More balanced coverage shall include epidemic heroin usage, mass alcoholism and total degeneration and population decline, criminalization and corruption, ruined and sold out industry and social system at the very least.
As for Detroit, come on, we have thousands cites like that, actually, all except Moscow, Spb and Novosib.)
> As for Detroit, come on, we have thousands cites like that, actually, all except Moscow, Spb and Novosib.
Obviously you know nothing about Russia if you say that...I can list you hundreds of cities where life is much better than many US cities and city areas...I am myself from a city called Pyatigorsk (Stavropol Region) and we have a much better roads, much less garbage on the streets and a lot less crime compared to NY (especially Brooklyn and parts of Queens and NYC which to me looks like a sewer)
NYC has unprecedentedly low crime for its density and size [1]. There might be places in the US that allow you to draw parallels with Russia, but NYC is a pretty awful example.
Claims even lower rates for most of those crimes stats for NYC. From what I can find, New York has vastly lower crime rates on most things except homicides.
I was following a common transnational methodology violent crime by focusing on homicide. It turns out that definitions and reporting of other violent crimes is wildly different in different jurisdictions. For example, if you were a young black male New Yorker who had just been mugged, you would be wise to keep it to yourself considering the policy of the authorities toward people who look like you. There isn't much you can do to avoid coming to the attention of authorities if you're murdered, though.
Vehicle theft is pretty reliable, but motorcars per person and storage technique can vary.
I have done some work on looking through crime rates before. For example, Dublin and Stuttgart have the same crimes per year per thousand people, but, although Dublin is mostly nice, it has its sketchy areas, and you couldn't pay to get mugged in Stuttgart.
Comparing murders is like comparing the danger of drugs by comparing death rates (big report in the UK a couple of years ago); the long term effect on society of a heroin addict, stealing, disease, impact on family, etc., is so much different than a single healthy kid suddenly dying of a disco biscuit on a Saturday night.
With stop and frisk out the door along with other proactive policing strategies on the side lines now it will be very interesting to see if that crime rate stays low.
Isn't ethnic crime endemic to Pyatigorsk? What I've heard about your city makes me not want to go there. Is it not the dumpster bin for Chechnya and Dagestan?
"They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty".
Comparing the crime rate of a city with 130 000 inhabitants with New York is a bit unfair : ) Compare it with a town of similar size, and put some actual statistics upfront
Unfortunately this is the sad truth about Russia, everybody who thinks otherwise hasn't been to these places or Russia at all.
It's really hard to think of anything positive, except for the unbelievable ability of (some) Russians to daily cope with this reality and stay sane and positive.
I lived with a Russian family a few years ago for a month in one of the ten largest cities in Russia. As an American, I found many aspects of their society to be rather hostile, but I found at least one region to be a beautiful area of the country with interesting, warm, and dare I say _happy_ people. I think many of us can trivially find reasons that the state of Russia is less than ideal, but the way you describe it is a bit off the mark.
The country is incredibly beautiful and the Russian people incredibly resourceful considering the living conditions. Another trait of Russians is the importance of status and pride which results that we tend to keep face even though the conditions we live in aren't reflective of the lifestyle we try to portray. I was born in Russia and have lived there for a large portion of my life. While my direct family was relatively well off we've had our fair share of misery in the family. To get back on point, whenever we had visitors my parents would prepare the best meals even though there was a scarcity of food, but being hospitable to guests was more important than the possibility of not having food for the rest of the week. My point is that visiting Russia can be a distorted experience compared to actually 'living' there.
Yes all those problems exist, but compare the situation today to the mid-90s and I would argue that people as a whole are better today than back then- we see very little of that kind of coverage.
As for Detroit, come on, we have thousands cites like that, actually, all except Moscow, Spb and Novosib.)