Anyone else "crazy" enough to live in La Boca?

[Reply Guy]

Is anyone crazy enough to live in Nueva Pompeya, Soldati or Lugano?

 

[Greg S]

I am near there, and I noticed there many Americans here right now. Never have seen this many.

Yep. I blame Instagram and TikTok influencers. They ran out of places to repeatedly recommend in Palermo Soho, Hollywood etc. Good for local business, I guess. I bet Paraguay doesn't have this problem.

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Is anyone crazy enough to live in Nueva Pompeya, Soldati or Lugano?

Still a walk in the park compared to parts of the conurbano?

 

[Reply Guy]

Yep. I blame Instagram and TikTok influencers. They ran out of places to repeatedly recommend in Palermo Soho, Hollywood etc. Good for local business, I guess. I bet Paraguay doesn't have this problem.

Always goes thru cycles. I remember a lot of expats around 2007, 08, 09 then around 2015/16 felt like there were barely any and now after covid lots again.

 

[jantango]

I went to a concert recently at La Usina del Arte in La Boca during a soccer match. All the streets were full of parked cars, so it required walking several blocks after the concert to the MetroBus stop to return. Once a match has ended, the streets are flooded with crazy fans when bus transportation is impossible. I know where to catch the bus to return home. That's the only way I travel. I never had any problem in La Boca.

It's not the neighborhood, but how you dress, talk, and act on the street. I have instructed tango tourists to not speak loudly on the street at night in English. Never use a cell phone at night on the street or you're allowing someone the opportunity to borrow it permanently. I don't own one. One has to learn to be "street savvy" in the. capital federal.

Blend in. Know where you are going. Don't flash an expensive watch or cell phone. Even taxi drivers will try their tricks to relieve you of extra cash.

 

[julia_en_ruta]

I went to a concert recently at La Usina del Arte in La Boca during a soccer match. All the streets were full of parked cars, so it required walking several blocks after the concert to the MetroBus stop to return. Once a match has ended, the streets are flooded with crazy fans when bus transportation is impossible. I know where to catch the bus to return home. That's the only way I travel. I never had any problem in La Boca.

It's not the neighborhood, but how you dress, talk, and act on the street. I have instructed tango tourists to not speak loudly on the street at night in English. Never use a cell phone at night on the street or you're allowing someone the opportunity to borrow it permanently. I don't own one. One has to learn to be "street savvy" in the. capital federal.

Blend in. Know where you are going. Don't flash an expensive watch or cell phone. Even taxi drivers will try their tricks to relieve you of extra cash.

While I think that's good advice, it does seem like there are parts of La Boca that are more or less safe for walking around -- and I'm not saying that because I've actually had an issue there, but because when I was walking around there once two different people working in shops stopped me on the street to tell me it wasn't a safe place to walk around. I didn't feel unsafe, but I'm willing to believe someone who lives or works there if they say it's not fine. When that happened it was in the middle of the day (with not a lot of people on the street); I wasn't using my phone; I was wearing plain tennis shoes, jeans and a sweater (all of which I bought here); and I was by myself so I wasn't speaking English.

 

[gatoneko]

Is anyone crazy enough to live in Nueva Pompeya, Soldati or Lugano?

I stayed in Nueva Pompeya for several months, and I did liked the neighborhood, still walking distance to Subte station, good parks, cheap local market, large hospitals, quiet neighborhood etc. I did feel more tense south of river, east toward Constitution, villas to west and east.

 

[Jimbob]

I live where a couple barrios intertwine downtown, one of them being Constitucion and it's fine. My only complaint is the cartoneros don't put the trash back when they're done digging through the dumpsters, and some buildings need their facades/front sidewalks to be better taken care of/repaired, but it's a very middle class/quiet neighborhood (minus protests which can spill over).

I've lived in Vicente Lopez, Palermo/Chacarita/Villa Crespo, San Nicolas, and here, and it's all the same: don't flash the cash, get to know your neighbors to look our for each other, don't let random people you don't know in to the building, and if you go out late at night to a kiosko leave your phone/watch/wallet inside.

I was in Texas last year and it had more "shithole" vibes than many places people get told to avoid here. I'm not going to go live in Villa 31 or Dock Sud, but most of CABA is safe most of the time; our homicide rate is 4.7/100K which is comparable to NYC and Toronto, and well behind cities like London, Philadelphia, and Rio. If you're looking for trouble you can find it, but personally I get delayed more by protests than I've been robbed or burgled, not that it doesn't happen, but you're more likely to be killed in many US cities than you are here, yet nobody talks about the threat to tourists in New Orleans which has a murder rate of 70.56/100K.

Can you show me that Londons homicide rate is higher 4.7/100K? Because I can't find that information, and it is happening quite often on here where people make sweeping statements to back up their view and it's not true.

 

[obiwanderkenobi]

Can you show me that Londons homicide rate is higher 4.7/100K? Because I can't find that information, and it is happening quite often on here where people make sweeping statements to back up their view and it's not true.

If I had to guess, probably got confused because this is the first result you get when you Google "london homicide rate":



But obviously the more common measurement is per 100k people, which which in this case would be 1.27 and not 12.7. A rate of 1.27 per 100k is nearly identical to what Wikipedia reports for London for 2022 (1.38):

List of cities by homicide rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Quilombo]

Can you show me that Londons homicide rate is higher 4.7/100K? Because I can't find that information, and it is happening quite often on here where people make sweeping statements to back up their view and it's not true.

As obiwanderkenobi pointed out, looks like they were doing funky math and didn't use the 100K standard, that being said, here are some more cities that are more dangerous than Buenos Aires per the Wikipedia list:

- Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, and Regina, Canada
- Basically every medium sized city in the US
- Mexico City
- Tallinn

Buenos Aires' homicide rate is equal to that of Vilnius, we live in a very safe city from that prospective, and I can only speak for myself, but I feel generally safe here, minus petty theft/armed robbery, which, all things considered, I'd rather be robbed than killed, but that's just me.