Comment 71774

By highwater (registered) | Posted December 01, 2011 at 10:11:07 in reply to Comment 71723

With the exception of the prostitutes and the shotgun pellets, either I or my neighbours have experienced all of the above in my lower city neighbourhood. But then I live in Westdale and the perpetrators are middle and upper-middle class young adults so these crimes are classified as harmless hijinks.

In spite of the frequency of these types of incidents, our property values remain high, which suggests to me that it isn't the crimes themselves that turn people off a neighbourhood, but rather the class of the people perpetrating them.

I am not suggesting you personally are a snob, mrjanitor. If you were, you wouldn't have moved into Gibson in the first place. But let's face it. As a society, it's not the type or frequency of the crimes themselves that create the impression of a 'bad' neighbourhood. Rather, we judge the severity of these incidents through the filter of our pre-existing stereotype of the neighbourhood. Thus we manage to convince ourselves that crack addicts banging on people's doors and breaking into their homes in Gibson is bad, but drunken students doing the same thing in Westdale is just a normal part of living near a university.

It's crazy the degree to which our feelings of security are simply class-based stereotyping.

Comment edited by highwater on 2011-12-01 10:20:34

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