There are legitimate precautions to take in any large city as far as knowing your surroundings and areas, etc., plus general common sense situational awareness. That sort of goes for anywhere.
You need to separate that from the *scared rural-dweller who only reads about crime in the big city but has never been there except for once in 1992 and they were really scared* advice. My Mom was once asking me about the murder statistics of Los Angeles, back when they were actually pretty high, approx. 20 years ago. Even then, almost all murders occurred miles and miles away from anywhere I ever was at night.
I had to explain to her that Los Angeles county is bigger than Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa/North and South Dakota/Montana and Wyoming
put together in terms of population. And that if there was one newspaper for all of those states combined, there would be 10 murders a night on weekends in that paper. And that newspapers only report bad news. You will never see an article that is titled, "Millions of People Got Aong Today", or "Most People Treated Each Other Kindly".
If you only read lurid crime stories in the paper, it can seem like any big city is just one big riot every night with stabbings, shootings and raping and pillaging. Some of the less traveled members here have formed their opinions thusly.
