How safe is your city?

Can we ever know?

Apr 13, 2023

Last month, in “What makes a good city?” I made the case for safety as a top must-have for a good city. In that same post, I lamented how if only Phnom Penh were more safe, it would be a great place to live. I detailed the many precautions I took during my ten-day stay, the anxiety that gripped me each time I stepped out onto the streets, the relief I felt as I returned to my Ho Chi Minh City neighbourhood.

Me saying safety is important for a city is hardly controversial. But since publishing that post, I’ve begun to question the very foundation of my statement—my assumption that we can know how safe any city is.

Let me explain.

“Dangerous” Vietnam

December 2016 was my first-ever visit to Vietnam. I was traveling with a friend I was hopelessly in love with, and I was the planner. Wanting the trip to be flawless, I did a lot of “research” on Vietnam and the cities in our itinerary: Hanoi, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City.

My research consisted of Googling various questions and following breadcrumbs to numerous online travel forums. And it didn’t take long for an unflattering picture of Vietnam to emerge: scams, snatchings, unsafe.

Whichever website I was on, former travelers to Vietnam united in their warning: beware. Don’t carry a big bag (side strap is best). Don’t have your phone out in public. Don’t buy things on the street with no price tag. Don’t wander alone as a woman. Don’t ever let your guard down.

So I bought a new side strap bag with a zipper, told my friend to prepare accordingly, and steeled myself for an anxiety-ridden trip.

I did get scammed on our very first day and paid far too much for a bag of uncooked doughnuts (don’t ask). But apart from that and the fact that my friend got stuck in Vietnam due to a Thailand re-entry issue I had not foreseen (my ego was a little bruised, but mostly I blamed him), the trip was uneventful.

My bag didn’t get snatched. My phone didn’t get swiped. I didn’t get groped.

Six years later, two of which were spent living in Ho Chi Minh City, my tally remains at zero on all three counts.

How can we know?

To this day, I tell visitors to Vietnam to be careful. I suggest what bag to carry, which taxi companies to avoid, where not to buy doughnuts. I’ve joined the ranks of the experienced screaming “beware” at unsuspecting newcomers.

But, and this is a big but, what evidence do I have to back up my repeated warnings? None of the things I warn people of have happened to me, or to my partner, or to a friend these past two years I’ve been living in Ho Chi Minh City. All I have to go by is accounts of bag and phone snatchings, flashings, gropings I see on social media, but what’s a post a month—if that—in a city of ten million?

I keep saying Vietnam is unsafe, but is it? Merely ten paragraphs ago, I wrote of how relieved I felt when I returned to my neighbourhood after my trip to Phnom Penh. I still use a side strap bag with a zipper. I wouldn’t wave my phone about in public (though I will take it out to look at Google Maps). But on the whole I feel safe. I’ve even relaxed to the extent I now take my laptop out to work in cafés, something I resolutely refused to do even a year ago for fear of having my laptop stolen.

And I say Phnom Penh is unsafe, but is it? During my stay there, I had the perception—drilled into me through repeated warnings from the friend I was visiting—that it was snatching central. Be careful with your bag, he said. Don’t ever take your phone out in public, he said. I believed him, followed his advice, and counted myself lucky when I boarded my plane back to Ho Chi Minh City with all the belongings I came with. But was I? A friend of mine from Ho Chi Minh City also went to Phnom Penh a few weeks before me and had a fun trip free of warnings, worries, and theft. I thought myself extraordinarily lucky, but could it be my experience was just ordinary, the rule rather than the exception?

What do you think?

In the end, isn’t how safe a city is all hearsay? You could look at published crime statistics, but what about the incentive to under-report? How can we ever know how safe any city—the one you’re in now included—is?

How can we tell?

Is how safe we feel an appropriate indicator? Or should we rely on anecdotes and figures? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. Even better, share this with someone who’s a city safety expert—maybe they could enlighten all of us.