Oooo... I like your goal of taking the subways... We really enjoyed our subway ride in Beijing, and I had the same feeling that you did, that it was safer on it than in several big cities here in the US.
:) I've joked that my travel basically consists of flying somewhere and then taking transit to interesting places to eat. Beijing's great for that, because there are so many great places to eat. Aside from the irritating fact that the subway shuts down at midnight and the night bus system is pretty skeletal, you can get to those places without ever setting foot in a taxi.
The thing about crime in Chinese cities is that your chances of getting shot or mugged are definitely lower than in the States, but your chance of being pickpocked or scammed are almost equally likely higher. But I think in terms of microclimates when I think of urban crime. It seems more useful to look on a neighborhood level than in terms of cities overall.
Also:
That walking through Denver, there's this small spot of concentrated high rises, but MOST of town is smaller, more urban, with just one or two story places, not building after building after building of multi-stories that are packed to the gills or utterly empty.
Yeah, that pattern is very North American: a single group of high rises, and then a lot of low sprawl. I think of places like Houston or Atlanta when I think of that pattern. Even LA and Toronto are basically like that. New York is an exception in that it's built more like a Chinese city, with multiple clusters of high rises, and that's mostly Manhattan.
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:) I've joked that my travel basically consists of flying somewhere and then taking transit to interesting places to eat. Beijing's great for that, because there are so many great places to eat. Aside from the irritating fact that the subway shuts down at midnight and the night bus system is pretty skeletal, you can get to those places without ever setting foot in a taxi.
The thing about crime in Chinese cities is that your chances of getting shot or mugged are definitely lower than in the States, but your chance of being pickpocked or scammed are almost equally likely higher. But I think in terms of microclimates when I think of urban crime. It seems more useful to look on a neighborhood level than in terms of cities overall.
Also:
That walking through Denver, there's this small spot of concentrated high rises, but MOST of town is smaller, more urban, with just one or two story places, not building after building after building of multi-stories that are packed to the gills or utterly empty.
Yeah, that pattern is very North American: a single group of high rises, and then a lot of low sprawl. I think of places like Houston or Atlanta when I think of that pattern. Even LA and Toronto are basically like that. New York is an exception in that it's built more like a Chinese city, with multiple clusters of high rises, and that's mostly Manhattan.