I would think that would happen no matter a big city or as you said a small town honky tonk or any thing in between.
I don’t doubt your data, I just can’t can’t find a link to it! I was hoping the link would allow a path to a county by county breakout. I have seen that for earlier data bit it is a bit old… 2014 is what I find.
The crime hot spots tend to be counties with large cities. That leaves large swaths of low risk areas in the rural areas. Illinois is pretty safe if you exclude Chicago. Same for Michigan if Detroit is excluded.
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The map is for states, not cities, except in the case of DC. California has a lot of places that are safer than Los Angeles, and Los Angeles has a lot of safe places. I’m thinking metro LA, not just in the city limits. I’ve traveled a lot to the SF Bay Area, LA beach communities, and Santa Barbara County and never had crime problems.
Understood. I’m not trying to single out any particular city, state, or region as crime ridden. However, larger cities tend to have more crime (and more people). If that makes someone feel more comfortable because they’re part of a larger population and “statistically safer”, then that’s fine, but not entirely accurate.
I’m in MS. According to the map, I’m in a pretty safe state. Yet if I cross the state line into LA or TN, all of a sudden I’m statistically in a more dangerous state. What changed? The existence of New Orleans and Memphis within those state lines in otherwise relatively low populated states, I’d assume. Conversely, a state with a large population with several cities that may have a relatively high crime rate could statistically appear safer due to the fact that it’s a relatively highly populated state.
That’s why I believe total number of violent crimes is just as valid as the “per capita” info, if not more so.
I’d have no issues visiting LA or SF. Yet I know there are places in those cities I should avoid, and I’d generally feel more at ease in rural Cali where there is probably nowhere for me to avoid other than a shady bar trying to hit on someone else’s old lady. 
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In the late 1980s I worked at a factory in a ex-urban area. Almost all of the workers came from rural areas to the north and west. The turnover was incredibly high. The reason was that new employees started almost immediately but were fired if they failed the drug test. Most of them failed. Minor infractions like drug use are still illegal and may have something to do with crime rates.
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My story about a rural driver.
Was riding with a guy from Backwater (fictional town, true story) Alabama. We were going from Wichita Falls to Dallas. He had never seen an interstate Highway, much less driven on one. I kept telling him to get in the left lane prior to the exit. He did not, passed the exit the backed up on the interstate to the exit!
Fortunately late night, holiday weekend, the interstate was nearly deserted.
I used to work with a guy who tried to pick up a girl in a rural Louisiana bar, and he was told that if he didn’t cool it and leave right away, he would be “tossed to the gators”, and that local law enforcement would have very little interest in locating him. He took the threat seriously, and left right away.
I just re-read your original post. It is hard for someone like me that grew up in a small town in a very rural area to understand what you are afraid of. I was used to the dark night sky with the milky was streaming across it like a river.
If you break down on a dark two lane far from a town and with no cell phone or service, just put your hood up and sleep in your car. Some one will com along eventually.
I grew up where some people had no idea where their house keys were. If you called on someone and they did not answer the door, you went in and left a note on the kitchen table.
I have had to spend the night waiting to unload in Red Hood and also Detroit. Now that would be scary if I was inclined to be scared.
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I grew up in brooklyn, ny where you locked your house, your car, and anything that wasnt nailed down. Ive lived for many years now in a middle class suburb in new jersey. I guess its just a matter of whst one gets used to.
Having trouble finding the end of this but may be interesting looking at it again. I live in a smaller community. I remember on several occasions forgetting to close the garage door when being gone for an over night. Tool, equipment, and door to the house unlocked. No problem, except the cold air froze my sink in the garage.
I also worked in the metro for over 30 years and you learn to watch your back. I remember on the first days of her employ, our affirmative action officer told her story of walking across the street to be able to encounter a group of gang members. She said they thanked her for not stereotyping them. I called bs and I’m sure it never happened. Future encounters with her proved my opinion of her accurate. I also taught self defense to mainly female staff and this would have been the most stupid thing to do in the metro area. Only gotten worse today. Got a problem in a small town, knock on a door for help. Try that on dale street in St. Paul and likely get shot. It’s not statistical data, it’s statistical clusters.
One slightly scary rural-driving story, I drove my truck 4-wheeling in Canyonlands Nat’l Park, deciding (unwisely) to approach Horseshoe Canyon from the east side. This is an area where it would be 2-3 days between seeing anybody else. When I finally got there, I decided the road down the face of the cliff to reach the bottom of the canyon was for someone braver than I … lol … so I parked at the top and walked down this so-called “road” (orange cliffs trail) to see the what was happening at the bottom of the canyon. Good petroglyphs.
After I walked back up to the truck, I noticed the road leaving the area was going to be difficult going, sandy and fairly steep uphill. Sure enough, got stuck in the sand. No winch … damn! My only solution was to completely unload the truck , then it was light enough to drive over the sand. Fortunately I had an off-road motorcycle with me, Suzuki 90, so with that I eventually got all the stuff I left behind up through the sand to a point the truck could proceed. Very hot, I remember I drank a lot of water .
You folks can see this for yourselves using Google maps. The approach from the west side is easy, tourist-stuff. In the overhead view, you’ll see a bevy of tourists parked there at the trailhead on the west side. I wouldn’t advise the approach from the east … lol … it’s the Orange-cliffs road (trail actually) slightly south and east of the trailhead, seen if you squint, on the overhead view. To see photos of the petroglyphs at the bottom of the canyon, click on the blue icons of a camera.
Until the last 10yrs or so where my parents live most providers coverage would end at the county road, cable wasn’t installed for the shared road until enough families signed up that installation was free, compared to the $6,0006+ to hook up one house. Parents used a cellular hotspot for internet with a low data limit until cable could be arranged. In the unincorporated county about 1mi north of city limits so not that out in the country but at least back in the 80;s and early 90’s was a quieter and safet place to live while still being 15mi roughtly from anywhere you’d need to get to in town. I grew up walking to school and back (1/2mi round trip) unless it rained, now they walk with the kids even the ones that live across from the school
In the hopefully unlikely event someone needs emergency medical care, how long would it take an ambulance to get there, and then how long for the ambulance to get the patient to a university medical center??
Neighbors have had medics out several times in the last 6wks, there’s a fire station with medics 1mi up the road and our area’s level one trauma center 3mi away (7min by car) Parent’s are planning to move closer to town if not into the premier retirement community in town but haven’t found the place that they’re ready to leave their home of 44yrs for.
In the old days, depending on road conditions, you could be two to four hours away from the university hospital or mayo. Now of course there are helicopters used. Usually though you would go to more of a local or regional hospital fir evaluation and stabilization, then transferred. A lot of changes took place in the 50s. More than a few times my wife’s parents would need to drive her uncle 200 miles to the university hospital in the middle of the night. Life on the prairie.
In really remote areas, real medical emergencies are covered by helicopter or small plane.
Allegany State Park in NY is not all that remote , but twice I have seen Park Rangers and volunteers outlining a field with flares so a helicopter could land.
Even though spellcheck thinks Allegany is misspelled, it is not.
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A church friend moved to a smaller town and one day walked into the emergency room and went into cardiac arrest, they revived him and 2 hospital transfers later he woke up in Harborview hospital in Seattle with family by his side. Made a complete recovery and returned to his retirement cabin iafter some recovery time.
I’ll stay in my suburb, just 12 miles from Philadelphia and a choice of 3 world class university hospitals. 
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To each is own, I would not live where you live. I have been to Both NY and Philly and have no desire to live within 75 miles of either one. Nothing to disparage either one, I would not like to live near any really large city or on either coast. A lot of people do, that is why they are too crowded for me.
I heard a radio commercial on a Toronto radio statiom today for a Canadian real estare ofice with a customer claiming they got her $348000.00 over her asking price. Just imagine how expensive the Toronto market must be. My daughter says they are giving out 50 year mortgages.
Just read an article about Boston. Boston is one of the few cities where more than half the homes are OVER $1,000,000. Here’s the full list of cities.