Is BsAs that dangerous??

[fifs2]

I have lived in some awfully dangerous places (Johannesburg, Mexico City, to name two)

Erternalnewbie all is revealed..your context of experience is I would say vastly different from most expats and hence the polar opinions on why Bsas seems unsafe to them but fine to you. In spite of my sensation of a pretty disgusting growth in horribly violent crime here (shooting a pregnant woman ????) I love BsAs for the great walking city it is. My best friend here is from Mexico city and her family have personal bodyguards who accompany them to dinner in restaurants and they drive everywhere in armour plated cars so I can ony agree that relative to many cities in Brazil BsAs is pretty safe for walking..but is that enough to really declare it safe for an expat coming from Poland, Tokyo, Ohio or other who hasnt your own experiences..? Just a thought...

 

[BKK to BA]

I was just at a bar. I bought a liter bottle of Stella. I poured about 350ml in my glass. I was talking with a friend and stuff. I was looking to my right. I showed some picture to my friend on my iPod Touch. I turned back towards the bar and my liter bottle was gone. The bartenders didn't take it.

If people are stealing your beer from right under your nose, then you're damn straight this city is dangerous!!

Sorry mate but I was thirsty

Better your beer than the Ipod tho

 

[Sockhopper]

Lucas,
It’s funny you say that I must work for the police. Have questioning and examining vague safety advice and its proscriptions before lapping them up as truth become so odd that you’d ask that?
I don’t think you need to advise your 40-year-old confident-looking Polish acquaintance how to dress in BA. He looks worldly enough to keep care of herself anywhere. Young Polish girls rarely can afford ‘designer’ clothes, would blush their cheeks so heavily, or want to be seen wearing a tweed suit jacket or court pumps. But should any such youngsters happen to ask for your advice on trying BA, tell them to stay in school.

 

[Lucas]

Lucas,
It’s funny you say that I must work for the police. Have questioning and examining vague safety advice and its proscriptions before lapping them up as truth become so odd that you’d ask that?

Sockhopper, it was a 'broma' nothing else nothing more than just that, be happy

Lucas,

I don't think you need to advise your 40-year-old confident-looking Polish acquaintance how to dress in BA. He looks worldly enough to keep care of herself anywhere. Young Polish girls rarely can afford ‘designer clothes, would blush their cheeks so heavily, or want to be seen wearing a tweed suit jacket or court pumps. But should any such youngsters happen to ask for your advice on trying BA, tell them to stay in school.

'She looks', Sockhopper don't get confused by steveinbsas remarks, she is a 'she' not a 'he'.
Now sure you have positioned yourself in patronizing all the young polish girls on if they can or can not afford designers clothes, sure they can and it's ok to dress like that but not in areas not suitable to go in that trendy fashion, I mean if you don't want to get into trouble be more casual and be safe.
Anyway she will be okay as any local girl living here by just applying common sense and basic precautions as in any big city around the world.

 

[bookgirl531]

where IS it safe to walk around isolated city streets alone between the hours of 3-6 am?

i think in any major city, there will always be crime. this is the downside of city living. people need to keep their wits about them and be aware of their surroundings.

last year in my neighborhood in brooklyn, someone was stabbed in broad daylight about a block from my house, someone was raped in the vestibule of her building while she was fumbling with her keys late at night, and my roommate was held at gunpoint during a robbery at her job. unfortunately that's city life. it's the risk you take.

 

[arty]

where IS it safe to walk around isolated city streets alone between the hours of 3-6 am?

San Diego California

 

[Eternalnewbie]

San Diego California

Um, well ... it depends. I used to live there (20 years ago) and I agree with the person who wrote that there is no city of consequence where much of it is not safe to be in during the wee dark hours. Including San Diego. SD's drunk row bowery is a two minute walks outside of one of its most luxurious inner city shopping malls - Horton Plaza. Drift a little south and you're in National City, or El Cajon -- gang havens. Go another mile and you're in San Isidro, where when I lived there a fella walked into a McDonald's with an automatic rifle and killed almost everyone in the place. And he didn't even want the money. A diplomat's son was murdered walking his girlfriend home from a movie at just after midnight, one block off and parallel with Orange Ave., the main drag in ritzy Coronado, across the bay. These sorts of lists are virtually endless. But is San Diego generally safer than Buenos Aires? Well, of course. If your life revolves around safety concerns, move to San Diego ... or for that matter, why not Lawrence, Kansas?

Reading here, it seems that some people attract crime to them like flies on sh*t, while others seem to walk around surrounded by an anti-crime force field.

It's not the city. Some are a bit worse (way more violent, for example) and some are better -- Berlin is far and away the safest city of consequence I have ever seen -- but all in all, people live their lives in all these places best they can.

This notion that people would make a life changing decision to move one place or another based on crime reports on blogs mystifies me. If you want to live in Buenos Aires, come on down, and if mixed message crime reports would stop you, then you didn't want to be here in the first place.

Go where you want to go, live where you want to live, do what you want to do -- life is maddeningly short.

 

[Sleuth]

I figured I would start with the list of things that have happened to me or that I know about first hand over the course of about a year and a half here:

- Rolex stolen off a friend's wrist and his ear slashed when he resisted (citygirl's friend too)
- Texas woman who had Rolex ripped off her wrist on Santa Fe in the middle of the day
- Witnessed two guys on a motorcycle pull up to a car at a red light on Libertador around 2pm. Guy on back gets off, smashes his head through back window of a woman's car, grabs her purse, hops back on motorcycle and takes off.
- Witnessed a guy smash through a car window mid-day in Palermo Soho, grab something and take off running.
- Numerous incidents of pick pocketing (4-5). Possible attempt at a pick pocketing on me by a trannie one night, but I pretty much ran out of there.
- Argentine friend (girl) who was kidnapped and held for ransom. She was driving a BMW X3 at the time and no longer drives that.
- Expat driving at 10am was car jacked by a guy with a gun in front of a bus stop full of people. Gave the guy his car, but had stalled it out in his panic and it wouldn't run. Robber had to take off on foot.
- people given fake $100 peso bills by taxi drivers

In 14 years in NYC, I have:
- had a car broken into and radio stolen
- had a roommate's friend bring some people back to our apartment and had things stolen
- had one moment of fear on a subway when some guy smashed into me

BA tops the list for most crimes in shortest span of time.

So, am I worried? No. I continue to live my life, but compared to my years in NYC I have made lifestyle changes in BA. I wore an expensive watch in NYC and never thought twice about it, even when I was stumbling home drunk at 4am in the morning. That watch was left in the States. When I take out my iPhone or a laptop in a cafe, I look around first and keep an eye on my surroundings - something I would not have thought twice about in NYC. I watch people on the streets here a bit more closely, especially at night. I carry less cash in my wallet than I did in NYC. I also carry only the 1-2 credit cards I may use.

Like many posters have said, some things are a matter of chance, and I suppose I have been lucky. Still, I take steps to minimize my risk. That's all you can do.

 

[Sockhopper]

Lucas,
To say this lady looks too trendy to be safe in BA shows me that you lack any credential to advise any woman on what she should/n’t wear beyond the standard risks – gems, pricey watches and bags that aren’t closed, hugging your front or side, and gripped by your hand. In this pic, your friend is dressed in ‘modern classics’, not ‘trendy’. She may well own more contemporary pieces but she’s not wearing any here. I’d say she’s wearing an ‘office to dinner’ outfit and actually, in those stilettos, she’s unwittingly wearing footwear that Argentine women wear to the office.

She’d be just as safe wearing ‘trendy’ in BA or an anorak and pullover. Everyone is at some risk walking La Boca. Just tell her to taxi there and back and say this is because she doesn’t know the city well enough yet to internally understand how to do La Boca relatively safely on foot.

I presume that you are North American since you mistake being well-dressed with wealth. This seems to be a general trait although not among those who know/love design. I know of no other continent’s people who have such difficulty grasping the difference between looking good and being rich - neither men nor women. In most countries, appearing in public dressed well signals your respect for the country you’re in, for its people who you pass. BA is world-class with or without a high crime rate. Why would anyone pull out their grubbier duds for BA? That's an insult to the host country. Certainly, portenas/os don’t mistake me as wealthy. We talk fashion, even cabbies do. They understand just liking fashion because they do too. When my husband had someone reach into his (rarely used small) backpack in San Telmo, that thief was targeting a man in khakis and a polo shirt, not the lady who was holding his hand and wearing a coordinated, colourful mix of new J.Crew/ Whistles/Fenwick/Saks ‘contemporary’ and carrying a Peter Kent bag on her shoulder. Safety precautions that work concern what you do in public after you get dressed. Use a re-saleable vaunted item in public and you could lose it. When it comes to clothes, that would have to be very expensive vintage of auction quality unless BA’s thieves are now after elite brand running shoes and prized hip-hop jackets. I’ve only heard of that in North America and the less salubrious suburbs of London.

By saying that most young Poles can’t afford designer clothes costing thousands apiece, I am recognizing their reality, not patronizing them. Many of them with academic degrees migrated to London over the last decade looking for a better life. They work as waiters in most boroughs to earn more than they could at home with their qualifications. With the cost of rent being so high, they share rooms in Paddington which has become known as “Little Poland”. They can’t afford to buy high-street clothes let alone top names. They don’t have rich parents who can school them in a foreign country. Since Britain’s recession, many are returning home to seek a better life there. Most of our young in Western countries are facing joblessness and western-level poverty and so live at home longer and longer, haven’t you heard?

 

[perry]

Safety is relative but I do believe that there is more chance of being killed by a serial killer in the USA and Australia than Argentina.

While I agree that crime ( robberies) are more common here than the USA or Australia I also never hear of serial killers in Argentina .

In Australia in a very short time frame I heard of the Strathfield Massacre, The Surry Hills Massacre, Port Arthur Tasmania Massacre where over 35 people were brutally killed and many others . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)

These types of crimes are extremely rare in Argentina and I have heard of one only I believe it was in a school in Carmen de Patagones.