy as the exotic overseas dirt poor.

> Somehow America's dirt poor aren't as exciting or trendy as the exotic overseas dirt poor.

It's not that poverty is exciting. It's that abject poverty in the richest country on Earth is shocking and goes against assumptions people had as correct since ever.

> THOUSANDS of homes I've seen in West Virginia, Tennessee, and especially Texas that lack water, toilets, and electricity.

What the hell? How can this be? I'm trying to think of something constructive to say here but the situation is so outrageous that I don't know where to start.

And plenty of people in these areas have not idea what life is like outside of their rural areas. My brother recently told me a story of talking to two 20 somethings in rural Pennsylvania (not Amish). They had never traveled anywhere outside of their town and had no concept of what it was like to live anywhere else.

I currently live in rural upstate New York. When a longtime friend of mine found out that I would soon be leaving to live in a big city in the south he yelled at me, called me an idiot, and said I would get raped and murdered there.

This is a guy in his mid-30's who has only ever visited a place with more than 10,000 people once, so his entire perception of what it's like in urban America is based off of the salacious news stories he reads online.

As someone who recently moved to this city, he's not entirely wrong...in 2 years and without ever going to the "bad" parts of mine, I've been mugged in broad daylight, my roommate was assaulted randomly for no reason after his car broke down, I've had a guy threaten to kill me and follow me around when he sees me, and I get a postcard in the mail every other week or so telling me about another one of the homeless guys within a couple blocks of me's sex crimes, which almost always includes multiple offenses and at least one rape. One of my neighbors had two guys come run up at her, grab her dog, and run away with it. I've had 0 encounters with anything like this in the suburbs.

I'm sorry that you've experienced that kind of thing, but hopefully you also realize that not every urban area is like this, and maybe your neighborhood is or is becoming less "good" than you originally believed when you moved there.

What kind of psychopath-filled nightmare land do you live in?

Columbus, OH lol I suppose I'm probably just unlucky, but you can't deny that the odds of this stuff happening goes way up in an urban area.

Apparently forcible rape is _less_ common in big cities:

  http://victimsofcrime.org/docs/default-source/ncvrw2015/2015ncvrw_stats_urbanrural.pdf?sfvrsn=2

But the arrest rate of perpetrators is much greater in the city. Unless I'm reading it wrong. Per the note, the two graphs aren't directly comparable.

EDIT: Seems that Alaskans are incredibly rapey:

http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC_...

Well I've been living in Chicago for almost 20 years now and I've only been murdered a couple times. Happens to millions of people in this city every day don't you know?

Hm.

http://heyjackass.com/

Certainly not millions, but that's not something I'd be proud of.

Nowhere in New Hampshire do people say "don't worry, its just certain parts that have all the violence."

I mean, yes, murder is bad - but are the 58 people dead during September random strangers who got shot? Or is this the result of mostly gang/organized crime violence?

You're not likely to die in a car crash if you don't drive a car.

> You're not likely to die in a car crash if you don't drive a car.

Unless you're collateral damage.

Minor nit at this point but NHTSA just released their 2016 data.

37,641 die on US roads in 2016, including 5,987 pedestrians, 840 cyclists, for 18% of deaths.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLejbNAWsAMmDOO.jpg

I agree it's terrible and Chicago could do better but my point is if you really look at the number this stuff is blown way out of proportion. That's no comfort for those who are affected by it, but the odds of it happening to you even in a place like Chicago if you just take a few minor precautions are vanishingly small.

If they could do better, why aren't they?

What makes you think they aren't trying?

I don’t think they aren’t trying, I think they can’t really do much better than they are.

But this isn't unique to country bumpkins. I could rattle off dozens of people I know personally in Los Angeles county that think that LA is what life looks like elsewhere.

edit/ My point is simply that being sheltered isn't a unique experience based on where you live or the population center you're living in.

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