<p>Well, you guys pretty much prove my case… it is a matter of attitude. </p>
<p>My d. is happy, comfortable in her lifestyle, and ecstatic about her job. She’s paying her rent, paying off student loans, and saving money for grad school. If she has any worries about the safety of her neighborhood, she hasn’t voiced them. I’m not worried – she spent the previous summer traipsing on her own all over Europe, and the previous summer living by herself in Delhi … I figure that on a relative scale she’s “safer” than usual. </p>
<p>But if you erect a barrier for yourself at the outset by deciding that modest lifestyle is a hardship or labeling a downscale neighborhood as too dangerous – then of course the new grad will have a tough time finding a job that pays enough to support the upper class lifestyle they expect to lead. </p>
<p>Here’s an interesting map about NY City crime rates –>
<a href=“http://nymag.com/docs/08/01/080114crimemaps.pdf[/url]”>http://nymag.com/docs/08/01/080114crimemaps.pdf</a></p>
<p>According to the color codes, my d’s current neighborhood is safer than the one where her college put her up - and safer than the upper east side (colored a paler shade of blue) – whereas she’d run into a lot more problems if she moved to midtown south or the lower east side. Probably not, actually – the reason the crime rates are higher there is that there is more stuff to steal in more well-to-do areas, and areas in NY with a lot of tourists and hotels are also a magnet for theft. But my d is not particularly likely to be targeted for theft. The bottom line is that NY is one of the safest large cities in the U.S. and the crime rate has been declining steadily over the past decade – see: [NYC</a> Is Safest City as Crime Rises in U.S., FBI Says (Update1) - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>The crime rate in DC is much higher – [Compare</a> Crime Rates Washington, DC - New York, NY](<a href=“http://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=51150000&city2=53651000]Compare”>http://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=51150000&city2=53651000) – so I’m actually kind of glad that my d. focused her job hunt on NY.</p>