A nice neighborhood does reduce the likelyhood of it. In my old, old neighborhood we never heard gunshots or had graffiti. The most bothersome thing had to be the neighbors across the street who played loud rap, which could be remedied by closing the door. The most that was ever stolen from us were some plants from the backyard, and my mom's car window was broken with a rock. I would go out for walks at night, go a mile down the road for videos, takeout, and cigarettes, and come home without incident. We lived there about ten years or so.
The subsequent neighborhood had graffiti, gangs, blasting loud rap music at the wee hours of the morning, and hellions that liked to rumble and who broke into our house. More than once we heard gunshots and we lived there for less than a year. Every time we walked out, we had to worry about encountering these people, their racing, or the dogs of the people who lived down the street. Though there were some good people who lived around there, the rest were bad, welfare scraping, section 8, Mexican-wannabe stupid suburbanite gang garbage.
At this house, we have rumbling loud music (not as persistant as the last place but still almost painfully loud) and sometimes gunshots. Less than a mile away, the road is littered with inns, cantinas, and the ocassional hookers. Kids like to race on the neighboring road, which is always has bits of garbage on it. However, since we are in the center of the Habitat community, it's primarily of families who had to help build their houses like we did so I feel marginally safer here than at the last place. The giant cunt breeder-blob across the street always has police over, but I'd rather deal with screaming and a cop car than a bunch of shirtless punks attacking other punks in their car.
I have, however, yet to see blood spilt, a death (thank god) or a car on fire.
