Completely agree, cars are the main thing that worry me as well (in the city).

I remember meeting a young French dude that camped his way around Japan, even in the cities.

In my home city in the US, you couldn't even walk in downtown after dark.

This is going too far. I've lived and spent time in various USA cities: LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Denver, etc. I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.

I dont know about Boston or Dallas, but in LA and Chicago there are definetly areas downtown you should not walk around, especially LA.

LA and Chicago have some really bad areas, but also some safe ones.

Memphis, Houston, NO, St Louis, Baltimore etc have some crazy high crime neighborhoods, and it used to be worse. Murder rates higher than the worst places in the world. Not even places like Afghanistan come close.

ITT we're discussing the safety of downtown areas. Of the cities you mention, let's take St. Louis, since it has a remarkably high murder rate. [0] (Although if I'm reading correctly I think that link is using total murders from the whole metro area but just the population of the city proper...) An adult white man still has no problem walking around its downtown areas at night. That isn't to say that there is no crime, but crime levels downtown aren't high enough to make one live one's life differently. As is typical in USA, murders are highest in particular neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of many decades of racist policies. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate

[1] https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/focused...

> I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.

You weren't a teen in [0] 1978 NYC... specifically the south Bronx. I was (though not from there although I lived just a short drive away) and street raced a bit in that area (you were Not ever going to get pulled over for speeding).. dude that was a fkin dangerous place back then; literally-- packs of wild dogs roamed the streets, and people who wanted to rob you and maybe worse didn't bother to hide. No way in hell you could walk through there and not get messed up, even if you were armed. Seriously.

[0] https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/08/07/the-rise-and-fall-of...

You are talking about very large cities only. How about most of the U.S. with smaller cities and towns?

Small cities are the worst. Witnesses are the best protection against crime, but there is no one out after 8:30 in the evening. You could unload a dead body from a van and when it's found the following morning no one could tell where it came from.

Living in what is certainly considered a small city (or even smaller than that), not a lot of dead bodies lying around in the morning left by random crime rings...

The person they replied to said you can't walk around "downtown". In my experience that's a term only used in/for large cities. Smaller cities and towns don't really have CBDs.

Every small town in the south has a "downtown". Often it's the old area of town built up around the railroad tracks.