>>>Yes, agreed. That's just a matter of civility. But there didn't seem to be a true need to lock the door when I was growing up. Nor as a young adult, either. We have become a more dangerous society.
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>>I disagree. I don't think society is more dangerous; I think our perception is that it's more dangerous. Crime generally and violent crime have been going down for decades.
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>My house wasn't in a black ghetto, it was between two of them, and just two blocks away there were richer streets, where the guys could afford the houses where the forest wasn't razed before the building commenced.
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>And yes, there was a shooting across the street, a familial dispute, and we've found bullet holes in one of the windows, but it was a small caliber, maybe 4mm, making more noise than damage - didn't get through to the inner glass and we never found the casings. And there was a dope dropoff nearby, and a pair of tow trucks taking a car each night at 1:30 for a week, and I had my bikes stolen twice.
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>Yet I just walked a few times after midnight (couldn't find a cab, didn't have a cell phone and arrived by bus around midnight, so I walked home), and nothing happened. Not a single weird sound.

I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in San Francisco. As a child I remember the “little old ladies”, talking amongst themselves, which was a preoccupation. One topic was about “that terrible neighborhood”. The ladies would go on and on about how bad that neighborhood was! Then they would mention that the neighborhood in question was ½ block away! :)