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Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Tough Towns and Us

We recently ran across an article outlining "the world's top 50 most DANGEROUS cities, ranked."

The source is a reputable looking outfit called Numbeo.  

We do feel obliged, however, to add the disclaimer often attributed to Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Half of the 50 cities on the list are located in just three countries: 12 in the U.S., 8 in Brazil, and 5 in South Africa.

We've passed through, stayed in, or visited more extensively 23 of the 50 cities, from Durban, number 3, to Santiago, number 50. 

Of the cities on the list we know, we're not surprised by their presence, other than Alice Springs, Australia, a quaint and dusty little town we encountered during our 2014 Oz Fest trip to Australia's Red Centre. We found an Australian TV news report on this very survey, and a reporter in Alice Springs confirming the town does sadly have a serious crime problem.

Wherever we travel these days, we research our destinations, and this is just one more bit of research to keep in mind. 

We'll list the cities below, with the ones we've visited highlighted in bold. The article is worth reading for some detail on each city.

 1. Caracas, Venezuela

 2. Pretoria, South Africa

 3. Durban, South Africa

 4. Johannesburg, South Africa

 5. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

 6. San Pedro Sula, Honduras

 7. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 8. Port Elizabeth, South Africa

 9. Fortaleza, Brazil

10. Salvador, Brazil

11. Memphis, USA

12. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

13. Recife, Brazil

14. Rosario, Argentina

15. Baltimore, USA

16, Guayaquil, Ecuador

17. Detroit, USA

18. Cape Town, South Africa

19. Tijuana, Mexico

20. Albuquerque, USA

21. Cali, Colombia

22. Lima, Peru

23. Porto Alegre, Brazil

24. Damascus, Syria

25. Sao Paulo, Brazil

26. Alice Springs, Australia

27. St. Louis, USA

28. Oakland, USA

29. San Juan, Puerto Rico

30. Milwaukee, USA

31. Lagos, Nigeria

32. Mexico City, Mexico

33. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

34. Windhoek, Namibia

35. New Orleans, USA

36. Bogota, Colombia

37. Chicago, USA

38. Campinas, Brazil

39. Philadelphia, USA

40. Marseille, France

41. Coventry, UK

42. Manila, Philippines

43. Atlanta, USA

44. Birmingham, UK

45. Buenos Aires, Argentina

46. Houston, USA

47. Belo Horizonte, Brazil

48. Quito, Ecuador

49. Dhaka, Bangladesh

50. Santiago, Chile