<p>Regional differences.
We Floridians say the same things about people who come down during the winter and congest our roads, drive slow as molasses (which I can’t understand, because I know they don’t drive like that in Boston!), and complain about our grocery store inventory. I heard some women in the grocery store read the riot act to the produce manager the other day because the asparagus was “too thin”; and that where they live the asparagus is thicker and it should be thicker here too. (That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard- I actually LIKE the thin asparagus, doesn’t everyone?).</p>
<p>doubleplay: I thought so. The thicker ones get tougher. Some people just need to think what they have is better.</p>
<p>dke: Yeah, I kind of think that husband and wife were playing a game of the wife being so incompetent that she couldn’t be in NYC herself. Either she likes being protected by the big man or he’s controlling and she has to placate him. I’m sure if he wasn’t around, she could cope with being in the city.</p>
<p>NYC? Street smarts? It’s one of the safest cities in the country. I have been alone in NYC since I was fifteen. D lives in NYC, and she grew up on a quiet suburban/rural street. It took her two days t6 learn the subway system. However, when she visits boyfriend and cousin in Atlanta everyone thinks she’s rude for her no nonsense attitude. So do the other women at Barnard from Georgia, Texas, etc. Urbanism is in your blood or it isn’t. She’s scared on country roads when she doesn’t know where she is.</p>
<p>DS, on the other hand, is one of those oblivious people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told him that he has to look both ways when he cr6sses the street. Even so, he led a group of kids around Rome when he was fourteen. He felt perfectly comfortable. I wasn’t, but I let him go. I sure hope his guardian angel never deserts him. There’s just so much a mom can do.</p>
<p>Mythmom, I think that streetsmarts come with experience, and living in a place like NYC where people are all walking around and riding the subway together is kind of unique. Having been brought up in the NY 'burbs, I wasn’t savvy at ALL and was promptly mugged on the upper east side because I lacked street smarts bigtime. Needless to say, I was a quick learner after that! Where we are now everyone drives around in cars and except for abductions at Wal Mart parking lot type crimes they don’t really have what I call street smarts. Am I making any sense here? ie pickpockets…there are fewer because the opportunity doesn’t present itself as often. I’d have to give my kids a quick city tutorial on what NOT to do in the city if they ever planned on living in one.</p>
<p>Yeah, you make sense. And I’m sure you’re right, and I don’t want to say (shush!) that I’ve never had a problem because I promptly will.</p>
<p>I just tell D to take a cab after 10 pm if she’s alone and that I’ll pay for it to not bust her budget.</p>
<p>In upstate mountainous New York, where we used to live, I met a young couple learning reverse street-smarts. They had just bought a sweet little second-home cabin, which for them was a first-and-only home. It was their dream to get away from urban dangers to raise their child. The first night, they threw open their patio door, walked onto their deck to find a big grizzly bear 100 yards away. They tip-toed backwards into the house.</p>
<p>zoosermom,
we live in a rural touristy town. I have that same thing with the flip flop, or people talking on a cel phone, or stopping to lick their ice cream cone every day to and from work. I call driving to work “bowling for tourists”.</p>
<p>Going back to why college applicants (and their parents) may shy away from colleges located in inner cities, rough sections of town, or in dangerous boroughs:</p>
<p>perhaps they simply don’t want to feel as if they must be on guard at all times </p>
<p>they don’t want to live in a pseudo-gated community.</p>
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<p>I’ll suppress my natural tendency to sarcasm and just say that the only grizzly bears within 2,000 miles of upstate New York are in zoos.</p>
<p>Easterners. Sheesh.</p>
<p>this idea of having to live on guard all the time, well , not really the way I feel or my D feels</p>
<p>as well, we feel that any energy or brain power spent “being on guard” is more than balanced by all the plusses</p>
<p>museums
plays
musicals
restaurants
shopping
parks
concerts
street fairs
markets
galleries
and more</p>
<p>so, should parents only feel comfortable in the suburbs?</p>
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<p>Well, 2000 miles is an exaggeration. There are some closer than that in the Rockies and in Canada. But let’s be kind and say that easterners may not be aware of the differences between a black bear and a grizzly bear.</p>
<p>cgm - Take it easy! maybe some people just don’t like the idea of big-city living. I’m sure that there are things that other people enjoy doing that can’t be had in the city - a swim at the beach, a walk in the woods, dinner in your backyard, etc and so forth. (I think that music is occasionally played beyond city limits, too!)
I’m sure your daughter is very capable and confident in her life in the city, so why can’t you just leave it at that?</p>
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<p>No, parents should feel comfortable where they feel comfortable. Different strokes, different needs. I know people who hate the suburbs - can’t stand the quiet, needing to get in the car all the time, etc. Couldn’t wait until the kids graduated public school so they could move back into the city (no, they were not “comfortable enough” to deal with inner city public schools and didn’t want privates). </p>
<p>I also know people who are quite happy, quite interesting and quite intelligent who don’t feel the need for the constant, fast-paced city life. They enjoy darkness and looking at the stars - something you don’t get/can’t do in New York. They don’t feel the need to go to the theater weekly (even if they could afford it - most folks I know who live in NY can’t), but as an occasional night out. They don’t feel the need to roam around museums.</p>
<p>If you and your daughters do, more power to you. But why degrade other people’s choices and priorities?</p>
<p>Agreed. CGM- I have lived in the city (Chicago) and didn’t like it. Yes, there were “things to do”, but the things I REALLY like to do weren’t that easy to do downtown. I want to run down a quiet street that has trees and lawns. I want to ride my bike in the country. I want to walk my dog and wave to my neighbors and chat with people in their driveways. I want to leave my windows open at night so I can get fresh air.</p>
<p>My kids both chose city schools, and both took/take advantage of the offerings of the city. One of these schools has a nice, safe campus with lots of trees, the other tries to have a nice, safe campus with some trees and green space. One I consider safe, the other I do not. The one I consider not so safe would not have appealed to me, but I respect the choices of others, including my son. </p>
<p>Why so defensive, CGM?</p>
<p>I’ve always lived in the city and can’t wait till hubby retires so we can move somewhere else.</p>
<p>
LOL! Well, we easterners are becoming QUITE familiar with black bears. We felt compelled to stop camping years ago because one walked right through our campsite, not more than 10 feet from a friend reading a magazine in her camping chair. Never has a group of people moved so fast to pack up. No matter how fastidious your group is, some fool down the road will always leave some food out to attract them.</p>
<p>Why do I feel like this is turning into “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse”? </p>
<p>Actually, we have all those things on the list here in our area, although not in the same quantities.</p>
<p>Two comments–sheesh to you all who have picked on someone for listing the wrong kind of bear in her post. Wow. </p>
<p>I don’t know about you westerners, but we in NJ know bears as well as anyone, as they reside or at least have been spotted in every county of our state, including the one Sticker and I live in, which is about as urban as one can get. They are black bears, not grizzlies. I am sure payin3 is monumentally sorry for getting the nomenclature wrong.</p>
<p>Second comment–EK, In Into the Wild, the author, an accomplished outdoorsman himself, makes it very clear that the young man actually knew what he was doing, and survived quite fine until eating berries misidentified as safe in the guidebook he carried. The illness from them was his downfall; he’d successfully negotiated many wilderness situations alone beforehand.</p>
<p>Black bears, coyotes, wild turkeys, got em all in various quantities. A young moose was even killed on the Merritt Parkway late spring or early summer this year.</p>
<p>My kids still don’t believe grandma’s tales of encountering black bears when she walked to school (both ways uphill in fifteen feet of snow) in Rutland VT back in the horse and buggy days.</p>
<p>Second comment–EK, In Into the Wild, the author, an accomplished outdoorsman himself,</p>
<p>I know who Krakauer is actually 
He lives in Seattle and there are a few big mountain climbers among my aquaintances.</p>
<p>THis is from the article- McCandless seemed to have a large dose of the over confidence of youth- the cause of death was starvation-his access to trail was blocked when the Teklanika River rose. </p>
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<p>I realize that he had a lot of experience for his age- but you don’t set out on a * day* hike without someone knowing your plans, & a compass and map let alone planning to “live off the land” for months.</p>
<p>The bear story reminds me of a family camping trip we took when our boys were about 11 and 12. We were setting up the tent on the side of a mountain, and the kids were exploring the nearby woods. They returned excited, to show us something. We walked down the hill about 100 feet and there was a garbage bag, at one time full, that had been torn to smithereens. My youngest said in all innocence, “Look at what some people do- why would someone just tear up their garbage bag and throw it down the mountain?” Needless to say, I was up all night with every little sound.</p>