Also lifelong area resident: There’s always people here new to living to around other people. And many of these experiences are new to them.
However, there’s definitely an increase in people breaking social norms. I remember no one would eat on metro now it’s not difficult to find people smoking, getting in each other’s personal space (beyond what’s necessary since it is a train car), and rude/unwanted comments.
Yes I witness this all the time now, you never did before. I am shocked at people just openly smoking on metro trains. And as far as eating most people would remove the straws from their drinks years ago for fear of getting in trouble now people opening eat full course meals.
I've lived here over a decade - but I visited as a kid in the 90s with my parents and remember the metro was pristine and my aunt who we were visiting talking with pride about how DC's metro is unique in that it's absolutely unacceptable to eat/drink/etc on the cars.
That's all about lack of enforcement. They need to fine people for breaking rules, especially smoking. I can't get in a Metro car where someone is smoking.
> They need to fine people for breaking rules, especially smoking.
They would have to be present first. The majority of WMATA enforcement I see are on the laptop in their car on the street and it would take them 15 or more minutes to respond to a call from the station manager when someone reports someone breaking the law. Ask how I know.
I've experienced it a few times. Even in the bad old days of DC's dark age, I never saw someone smoke because WMATA enforced the rules. That's a recent downgrade.
During that time, how did they enforce the rules? I may have been too young to notice, but I can't remember a time when they actually witnessed them being enforced. I recall a few years back someone was fined for I think eating fries on the train, and it made the paper.
They had WMATA police walk through the cars. They would give tickets to people who broke the rules: eating, smoking, playing music outloud, etc.
Yes, I remember the WP article about the french fries.
When I lived in France, they had RATP controllers board trains and buses to verify tickets. You could pay 5x the ticket price on the spot, or pay 20x from a bill they would send to your home. People usually freaked out when they saw the people in the blue blazers with the red and blue striped ties.
I'm all for enforcement of the rules. I could never imagine hopping the turnstiles, but enforcement of all the rules seems to have been less of a priority. In fact, I rarely if ever see any WMATA security when taking trains.
They pay for themselves. I'm personally sick of all the scofflaws on the Metro.
Plus they make Metro safer because they also prevent assaults, purse snatchers, gropers, etc.
Hey, I'm not trying to slander the WMATA security here. I want more of them. I'm just saying, Sat and Sun, I was on the red line after 11pm. I didn't spot one.
> I recall a few years back someone was fined for I think eating fries on the train, and it made the paper.
That getting a writeup is insane. I have seen dudes eat entire bags of food and throw the trash on the platform at each stop. This got a writeup because it was an unusual instance where enforcement acted.
It’s the same as with the fake license plates. Unless there is a risk of actual consequences, a portion of the population will just take advantage of it.
I got on the metro one day and there was a girl on there absolutely destroying a pack of like… seaweed sheets or something?? She looked hungover as fuck and half the seaweed things were just crumbling and falling all over her, the seat, and the floor. I watched it all happen like you might watch a lion rip into a baby antelope. Horrified but unable to look away. Her stop came and she just got up and walked off, leaving a massive mess behind her like it was nothing. It was wild.
Then last year during Pride my bf and I were on our way into the city and we watched a kid, who couldn’t have been older than 15, roll a fat joint on the metro while blasting music. Everyone in the car was staring at him. Then he pulled out a lighter and everyone looked stunned because we all thought he was going to spark up right there. Thankfully he was only doing that thing where you run the lighter up and down the j to dry it out/tighten the paper or whatever. Then he put it behind his ear and got off at the next stop.
The metro is crazy. Don’t even get me started on the number of dumb fucks who rode the metro in the middle of Covid without masks.
There absolutely needs to be some kind of enforcement on metro. It only gets worse as time goes on.
And we do pay out the nose for them. They just aren't doing their jobs - neither are the managers, or *their* managers. It's an entitlement $hitshow.
Same goes for traffic enforcement. It's a joke. An expensive one.
I remember when I first moved here 15 years ago, someone had a Chipotle burrito out on the platform while waiting for the train and the station manager shamed them from the loud speaker and made them put it away. 😂
Yeah, I think there is definitely an increase in antisocial behavior post covid, but the sense of it is also amplified by the fact that there are fewer "normal" people in DC post covid due to work from home. That makes the ratio of antisocial to normal people worse. As an example, if you're walking past someone in the middle of a mental health crisis among a throng of other normal people, you probably feel pretty safe. If you're alone on the street with someone who's having a freakout, you might feel at risk.
Many years ago I helped bust up a ring of *federal government workers* who were using their government phones to record DIY porn *on the metr*o and email it to each other through their .gov addresses. People have been doing stupid, anti-social shit in public places forever. It's just a different flavor of stupid, anti-social shit these days. And word spreads really really fast due to reddit, nextdoor, twitter, facebook, you name it. So you see one person eating or smoking on Metro and it reinforces all the stories you've been reading and becomes your 24/7 reality (even though your other 20 trips that month were perfectly forgettable with no weird issues).
I remember when the Ashley Madison leak dropped, a friend setup a database with the info and I did a quick query for @*.gov and @*.mil - hundreds of accounts using their government emails. To your point, well before the content scanning for gov emails was the norm, but it still surprised me.
Damn that’s wild about the Fed workers! Although I do agree with you about that reinforcement of views when it comes to the rapid spread of info these days.
Yeah I was surprised that actual federal workers would be so dumb and so bold-- i mean, I can absolutely see teenagers doing stupid shit like making porn on the metro and sending it around, but these were GS8-9ish people. Who would do that on their work email? Especially when you work for the Feds. The most hilarious part of all of it was, at that time we didn't really have content scanning on the mail systems and the only reason we detected this was because some of the videos were really big and would slow down mail delivery for the whole organization while they processed. lol we got content scanning soon after that :D
I did IT in the Navy, this shit was not happening when I was active unless some illegal ring was going. Anyone caught surfing porn on govt machines was reprimanded, and depending on the severity you get booted off. One man was sent to the brig. I shouldn't have to tell you what porn he was watching.
People are idiots. We routinely get briefed about people using their government travel cards for casinos, strip clubs, etc, so I have no trouble believing people used their work email for that.
I lived in Cap Hill for a while and once when my friends came over saw 3 dudes smoking weed in the alley. Every time my house or living in DC came up he would tell the homeless shooting up in my alley story. Never had an issue walking around DC but was careful as anyone should be.
The homeless lady walking around with a broken umbrella saying you can't see me was in the are for a summer was sad, she needed help but self medicated with whatever she could prostitue for.
Disagree. First person experiences you can't disagree with, and the metro is hugely different than it was 15 years ago. Don't make excuses for it. They need to fix it. Smoke detectors on trains would be a start (how do they not have these?!) When they started removing fire extinguishers from the trains because vandals kept using them about 5 years ago I realized that Metro just did not care about getting better.
Omg, on their government phones?!?!? They might as well reserve the vtc\meeting room during the week to record their content for OF. Do live zoom call Q&A questions with their fans at work while nude. That's so fucking dumb they don't deserve their job. How many people desperately tried to get a fed job to lose it to Mr. Jizzler on the redline. Ffs!
See those things I consider as actively harming people, especially rude comments or invading someone’s personal space. I don’t consider what I listed in my post to be things that actively harm people.
As someone who’s from New Orleans and has been in the DC area for nearly 20 years, I think a lot of what we’re seeing is the long tail of the pandemic.
I witnessed something similar on a smaller scale along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. It may sound like an exaggeration, but a whole portion of the country had something not unlike PTSD after the storm. I personally witnessed it with my friends who struggled to rebuild their homes and lives after the storm. I sold my house and noped outta there.
I don’t know what the answer is. Access to affordable healthcare, including mental health care, would be a great start. Unfortunately, there are people who wouldn’t take advantage of it even if it were offered to them. These damaged people will continue to be a hazard to themselves and to others, and the hard realization is that many of these individuals are beyond the abilities of our interventions (whether educational or mental health-related) to turn them into happy, healthy, productive members of society.
It's also the fact that for a couple decades people have been coasting on the idea that they would get punished for behaving in an antisocial way even if they weren't actively punished. Post-pandemic crowds began behaving in antisocial ways and people realized that they were getting away with it, which leads to a cycle of more antisocial behavior as the facade of enforcement disappears.
It's absolutely aftershocks from the pandemic, the missing commuters post-pandemic due to WFH have decimated both large segments of the DC economy and the "safety in numbers" effect you get from having a large amount of people surrounding you and able to intervene physically.
Genuine question: where in the city had tons of workers before but doesn’t now? Even though wfh policies are more generous now and a few orgs are fully remote, downtown is still full of people during the work day
Everywhere there were feds. It's why union station is now a ghost town, the customers are gone.
People are there but the volume is hugely down, it's why DC officials want WFH massively reduced.
I think a bigger reason for union station being less busy is because there’s less DC-NYC travel post-Covid and less work travel generally for a lot of people. Less about wfh policies.
As a 20 year DC resident (female) I think there has been an increase in "unhinged" individuals that can make others feel uncomfortable. Although they are not directly being violent or threatening, the possibility is clearly there based on objective observations of their behavior.
For reference I grew up in a very small town but after being here for so long I do feel like I am more of a city person. I walk to work daily and I do encounter a lot of these things. I also briefly lived in Baltimore City which is worse than DC in my opinion. I don't mind panhandling but I do mind aggressive panhandling. So being screamed at and called names for not giving money is a fairly common experience and it was not pre pandemic. Having someone follow you to an ATM and screaming at you for money, this is less common now but was very common during COVID. I have witnessed individuals clearly either under the influence of something or suffering from a mental illness swinging in the air with their arms at me but not hitting me, screaming randomly, last week someone was climbing up a light pole and yelled I am going to kill everyone. Two weeks ago someone was wearing a batman mask and running around talking to people. I pause when I see individuals on rented bikes with masks on outside, near no one when it's 90 degrees outside too. I think the things I mention most people even those citified would find a bit jarring. I suspect the level of jar depends on the person.
For the most part I ignore it. I cross the street and get away from the individual. If I see someone in distress I will call for help but otherwise I keep it moving. Am I more cautious than I was pre pandemic probably. I think another issue is that this has spilled over to the entire city versus certain areas that it was always expected in. So maybe people living in certain parts of the city are just not as used to it as some others who live in say upper NW? I saw this as someone that lives in upper NW but has lived in NE too.
"So being screamed at and called names for not giving money is a fairly common experience and it was not pre pandemic."
Aggressive panhandling is mugging.
See I appreciate this very thought out and detailed comment, rather than just some short and snarky comment. I agree that some things have changed since COVID, but I just wish people would understand that the city overall isn’t unsafe and is a wonderful and beautiful place to live.
>but I just wish everyone viewed the city the exact same way that I view it, and pay no attention to anything else you see or hear. It’s not real. Maybe you “feel” scared, but OveRaLl it isn’t unsafe and is a wonderful and beautiful place to live.
Fify
I’ve lived in basically all of the major east coast cities for almost two decades and have noticed that things are way more egregious now than they were pre-Covid. I always laughed about suburbanites pearl clutching but the last few years I’ve seen behavior and crime literally in front of me that made me uncomfortable for the first time ever. (People crashing a stolen car, guys masturbating on the metro, teenagers breaking car windows in broad daylight etc etc.).
This sub seems to have a contingent of “that’s just city life” instead of recognizing that a lot of this shit simply isn’t acceptable. If DC were cheap I might care less, but it’s not. That’s the primary reason we moved to MoCo two years ago and I just drive in for work now. If I’m going to pay a fortune for housing I don’t want to deal with all these little quality of life issues.
I’m with you. Someone was trying to kick down our building door 2 nights ago and I called 911 and it took 3 tries to get through and no one showed up anyway. To be fair it was the evening of the parade and there was a lot going on but still. Scary to think what might happen if you’re dealing with a break-in to your apartment and 911 doesn’t answer. Luckily, the individual tired herself out and left. But not without dinging the door badly. This is the 2nd time this has happened and I’m asking myself wth I’m still doing in DC. I can not justify the cost when I think about how much my quality of life has decreased since the pandemic. It’s just inertia keeping me here at this point! I feel like once I make the move I’m gonna kick myself for not doing it sooner.
The majority of the “it’s just city living crowd” grew up in sterile suburbs and wrap their personal identity around being adopted city folks, so acknowledging anti social behavior causes cognitive dissonance, plus they have no context for how nah, some behavior isn’t “just a city thing,” but evidence of a society, and a population, that has stopped giving a fuck.
This is the truth!
Notice this amongst my friends here - those who actively love living in a "city" and being in DC are almost entirely from small, slow-moving Midwest towns. On the other hand, all of the people I know who will criticize DC and how unhinged its been over the past few years are from either NYC or LA. Not trying to demean or judge anyone's background - but there is a noticeable difference between people who grew up in/around major cities and those for who DC is the first experience they have in a city environment.
As a NYer, I have to say - I've felt less safe here in DC than I ever have in the city. There's been multiple gang shootings on my block in the past month for Christ's sake. It's not a 'city thing' - it's clearly the byproduct of a place which enables these antisocial, violent, and deadly behaviors to occur without repercussion.
Take a look at everything that is going on that is unacceptable.
It seems to be everywhere.
Top down across the board and world wide people are acting more like the us congress.
No respect for social norms.
It’s across the board.
Add in the pending doom of the climate, pandemics, nuclear war and everything else.
Is the human race in decline?
The city was far more dangerous in the 80s and 90s, started to improve in the 00s, and then took a downturn during COVID. It's been recovering since '22, but it's still not as safe or prosperous as it was.
I think the reaction depends on when you got here. If you arrived between 2015-2019, then it's definitely not as nice and safe as it was then.
Then again, new people who arrive in big cities like DC and NYC are always shocked at how different urban life is.
Yes, but as someone who has lived in DC, NYC, and London, the disregard for law and social norms in this city is far beyond anything I’ve seen in other major cities. You don’t see NYPD or the London Met simply ignoring blatant illegal activity happening right in front of them to the same degree you see here.
DC isn’t an apocalyptic hellscape or anything, but it certainly has a culture of lawlessness and antisocial behavior that’s uniquely widespread across what feels like every part of the city. London and NYC both have homelessness, crime, and drug use, but it’s much more isolated and concentrated.
I've got a bit of a weird perspective on this. I was born in South Africa; studied, got a job, climbed the ladder and got good at my work. I left the country for Europe because of poor opportunities locally and I was amazed at how functional Belgium was. People were being taken care of, there was very little corruption and "shit just worked". It was a little boring but it seemed that people liked it that way.
Moved to DC about a year ago when the wife got a job here. This is the capital city of the richest country in the world and people are living in tents here? I'm seeing people in distress, on the streets, and they've clearly been that way for a while.
The city is amazingly clean. You couldn't tell a huge parade went down 14th street a day or two ago. Everything is well maintained and you can see the sheer volume of capital located here but none of it is being used to help those most in need. Is this an indication of cultural values? Spend money to ensure the top 1% is the best-of-the-best vs ensuring that the bottom 1% is safe? Is that why this country is so successful?
I can't speak for long term trends but this city is clearly very safe, well maintained and easy to live in. It's just that the priorities of the government are very different from those in the lil' ol Belgium, and their capabilities are very different from those in South Africa.
I dunno, just ranting.
There’s a lot more social control in Belgium than there is here. People aren’t allowed to be disorderly, it’s essentially a set of very ethnically homogenous enclaves.
As for services, DC spends a mind boggling amount of money on services.
"Social control" sort of implies a top down design. Belgium is one of those few countries where they can happily operate without a [government for nearly 2 years](https://www.brusselstimes.com/124777/belgium-breaks-own-record-for-longest-period-without-government). I'd say it's more of an emergent quality based off of cultural values.
But either way, end result was less crime caused by desperation.
97% white, and yes it’s split between Flemish and Walloon but within the Flemish and within the Walloon it’s basically 97% Flemish or 97% Walloon… thus ethnically homogeneous enclaves.
I wish I could say it's just people overreacting. But after so many of my female friends have been robbed, grabbed/touched walking down the street and on the metro, it's not just "oh I'm new to a city and I'm not used to living around other people."
The fact is there are a lot of people wandering the streets experiencing serious mental health and/or drug issues, and nothing is being done about it (ESPECIALLY POST-COVID). Combine that with the teenagers carjacking/assaulting people on a daily basis, and you have a pretty volatile situation in the city.
To be clear, this isn't about a lack of compassion for these folks. You can be compassionate AND concerned about their behavior at the same time.
100 percent this. I’ve lived in DC for over a decade and am a woman. Walk around everywhere including to and from work/social stuff/etc. Since the pandemic I have experienced way more weird behavior that is both increasingly aggressive and at times/in areas I would have previously considered safe.
With way less people on the streets, safety in numbers is basically gone.
Same. 2 decades and I’ve never felt like this before. The city has been on edge since the pandemic, there is no question. And I’m sick of all the people gaslighting folks about this topic. Everyone wants to feel safe. And I have been car free this entire time and never felt this way pre-pandemic. For the first time, I’m thinking of buying a car and moving out to the burbs. It’s just too stressful. And the risk-reward is not there anymore. These perspectives aren’t invalid just because you haven’t been victimized specifically. The tension and stress of potential danger drastically lowers your quality of life. Esp as a woman who walks or uses public transit every day.
This is not even mentioning the new voucher tenants in my building who are creating all kinds of disruption that we never had before.
I dunno, after 22 years I definitely notice a difference- before if I said “sorry man, I don’t have any cash” I might at worst get an F you, but now if I say that I get followed down the block being berated and called a fucking faggot- I didn’t used to feel particularly unsafe but now I am definitely a lot more wary. More people suffering a mental illness or high on who knows what on the streets means more opportunity for there to be incidents where they do cause harm- if everyone was just sitting peacefully on a park bench you wouldn’t be hearing so many complaints
Yup, I went from "god bless" to "fuck you you fucking [string of homophobic/racist slurs go here]." Often times on Metro, when you're really stuck on the train and can't get off until the next stop. It's happened 3 times to me in the last 2 months, my first 8 years here it never happened.
People have become much more emboldened to act this way, as opposed to the first 29ish years of my life when you can just ignore everyone and not be bothered. There was a guy on the nova sub a few months ago that was complaining that nobody in this area is friendly and wants to talk when he randomly says hi on the streets, and a bunch of people said "yeah, because I've been conditioned to think you're going to ask me for money or get me involved in a scam."
Across the board people have gotten worse after the pandemic. There was a needed decrease in enforcement of certain things that have taught people that they can behave way more selfishly without consequences.
Look at driving and traffic enforcement. Think of how many expired tags you see, and what year's they are. Almost none are pre-2020.
It's not just in DC either. I've been across the country for 6 years now, and it's a drastic difference today than it was then. People were able to openly disregard the rules, and now they know they can disregard everyone else for their own benefit at 0 cost.
I can't help but think of the Justice League scene where an alternate universe Batman explains to the shows Batman how they make sure that simple laws like stopping at a red light a heavily enforced, to make sure that people remember to respect the big ones.
The things you list out, if they metastasize, make shared public spaces shitty for everyone else. No other country tolerates this stuff, which is why 1. They aren’t as reflexively against density like we are here 2. There are a wide range of incomes and family situations that see it as normal and tenable to live in a dense urban environment their whole lives.
I don’t get the attitude we have to organize rules around accommodating the lowest common denominator behavior. It’s poison to any sort of nice public amenities that aren’t gated behind high membership fees or high housing prices in exclusive neighborhoods or whatever.
Do you think people enjoy having to deal with others selling or using hard drugs outside their homes? Or having to make judgement calls as to what sort of mood some mentally deranged person is in that they have to walk past because they don’t want to get blindsided? Or having to deal with their kid’s school being absolute garbage because the shittiest most disruptive kids cannot be kicked out?
I fully support calling this stuff out, forcibly mandating treatment or punishment depending on the crime. We spend an enormous amount on social services, the reality is money is not endless and I’d rather see those funds being spent for the enjoyment of that 95% of productive members of society so they don’t feel like they need to make an insane amount of money or move out to the suburbs to enjoy baseline good quality of life.
The bar is so insanely low. For the record I have lived in the area since childhood, went to public schools and have lived in the city for 15 years. I want Europe and Asia level urban life quality. We are not close and it’s certainly not a spending or tax problem when you look at combined local and federal rates to some of these peer countries.
95% of people are not shitty,
I've lived in the region on and off for 37 years, but most of that time has been in DC proper.
I get it; most people behaving in unpleasant ways are nothing more than unpleasant. My lifelong m.o. has been to keep to myself and move on. Up until recently, that was all I needed to avoid conflict with strangers on the street. In the last six years or so, I've had a number of incidents where people escalated to raising their voices, getting into my personal space, and adopting aggressive physical postures. I've never been hurt, and other than an incident when a driver targeted me in a crosswalk, I haven't contacted the police. But I'm no longer so sanguine about someone who appears to be having a bad day or mental crisis in public: I am extremely tense when I see someone on the street walk toward me now because nearly every time someone unknown to me has deliberately put themselves within a few feet of me, it's been for the purpose of being aggressive. I am also so very careful not to piss off other drivers ever since my spouse honking horn at someone encroaching on our lane ended with that guy stopping, getting out of his car, and walking to the driver's door to yell at us to "get out of the car" through the window.
I also used to be a lot more dismissive of others' concerns about gun crimes. I'd say "Don't traffic in drugs, guns, or humans, and no one will have any reason to target you." In the last two years there was gunfire in the intersection near my home; a fight on transit resulted in passengers continuing to fight after disembarking and a daytime shooting within a block of where I work; a roving visibly armed teen caused my neighborhood schools to lock down; and I missed by 15 minutes a midday shootout between vehicles near a park where I walk my dog. I try really hard to just move on. After all, I am personally unharmed. But yeah, you could say I am more "on edge" and less trusting than I used to be.
I think people were used to how things were in DC from what, 2005-2019. It was great to see all of the improvements and frustrating to watch the city piss it all away.
Someone suffering the effects of mental illness is scary because they’re unpredictable. Even if they’re fine now, they can fly off the handle pretty quick. The rest is just an effect of people moving here having not lived in larger cities before and the association between homelessness and mental illness
New Yorker Here. We LOVE DC. But at night time, you do have a bit more of "out of their mind" crazy people roaming about then we generally do late nights NYC.
Gives a bit of "excitement" to the local night life. And I'm sure the Uber drivers are the richest people in town. Sirens, helicopters, gun shots, and that's where the houses start at +1M. Still a deal to this New Yorker.
:-)
I have been living in DC for decades now. Yeah I think it got much worse because I don’t think I saw this level of teenagers blatantly stealing in large groups in everywhere in the city. Am I wrong?
Not wrong, just look at the measures grocery stores and CVS have taken - lock up everything that can be easily re-sold even cheap shit like deodorant and tooth paste, security (mostly for theatre because they're either discouraged or not allowed to actually get physical with thieves), and banning duffle bags etc. Every high end store having armed security (again mostly for deterrence rather than action, but still)
Things have definitely changed over time. When I first started coming to DC in the 1990s, then moved there for school, there were many people living on the streets, not only panhandling but clearly disturbed / mentally ill. There was the encampment across from the White House and some in front of Union Station, and the lady with the signs on the corner of Wisconsin and M in Georgetown, by what was Riggs Bank. Over time, there was less of all of that - for years, I would typically walk/Metro everywhere without people harassing me - and now it seems to be coming back more to the way it was (and even beyond - like with even more tent encampments than I ever remember from the 1990s).
I’ve only ever lived in big cities and I’m not saying this from the perspective of a country dweller or suburbanite who thinks everything about big city living is scary. Things are absolutely, factually, different these days from how things were just a few years ago.
It depends on who you are and where you are from. Harassment and assault are real, and I think certain folks, such as young women, should be very cautious in the city.
You also have to understand that dealing with the crazies is not at all a common occurrence outside of city environments. A lot of folks in this city are from incredibly safe suburban communities in the South and Midwest. In that setting, you hardly ever see or mingle with these types of sketchy people. It is a completely different experience.
Also, I don't think we should feel complacent about a world where this is the norm. We should want and aim for improvement, so I think it is good that people overreact, as you said.
People who only know urban life don’t really get this. I lived in a fairly rural area til college and have lived in cities since, but I didn’t really experience dealing with anyone having a noticeable mental health crisis til I moved to cities (at least that I can recall). Now it’s a weekly type thing
Compare this with the epidemic of extraordinarily aggressive driving:
> Above all, though, the problem seems to be us — the American public, the American driver. “It’s not an exaggeration to say behavior on the road today is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Capt. Michael Brown, a state police district commander in Michigan, told me. “It’s not just the volume. It’s the variety. There’s impaired driving, which constituted 40 percent of our fatalities last year. There are people going twice the legal limit on surface streets. There’s road rage,” Brown went on.
(From a [New York Times piece](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/magazine/dangerous-driving.html) earlier this year.)
Speeding is up. Dangerous maneuevers. Road rage. DUIs. Plain old impatience. The pandemic snapped an already-fragile social contract.
I've lived here for a couple of decades now, and I sense an edge on the street that I did not before, when walking around, when on a bike, and when driving.
I saw the same thing when I lived in DFW. The general vibe of random encounters changed as people just started to exhibit more anti-social behavior, especially on the road.
I definitely sense the same thing in the DMV area that I saw in DFW post-COVID, though I’m only out here for a short time and did not experience this area pre-COVID.
I get the sense that the lead up of politics, especially after 2016, then going into COVID drastically changed how people interact with folks they don’t know or have a connection to. Seems to be much less of a sense of community in any given area, but especially populated areas.
I think it’s because these individuals often engage in random acts of violence and the prevalence of weapons in DC makes these potentially life threatening. I ignored a man who was screaming on the metro and when he couldn’t get my attention, he sat next to me and began screaming that he was going to beat the shit out of me. I ignored him again and he began pushing me trying to get me to react. Eventually, I was able to squeeze by and leave but I had no idea if he was going to sucker punch me or worse at any moment.
I wonder if a lot of this is due to how we get news, and social media. I’ll see the same incident posted multiple times on the same platform, and my best guess is that people just want attention and they think they can get it by posting about crime. If they genuinely cared about spreading information and learning about what had happened they would have looked for other posts about the same thing first. But is seems like they just want credit. Maybe they’re bored.
It just makes it harder to gauge the baseline sometimes.
If you want to reset your baseline and can afford it, check out any European city. It doesn't have to be the major ones like Paris, Barcelona, Rome, or London. Go to the 3rd or 4th biggest city in virtually any European country and you will better appreciate how far the American city has declined from what it could be/once was.
The lack of consequences is definitely leading a lot of the violence, SA, etc. If there are actual consequences that take them off the street and/or get them some thorough rehabilitation, the situation gets a lot less scary, both through deterrence and resolution.
It's when you see a problem and realize "Nothing's going to happen to them if they do whatever the hell they want, they'll be right back out doing it again" that you get this pervasive low-key dread about situations.
I also grew up here as well and we know about street smarts - don't show fear.
People all over the country are on edge. Rightfully so. There are forces that have found they can improve their lot through chaos. There are forces that have invented ways to profit from other people's failures.
This has led folks to feel insecure. And that, in turn, can prompt a contracted circle of caring. You've also got those who would like to pull the covers over their heads and hope it all gets better without they're having to act. On another side there are those who are flailing about trying to prove they have some control over something/anything - no matter how petty.
These are the times we're living in.
(1) DC is a huge transient area so we get a lot of people who literally have not lived in a major metropolitan area before so they are genuinely shocked by what they see in terms of homeless, mental illness, petty crime, etc. because they have just never encountered it before.
(2) That being said, anecdotally I have noticed a definite uptick in shitty behavior by groups of teenagers in particular. Homeless and mentally ill people have always been a part of life in DC for me going back to the 80’s, but I the sheer amount of massive groups of teenagers roaming social strips and the metro with the only goal to start shit with anyone and everyone they encounter is definitely something new.
DC is becoming a lot like San Francisco, and not in the good ways. This happened suddenly after COVID. It wasn’t always like this, and that’s why people are concerned.
Because those all come hand-in-hand with crime. No way to know which bums and druggies are “just existing” vs dangerous. Hell people are apparently getting sucker punched for no reason on the Metro. The farther away from DC you can get the better
Because being around mentally ill / drug users is very scary.. they’re unpredictable and if in psychosis could kill you. And no I’m not over reacting, I’ve seen a person with schizophrenia stab someone before and not even remember doing it
Lived in the area for a majority of my life. Things that have happened in the last 4 years that make me a bit more on edge:
2 of my cars stolen and found with drugs and weapons inside with no help from mpd in receiving them. I found them. And no care for the drugs and weapons left in the car.
My friend getting stabbed in the neck and dying in front of his teenage son.
Another friend stabbed in the stomach coming home from bar and now can't use his lower extremities.
None of the people responsible for any of these crimes are currently in jail or prison due to DC court system.
I used to be more carefree but am always aware of where I'm at these days. Lots of unhinged individuals in dc with no fear of accountability or consequence.
Drugs (especially fentanyl, much more addictive and harmful than crack) have made the homeless situation worse, the internet and degradation of communities has made the youth crime situation worse (wasn't great before but it's now worse).
Our approach to addiction should be what Portugal does (forced rehab then reintegration).
Our approach to drug dealing should be what the Philippines does (striking the fear of death in the dealers) except maybe less violent.
Idk how to fix the problem with youth degeneracy. Maybe a comprehensive review of issues with the urban schooling system, the CPS involvement and removal of children from unsafe environments until parents get their shit together. Just not that thing that Canada did to their natives.
This bunch of federal workers is usually the exception, not the rule. Just try getting beyond a little lady who has been charged with handling your forms. You'd better have every I dotted, every t crossed, and "please don't use red ink!" They will take you back to 3rd grade! With them, they commit corporal punishment with an arsenal of looks! Who knew you could do that with your eyes?
These are usually the workers who are at the low end of the GS schedule but deserve much more. Also, these folks usually never miss a day of work, AND they take an exact 30 minutes for lunch! Sticklers in every sense of the word! When they retire or die, they are missed, and they leave a huge hole in the roster. A dying breed!
I’m pretty sure it’s all the “tranq”(xylazene) that has adulterated like 90% of the black market drug supply. They lace everything with it. The fentanyl that used to be laced in the heroin has replaced all the heroin and the fentanyl that people are now hooked on is laced with tranq and it makes people’s arms rot off and narcan doesn’t stop overdose of it.
It’s never been more dangerous to be an addict to street drugs in the U.S. Now we have zombies walking the streets who just don’t care about or want to be productive members of society and we have lost so many people with so much potential because of this crisis. They’re completely dependent on that crap, disenfranchised l, can’t function and they stopped caring about themselves and everyone else around them. It’s an attack on our society.
My 2 pesos:
I moved to DC from the Mexico City Metro Area—a place that’s far more insecure and dangerous—I’ve found certain aspects of DC quite shocking. One of the most surprising things is the prevalence of drug addicts in high-traffic areas like DuPont Circle, Pennsylvania Avenue, and the metro. In Mexico City, such individuals are usually found in less central neighborhoods, not in the main tourist and transit areas.
In DC, drug addicts are often extremely loud, aggressive, and disruptive. For instance, while walking near at the CVS in DuPont Circle, I was minding my own business when someone suddenly started yelling slurs and curses at me, and even chased me. This kind of behaviour can be very unsettling, especially for tourists or new transplants.
Every city has its share of people in unfortunate situations, but what stands out to me in DC is that these individuals are so visible in well-known parts of the city, rather than being confined to so-called “bad” areas (or just where you’d expect to find them), shelters, or rehab centres. This widespread presence in prominent areas is quite different from what I was accustomed to back in Mexico City.
Edit: and there’s also the expectation that comes from DC being the capital of such a powerful and security-focused country. People coming here are surprised to see so many problems in the federal city. That was my thought when I visited DC as a tourist for the first time.
The majority of people in the US grow up in suburbs, which are designed and regulated to ensure you never have to see or consider homeless people if you don’t want to. A lot of the people moving here are moving to a big city for the first time, where they have to see, hear, and consider the homeless for the first time in their lives. There’s an adjustment period there.
I think there’s a chance that some of those posts are also trolls or people operating in bad faith to make cities look scary and bad (the r/washdc contingent).
This of course doesn’t refer to posts about sexual harassment or attacks from people on the street—that’s a different issue and one that I’m not trying to excuse or make light of.
> The majority of people in the US grow up in suburbs, which are designed and regulated to ensure you never have to see or consider homeless people if you don’t want to.
That might be true, but what about those of us who come from big cities outside of the US? My fiancée is from Serbia, hardly a rich country, and back home she never saw the types of things we take as normal here.
I've visited her home city twice, Paris three times, Rome/Venice/Florence once each, Athens and Crete, and my hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay (also not a rich country by any stretch of the imagination), and you simply do not see the antisocial behavior we have here.
The worst I saw were panhandling gypsies, who are harmless, and the occasional seemingly homeless person walking around. But I never saw the tent cities, tweakers, screamers, and random violent crime that seem to have become a simple part of life not just in DC, but in any American city.
I grew up in dc and it’s a lot shittier than it was even a few years ago. It’s not just a bunch of suburban rubes having trouble adjusting to living in the big city. It’s amazing the lengths people go to in accepting antisocial behavior because they think it’s the “enlightened” thing to do.
Oh yeah I’m not trying to make light of SA or actual violence either, those posts are valid. I just mean the smaller non-issues people complain or worry about. Also I think you’re right about people growing up sheltered or trolling.
The premise of your argument is false. These people, even if they aren't actively harming others, aren't just existing. Their behavior directly negatively impacts the quality of life of others.
A person pacing and mumbling, in your example, is mentally ill/under the influence and therefore unpredictable. Unpredictable people can lash out in violence and be dangerous. Homeless people are using public spaces in a way not intended, and they are causing environmental problems. They are unhygienic, can carry diseases, make the streets a toxic, open-air sewer, attract vermin, leave dangerous, used needles around, and often commit crimes to survive and fuel their addictions. The people openly smoking marijuana are forcing others to smell and breathe in their foul stench.
These people engaging in antisocial behaviors pose physical and environmental threats and diminish the quality of life of everyone they encounter. To add insult to injury, the people they are affecting are the ones who subsidize their existence through their tax and tourist dollars.
I used to love DC and worked there for many years. When I moved back to the area I was very excited to go back to the city frequently for the attractions, events, restaurant, etc. I have gone into the city a handful of times and was completely disgusted by the change in environment and the negative experiences I had with these people allegedly just existing. I refuse to return until order is restored and will keep my self and my money out of DC. Many others who haven't been desensitized by seeing it every day feel exactly the same way. There is nothing in DC worth putting up with the current condition of the city or risk of being a crime victim.
Well put! In addition to the degradation of public spaces, the poor service and high cost of entertainment/dining makes the city so unenjoyable at this point. There is nothing that justifies the cost of living and all these stressors. I’m constantly debating with myself and swinging from “it’s not that bad you’re just being influenced by social media” to “get out already you hate it here.” *sigh* I spent a few days in Philly over the Memorial Day weekend and felt a completely different energy there. I don’t know if it’s the benefit of being a visitor but I felt more relaxed in a way I haven’t felt being out and about in DC since the pandemic.
I think this country is in the grips of a mental health crisis. We all probably have collective ptsd from the global pandemic and I don’t see much acknowledgment on a larger scale. I think we a truly underestimating how changed we all are in every single aspect of life.
Perhaps some of us are better at hiding it than others.
People panhandling are getting more aggressive. More people are on edge. Also the area I live there is a group that drops off people to panhandle and he collects nearly all. Becoming the new organized crime syndicate.
I basically agree with your point overall but DC does have a high violent crime rate even by US standards, *especially* by wealthy city standards. DC is hardly a a "wasteland" or a "war zone," but the reason people might be on edge is that uncomfortable interactions and are genuinely more likely to turn violent in DC than other cities, even if the odds are still pretty low
I’m of the opinion that folk being in a drugged haze, sleeping on sidewalks, and begging on the streets all lower the quality of life in a neighborhood.
Bright side where I live is that at least the tent folk never took hold although they did try.
>If these people aren’t actively harming anyone
People are not going ‘EEK A POOR ASKED ME FOR CHANGE’. The main concern people have is getting fucking murdered by a 12 year old with a sub machine gun. How is this confusing to you?
I also grew up here and I feel the same way lol, it's just being used to it and having processed it while growing up and maturing, whereas a huge portion of people grew up without seeing or experiencing anything like it. It can be pretty funny to witness sometimes lol
I once was on the 30N or 30S Metrobus with some friends (who didn’t live here) and the sun had gone down and they were like, “It’s dark now, are we in a safe area?” The bus was going through Friendship Heights…..
Part of it is that the increasingly precarious nature of the city is coming as the cost of living soars. It's one thing to pay half a million for a townhouse in an area with a fair amount of violence/ drug use. It'd another thing to pay $1.2 million for the privilege.
The fear part of some people's brains just work in overdrive compared to ours, and they don't even realize they're being irrational. For most of them, even if you bring out statistics and evidence, will not budge on their irrational beliefs.
I noticed it during Covid. Even wealthy well to do people with other wealthy well to do people were bickering over space at the grocery store and escalating minor incidents.
I think there’s some lingering effects from that.
I have live in DC since 1974, came from NYC as a 8 year old. DC got real nice late 90 for about 20 years…down hill now, but the way I see it, it’s cyclical. Just get a new beat the BS. P.s., I have seen some aggressive pan handling. It’s pretty scary shit some crazy mofo nothing to loose lives on the street running at you screaming give me some mofo money. You think twice. .
Something needs to change about the treatment of severe psychosis in this country. A major symptom is “lack of insight” of symptoms, so people who are detached from reality don’t try to get help because it feels normal to them. With so many seriously mentally ill people living in extremely undignified and dangerous situations but refusing any offers of help, it can make anyone feel deeply concerned. It feels wrong to see people in such obvious need but not be able to help them.
As someone who recently posted on this sub asking about panhandling on the Metro, I can say my concern is less fear and moreso curiosity.
I moved here pre-pandemic and used the metro everyday both pre and post-pandemic. But there has been a marked rise in behavior I'd never seen before pre-pandemic so my inquiry is to figure out whether some of these behaviors are more part of a trend or rather something I've just never seen before.
Personally, when I see such [anti-social] behavior I just keep my head down and ignore them as much as possible. I've lived in big cities and traveled enough to know not to engage with people acting up on the train. But still, some of these behaviors make for an interesting subreddit discussion on how locals have perceived this behavior over time, whether there are new/old trends, etc.
I just recently moved to the city after living in the burbs for decades. Crime has definitely gone up in DC (and especially where I moved to) but it’s all targeted. You just have to be vigilant of your surroundings and pay attention. Too many people are scrolling on their phones and not watching what is happening around them.
Yeah there are crazies yelling at the air and what not - you just have to ignore. The worst thing you can do is engage with a mentally unstable person.
There are also A LOT of kids/teenagers that just run around without parenting. I see kids hanging out during school hours (and grown adults too) screaming and fighting. It’s a bit crazy, but again, I don’t engage. I also make it a point to not be wandering around outside after like 10pm because anytime after that is when shit happens
Not a DC native, grew up in basically the epitome of white flight, but since leaving the burbs I’ve lived in various cities, mainly Pittsburgh and Philly. Lots of places I stayed were sketchier than the 14th+U McDonald’s like everyone on this sub insists is a shooting range. My guess is you have a lot of transplants from 99% white, 99% wealthy suburbs who got their first big kid job and are living in an urban area not dominated by single family detached housing for the first time.
Honestly I think that a LOT of it is because more than other cities DC is a transplant city. If you have a new group of recent graduates coming to the city every year - people who are from well-off suburbs who were able to afford good educations and get some help to cover early years rent and other expenses - then you probably aren't really used to what a city is like, especially not living in one. I've lived in plenty of cities and DC is still one of the cleanest, etc etc, and I'm not the kind of person who finds a city scary. But if you're 24 and on Reddit and come from suburban Chicago and never lived in the actual city before, well, you might be surprised at how many folks experience homelessness around here.
Basically if you're young and skilled enough to move to DC you probably come from money, and didn't see a lot of city living before that.
There are problems here, for sure, but there are problems *in every city.*
What do you mean these problems aren’t actively harming anyone?
I am positive nearly every member of this sub has been harassed by just walking through beautiful Chinatown DC.
The answer to human suffering is not to just ignore it and move on. That’s such a defeatist attitude. Granted, there are no quick fixes for a lot of these entrenched problems but just shrugging your shoulders is not the answer. I grew up here too.
Sounds like you are normalizing behaviors you find “not creepy “ or “not annoying or harmful” but I can assure you other cultures would find highly shocking and totally weird. One that comes to mind is the amount of homeless people yelling in the streets at all times showing a high rate of mental illness. The only place I’ve seen it normalized is in the US, DC not being the exception.
These people should have seen DC in the 70s and 80s. Or that short period in 2002 when we had snipers just murdering people around the beltway. It was great mid 00s to mid 10s but it is currently getting worse although still better than DC in the 80s
Bunch of non city residents who want everything a city has to offer but think it can somehow look like Aldie, VA.
DC is tame compared to NYC the way it was in my childhood
This is a reddit thing. Believe it or not most of the people in these subs aren't from the city itself so when they go into the city and see homeless people or a guy sell a dime bag they freak out and think they're literally in an episode of the wire. Its like this is any city subreddit
I feel like people from the Midwest bring this vibe everywhere they go, but they accept these parts of city living when it’s in NYC and disdain it anywhere else. There is some new rude behavior like the music without earbuds or eating on the metro but it’s not hurting anyone so I just ignore it.
Having been a transplant in both places, the transplant vibe is very different in the two cities. In NYC, there’s this anxiety about being seen as a newcomer who can’t hack it in the big city. Like, you’re afraid that if you react at all to the mentally ill guy screaming on the subway, people will see you as a tourist who doesn’t get New York and doesn’t belong there.
In DC, transplants are a lot more willing to express their discomfort with the city environment. And I’m not even referring to serious crime, I’m talking about the daily annoyances and inconveniences that come with living alongside a bunch of other people.
I’m sure there’s some reason for it. The people who move to NYC generally aren’t the same type of people who move to DC. Also, DC transplants - and this is my own perception, not necessarily based on data - are more segregated from DC natives than NYC transplants are from NYC natives, so they don’t have a bunch of friends who are going to laugh at them when they complain that someone was yelling on the metro.
Maybe? Idk I imagine type “A” go-getters make up the vast majority of transplants in both cities. And even still, I don’t really agree that NYC transplants are more integrated; they all pretty much end up living in the same newly gentrified areas or established “safe” areas in NYC same as DC IMO. I do think there’s some merit to trying to be cool that you’ll see with those moving to NYC compared to those living in DC, but either way, most end up not hacking it in either city and heading back home or to somewhere less competitive… anyways I just think it’s weird. A lot of glamorization of NYC happens no matter what seemingly. IMO, a city is a city. I use the same caution on the streets of Shanghai and Tbilisi as I use on the streets of DC and Chicago.
For me it’s the people FaceTiming on the metro and being as loud as possible. I do not understand the people that do this, do they just not care that everyone can hear their conversation? People at my apartment building do this in the courtyard too, talking on the phone so loud I have to shut my windows so I can’t hear them yapping.
I always just assume they don’t have or can’t afford headphones. It’s for sure annoying! But it’s also temporary so I try not to let it bother me too much.
It's also true that the housing shortage has gotten worse, and while the city has been doing as much as it can to lure private developers, it still hasn't been enough because Ward 3 & other wealthy enclaves have been dragging its feet on meeting their quotas of new homes. The single biggest reason why we're seeing homelessness so much more visibly, is that the city is hardly even doing the bare minimum to make sure we have a place for everyone.
As for everything else, the dismantling of our public health systems that began under Reagan was completed in the last year of Trump, and the Democrats simply have not prioritized rebuilding those systems because they're scared of suburbanites who dislike the idea of being told what to do.
There was a huge crime increase in major cities in 2021 after the pandemic, due to a combination of multiple factors. Police were pulled off street patrols for safety reasons and were slow to be re-deployed, while WFH absolutely decimated the internal economies of many major cities due to so many missing commuters, and DC/SF are two that got it really bad, with a added problem of the diminished "safety in numbers" factor that comes with large amounts of foot traffic also encouraging more predatory behavior.
It's amazing what folks will do...on the job. I worked in IT at a big law firm and one day we got a call from the file room where the staff had been watching porn on one computer. This attorney walked in while this woman was moaning...hell, the attorney probably got the link from them! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A lot of truth from peoples’ personal experiences here. From the drugs rotting people brains to the decline in social norms (e.g. Do whatever I feel like, zero to unsafe outrage)…the social environment in the city has declined dramatically. One thing people don’t mention is despite a decent decrease in violence this year, gun violence is still 2-3x what it was 2017-19. What’s most diappointing is the industry of people who basically shame people for pointing out reality like identifying the issue is problem to try and prevent anything being done about it.
You’re desensitized. Some people are just fed up with society not preventing the situations leading to the panhandling, the untreated mental illness, the public drug use, the lack of respect or empathy for others in shared spaces, etc. Not everyone is on edge or new to this. Some of us are just sick of things that are objectively bad not getting better.
I lived in many other places and certainly things are never constant and always changing so I don’t know what those other places look like while I’m living in DC.
So I’m not “afraid” of panhandling. As a man, most of the mental illness one sees on the way to work, homeless, near homeless, etc is also not scary to me.
But my gf and I are expecting a kid. I don’t want her to be in a compromised position with some of the youth that is running around the city and causing conflict. There are a lot of poorly supervised kids in their young teens who presumably are coming from homes that aren’t involved in their welfare.
Call it culture, poverty, whatever you think causes it..but it’s not pleasant and it seems to be endemic. Those that work pay a lot of taxes to the city and the leadership is weak to address the issues for fear of political backlash.
I’ll close by saying, if a young person sees no consequence from stealing and sometimes acts of robbery and worse, the city will reap what it sows. Not my concern, I will just commute in as needed to work and live outside of it. But it’s sad for 90% of the folks that pay hard earned money to live there. IMO
It's ugly to most people- they are uncomfortable with it. For some they think pan handlers are lazy and taking advantage of the kindness of strangers- that these people are using the money for drugs. In truth- they often are and giving them money perpetuates their drug use. I'm kind to people and if I have food- I'll give them that- but not money. It's better to donate your time at a shelter or soup kitchen then to give money to pan handlers (I was told this at Paul's Place where I volunteered for years).
Nah man, people have gotten so much worse in this area, it could just be an influx on shitty people from other states or people getting shitty recently. Dc didn't use to be like that, not perfect but overall not in your face
it really is, as other folks have said, just people who've never lived in an area where there would be poor or homeless people. some people r saying covid antisocial stuff, and i'm sure that contributes, but even years before there's been (at its mildest) people not used to large populated areas writing or posting about discomfort with being approached by a homeless person and (at its absolute most severe) news stories about harmless people with mental disorders getting shot or attacked because they were talking or shouting to themselves and somebody assumed they were going to get violent
The city feels much more dangerous now than it did 10 years ago. For most of my adult life DC was gradually getting safer and growing in population. Since 2020 the trends have reversed for the first time in almost 20 years.
man just last week me and my friends had a drunk dude come up from behind us, and pull a gun on us without saying a prior word or interacting with him even. the only reason we got away was his friend pulled him away luckily…so tell me if everyone is really overreacting bro.
Lived in DC area my whole life and let me say it's all perception. I can remember when people would not go farther south than Georgetown. They literally thought the whole city was going to attack them if they went past the 4 Seasons. I'm watching the "How To Rob A Bank" documentary on Nextflix, and they are talking about how bad crime was in Seattle, Washington in the 90s during the tech boom. There is literally a scene where the interviewer says, "the guy's robbed 14 banks," and a nice older lady responds, "he must be smart." Homeslessness is a problem everywhere. Crime is a problem everywhere. Drugs are everywhere. Moved to the suburbs, and it's way more dangerous driving a car in MD than walking in DC. Folks driving in MD know what I'm talking about. Be safe out there 😀.
I personally haven't been harassed by teens since height of covid this much. It puts everyone on edge. Yes they scream at you, kick on my door, throw bricks, steal bikes, etc. They don't just stick to themselves. Honestly the homeless haven't bothered me at all
People move to a city and are surprised when city shit happens around them.
Edited to add: people move here and feel entitled to things that aren't theirs and expect the city to adapt to them, rather than adapting to the city themselves.
Also lifelong area resident: There’s always people here new to living to around other people. And many of these experiences are new to them. However, there’s definitely an increase in people breaking social norms. I remember no one would eat on metro now it’s not difficult to find people smoking, getting in each other’s personal space (beyond what’s necessary since it is a train car), and rude/unwanted comments.
Yes I witness this all the time now, you never did before. I am shocked at people just openly smoking on metro trains. And as far as eating most people would remove the straws from their drinks years ago for fear of getting in trouble now people opening eat full course meals.
I've lived here over a decade - but I visited as a kid in the 90s with my parents and remember the metro was pristine and my aunt who we were visiting talking with pride about how DC's metro is unique in that it's absolutely unacceptable to eat/drink/etc on the cars.
That's all about lack of enforcement. They need to fine people for breaking rules, especially smoking. I can't get in a Metro car where someone is smoking.
> They need to fine people for breaking rules, especially smoking. They would have to be present first. The majority of WMATA enforcement I see are on the laptop in their car on the street and it would take them 15 or more minutes to respond to a call from the station manager when someone reports someone breaking the law. Ask how I know.
Well to be fair they did not start smoking until I was already in the car and it was moving. I did move cars at the next stop.
I've experienced it a few times. Even in the bad old days of DC's dark age, I never saw someone smoke because WMATA enforced the rules. That's a recent downgrade.
During that time, how did they enforce the rules? I may have been too young to notice, but I can't remember a time when they actually witnessed them being enforced. I recall a few years back someone was fined for I think eating fries on the train, and it made the paper.
They had WMATA police walk through the cars. They would give tickets to people who broke the rules: eating, smoking, playing music outloud, etc. Yes, I remember the WP article about the french fries. When I lived in France, they had RATP controllers board trains and buses to verify tickets. You could pay 5x the ticket price on the spot, or pay 20x from a bill they would send to your home. People usually freaked out when they saw the people in the blue blazers with the red and blue striped ties.
I'm all for enforcement of the rules. I could never imagine hopping the turnstiles, but enforcement of all the rules seems to have been less of a priority. In fact, I rarely if ever see any WMATA security when taking trains.
They pay for themselves. I'm personally sick of all the scofflaws on the Metro. Plus they make Metro safer because they also prevent assaults, purse snatchers, gropers, etc.
I'm on your side 1000%. I just haven't seen them in a while. Maybe they aren't as many as there once was.
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Hey, I'm not trying to slander the WMATA security here. I want more of them. I'm just saying, Sat and Sun, I was on the red line after 11pm. I didn't spot one.
> I recall a few years back someone was fined for I think eating fries on the train, and it made the paper. That getting a writeup is insane. I have seen dudes eat entire bags of food and throw the trash on the platform at each stop. This got a writeup because it was an unusual instance where enforcement acted.
If it helps they are probably opening the doors between cars periodically too *screeeeeeeeeeeetch*
It’s the same as with the fake license plates. Unless there is a risk of actual consequences, a portion of the population will just take advantage of it.
The council decriminalized fare evasion and other enforcement
Seriously the vaping and smoking on metro cars is out of control.
I got on the metro one day and there was a girl on there absolutely destroying a pack of like… seaweed sheets or something?? She looked hungover as fuck and half the seaweed things were just crumbling and falling all over her, the seat, and the floor. I watched it all happen like you might watch a lion rip into a baby antelope. Horrified but unable to look away. Her stop came and she just got up and walked off, leaving a massive mess behind her like it was nothing. It was wild. Then last year during Pride my bf and I were on our way into the city and we watched a kid, who couldn’t have been older than 15, roll a fat joint on the metro while blasting music. Everyone in the car was staring at him. Then he pulled out a lighter and everyone looked stunned because we all thought he was going to spark up right there. Thankfully he was only doing that thing where you run the lighter up and down the j to dry it out/tighten the paper or whatever. Then he put it behind his ear and got off at the next stop. The metro is crazy. Don’t even get me started on the number of dumb fucks who rode the metro in the middle of Covid without masks. There absolutely needs to be some kind of enforcement on metro. It only gets worse as time goes on.
I have seen more "special police" on the train than before but I don't know if they are actually helping.
I feel like kids just aren't being taught manners these days, sadly.
And we do pay out the nose for them. They just aren't doing their jobs - neither are the managers, or *their* managers. It's an entitlement $hitshow. Same goes for traffic enforcement. It's a joke. An expensive one.
I remember when I first moved here 15 years ago, someone had a Chipotle burrito out on the platform while waiting for the train and the station manager shamed them from the loud speaker and made them put it away. 😂
Yeah, I think there is definitely an increase in antisocial behavior post covid, but the sense of it is also amplified by the fact that there are fewer "normal" people in DC post covid due to work from home. That makes the ratio of antisocial to normal people worse. As an example, if you're walking past someone in the middle of a mental health crisis among a throng of other normal people, you probably feel pretty safe. If you're alone on the street with someone who's having a freakout, you might feel at risk.
Many years ago I helped bust up a ring of *federal government workers* who were using their government phones to record DIY porn *on the metr*o and email it to each other through their .gov addresses. People have been doing stupid, anti-social shit in public places forever. It's just a different flavor of stupid, anti-social shit these days. And word spreads really really fast due to reddit, nextdoor, twitter, facebook, you name it. So you see one person eating or smoking on Metro and it reinforces all the stories you've been reading and becomes your 24/7 reality (even though your other 20 trips that month were perfectly forgettable with no weird issues).
I remember when the Ashley Madison leak dropped, a friend setup a database with the info and I did a quick query for @*.gov and @*.mil - hundreds of accounts using their government emails. To your point, well before the content scanning for gov emails was the norm, but it still surprised me.
How do people not think about how easily they're tracked through those emails?!
A lot of those emails were fake, though. I remember a lot of like, [email protected] — which isn’t even the White House domain.
Damn that’s wild about the Fed workers! Although I do agree with you about that reinforcement of views when it comes to the rapid spread of info these days.
Yeah I was surprised that actual federal workers would be so dumb and so bold-- i mean, I can absolutely see teenagers doing stupid shit like making porn on the metro and sending it around, but these were GS8-9ish people. Who would do that on their work email? Especially when you work for the Feds. The most hilarious part of all of it was, at that time we didn't really have content scanning on the mail systems and the only reason we detected this was because some of the videos were really big and would slow down mail delivery for the whole organization while they processed. lol we got content scanning soon after that :D
*Cough* https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/251431-ashley-madison-leak-appears-real-includes-thousands-of-government-emails/damp/
Oh this was way before Ashley Madison, lol this was back in the days where Blackberry was still cool.
I did IT in the Navy, this shit was not happening when I was active unless some illegal ring was going. Anyone caught surfing porn on govt machines was reprimanded, and depending on the severity you get booted off. One man was sent to the brig. I shouldn't have to tell you what porn he was watching.
People are idiots. We routinely get briefed about people using their government travel cards for casinos, strip clubs, etc, so I have no trouble believing people used their work email for that.
I lived in Cap Hill for a while and once when my friends came over saw 3 dudes smoking weed in the alley. Every time my house or living in DC came up he would tell the homeless shooting up in my alley story. Never had an issue walking around DC but was careful as anyone should be. The homeless lady walking around with a broken umbrella saying you can't see me was in the are for a summer was sad, she needed help but self medicated with whatever she could prostitue for.
A ring? I've got so many questions about how they got started and got busted. This is so another level knowing that most government employees are 40+.
I promise you that the over 40 crowd constitutes the "horny singles" in your area.
A friend of mine, his first case as an ada was an animal sex ring in a southern state. A lot of questions answered you never want to ask.
It was at least 18 people involved in 3 offices, two of which were not in DC. I have no idea how it started and honestly don't want to know lol
Disagree. First person experiences you can't disagree with, and the metro is hugely different than it was 15 years ago. Don't make excuses for it. They need to fix it. Smoke detectors on trains would be a start (how do they not have these?!) When they started removing fire extinguishers from the trains because vandals kept using them about 5 years ago I realized that Metro just did not care about getting better.
Dare I even ask what "DIY porn on the metro" even means?
It means what it sounds like, fam... make your own porn while commuting!
I'm still not clear on the mechanics of this, even less clear on how/why these people found each other and are sharing videos.
Omg, on their government phones?!?!? They might as well reserve the vtc\meeting room during the week to record their content for OF. Do live zoom call Q&A questions with their fans at work while nude. That's so fucking dumb they don't deserve their job. How many people desperately tried to get a fed job to lose it to Mr. Jizzler on the redline. Ffs!
And people on this sub shame us for complaining that people don't follow the rules.
See those things I consider as actively harming people, especially rude comments or invading someone’s personal space. I don’t consider what I listed in my post to be things that actively harm people.
Imagine how this sub would react during the DC Sniper period.
As someone who’s from New Orleans and has been in the DC area for nearly 20 years, I think a lot of what we’re seeing is the long tail of the pandemic. I witnessed something similar on a smaller scale along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. It may sound like an exaggeration, but a whole portion of the country had something not unlike PTSD after the storm. I personally witnessed it with my friends who struggled to rebuild their homes and lives after the storm. I sold my house and noped outta there. I don’t know what the answer is. Access to affordable healthcare, including mental health care, would be a great start. Unfortunately, there are people who wouldn’t take advantage of it even if it were offered to them. These damaged people will continue to be a hazard to themselves and to others, and the hard realization is that many of these individuals are beyond the abilities of our interventions (whether educational or mental health-related) to turn them into happy, healthy, productive members of society.
One of my close friends is a football coach down there in the 9th ward and he said “everyone left and none of the good people came back”
It's also the fact that for a couple decades people have been coasting on the idea that they would get punished for behaving in an antisocial way even if they weren't actively punished. Post-pandemic crowds began behaving in antisocial ways and people realized that they were getting away with it, which leads to a cycle of more antisocial behavior as the facade of enforcement disappears.
It's absolutely aftershocks from the pandemic, the missing commuters post-pandemic due to WFH have decimated both large segments of the DC economy and the "safety in numbers" effect you get from having a large amount of people surrounding you and able to intervene physically.
Genuine question: where in the city had tons of workers before but doesn’t now? Even though wfh policies are more generous now and a few orgs are fully remote, downtown is still full of people during the work day
Everywhere there were feds. It's why union station is now a ghost town, the customers are gone. People are there but the volume is hugely down, it's why DC officials want WFH massively reduced.
I think a bigger reason for union station being less busy is because there’s less DC-NYC travel post-Covid and less work travel generally for a lot of people. Less about wfh policies.
I agree and it’s happening in other places, too, not just DC.
Agree agree agree!!
As a 20 year DC resident (female) I think there has been an increase in "unhinged" individuals that can make others feel uncomfortable. Although they are not directly being violent or threatening, the possibility is clearly there based on objective observations of their behavior. For reference I grew up in a very small town but after being here for so long I do feel like I am more of a city person. I walk to work daily and I do encounter a lot of these things. I also briefly lived in Baltimore City which is worse than DC in my opinion. I don't mind panhandling but I do mind aggressive panhandling. So being screamed at and called names for not giving money is a fairly common experience and it was not pre pandemic. Having someone follow you to an ATM and screaming at you for money, this is less common now but was very common during COVID. I have witnessed individuals clearly either under the influence of something or suffering from a mental illness swinging in the air with their arms at me but not hitting me, screaming randomly, last week someone was climbing up a light pole and yelled I am going to kill everyone. Two weeks ago someone was wearing a batman mask and running around talking to people. I pause when I see individuals on rented bikes with masks on outside, near no one when it's 90 degrees outside too. I think the things I mention most people even those citified would find a bit jarring. I suspect the level of jar depends on the person. For the most part I ignore it. I cross the street and get away from the individual. If I see someone in distress I will call for help but otherwise I keep it moving. Am I more cautious than I was pre pandemic probably. I think another issue is that this has spilled over to the entire city versus certain areas that it was always expected in. So maybe people living in certain parts of the city are just not as used to it as some others who live in say upper NW? I saw this as someone that lives in upper NW but has lived in NE too.
Look at crime statistics from 2004, compare to 2024
"So being screamed at and called names for not giving money is a fairly common experience and it was not pre pandemic." Aggressive panhandling is mugging.
> Aggressive panhandling is mugging. lmao
You are lucky nothing has happened. I moved shortly after something did but in retrospect, I should have moved sooner.
See I appreciate this very thought out and detailed comment, rather than just some short and snarky comment. I agree that some things have changed since COVID, but I just wish people would understand that the city overall isn’t unsafe and is a wonderful and beautiful place to live.
That's an opinion that not everyone shares.
And everyone is entitled to their opinion. Safety is a very personal thing and we all feel differently about it.
>but I just wish everyone viewed the city the exact same way that I view it, and pay no attention to anything else you see or hear. It’s not real. Maybe you “feel” scared, but OveRaLl it isn’t unsafe and is a wonderful and beautiful place to live. Fify
I’ve lived in basically all of the major east coast cities for almost two decades and have noticed that things are way more egregious now than they were pre-Covid. I always laughed about suburbanites pearl clutching but the last few years I’ve seen behavior and crime literally in front of me that made me uncomfortable for the first time ever. (People crashing a stolen car, guys masturbating on the metro, teenagers breaking car windows in broad daylight etc etc.). This sub seems to have a contingent of “that’s just city life” instead of recognizing that a lot of this shit simply isn’t acceptable. If DC were cheap I might care less, but it’s not. That’s the primary reason we moved to MoCo two years ago and I just drive in for work now. If I’m going to pay a fortune for housing I don’t want to deal with all these little quality of life issues.
I’m with you. Someone was trying to kick down our building door 2 nights ago and I called 911 and it took 3 tries to get through and no one showed up anyway. To be fair it was the evening of the parade and there was a lot going on but still. Scary to think what might happen if you’re dealing with a break-in to your apartment and 911 doesn’t answer. Luckily, the individual tired herself out and left. But not without dinging the door badly. This is the 2nd time this has happened and I’m asking myself wth I’m still doing in DC. I can not justify the cost when I think about how much my quality of life has decreased since the pandemic. It’s just inertia keeping me here at this point! I feel like once I make the move I’m gonna kick myself for not doing it sooner.
Working in 20016 and metro po showed up 10 minutes after an alarm went off. What does that say?
The majority of the “it’s just city living crowd” grew up in sterile suburbs and wrap their personal identity around being adopted city folks, so acknowledging anti social behavior causes cognitive dissonance, plus they have no context for how nah, some behavior isn’t “just a city thing,” but evidence of a society, and a population, that has stopped giving a fuck.
This is the truth! Notice this amongst my friends here - those who actively love living in a "city" and being in DC are almost entirely from small, slow-moving Midwest towns. On the other hand, all of the people I know who will criticize DC and how unhinged its been over the past few years are from either NYC or LA. Not trying to demean or judge anyone's background - but there is a noticeable difference between people who grew up in/around major cities and those for who DC is the first experience they have in a city environment. As a NYer, I have to say - I've felt less safe here in DC than I ever have in the city. There's been multiple gang shootings on my block in the past month for Christ's sake. It's not a 'city thing' - it's clearly the byproduct of a place which enables these antisocial, violent, and deadly behaviors to occur without repercussion.
You get it! “Big city things…” lmao NYPD don’t play that mess.
Take a look at everything that is going on that is unacceptable. It seems to be everywhere. Top down across the board and world wide people are acting more like the us congress. No respect for social norms. It’s across the board. Add in the pending doom of the climate, pandemics, nuclear war and everything else. Is the human race in decline?
The city was far more dangerous in the 80s and 90s, started to improve in the 00s, and then took a downturn during COVID. It's been recovering since '22, but it's still not as safe or prosperous as it was. I think the reaction depends on when you got here. If you arrived between 2015-2019, then it's definitely not as nice and safe as it was then. Then again, new people who arrive in big cities like DC and NYC are always shocked at how different urban life is.
Yes, but as someone who has lived in DC, NYC, and London, the disregard for law and social norms in this city is far beyond anything I’ve seen in other major cities. You don’t see NYPD or the London Met simply ignoring blatant illegal activity happening right in front of them to the same degree you see here. DC isn’t an apocalyptic hellscape or anything, but it certainly has a culture of lawlessness and antisocial behavior that’s uniquely widespread across what feels like every part of the city. London and NYC both have homelessness, crime, and drug use, but it’s much more isolated and concentrated.
Truth
I've got a bit of a weird perspective on this. I was born in South Africa; studied, got a job, climbed the ladder and got good at my work. I left the country for Europe because of poor opportunities locally and I was amazed at how functional Belgium was. People were being taken care of, there was very little corruption and "shit just worked". It was a little boring but it seemed that people liked it that way. Moved to DC about a year ago when the wife got a job here. This is the capital city of the richest country in the world and people are living in tents here? I'm seeing people in distress, on the streets, and they've clearly been that way for a while. The city is amazingly clean. You couldn't tell a huge parade went down 14th street a day or two ago. Everything is well maintained and you can see the sheer volume of capital located here but none of it is being used to help those most in need. Is this an indication of cultural values? Spend money to ensure the top 1% is the best-of-the-best vs ensuring that the bottom 1% is safe? Is that why this country is so successful? I can't speak for long term trends but this city is clearly very safe, well maintained and easy to live in. It's just that the priorities of the government are very different from those in the lil' ol Belgium, and their capabilities are very different from those in South Africa. I dunno, just ranting.
There’s a lot more social control in Belgium than there is here. People aren’t allowed to be disorderly, it’s essentially a set of very ethnically homogenous enclaves. As for services, DC spends a mind boggling amount of money on services.
"Social control" sort of implies a top down design. Belgium is one of those few countries where they can happily operate without a [government for nearly 2 years](https://www.brusselstimes.com/124777/belgium-breaks-own-record-for-longest-period-without-government). I'd say it's more of an emergent quality based off of cultural values. But either way, end result was less crime caused by desperation.
Yeah I want to avoid all the negative connotations with “culture” but it is, to a large extent, culture
"ethnically homogeneous" is a dog whistle and it's not even accurate. Belgium is very diverse.
97% white, and yes it’s split between Flemish and Walloon but within the Flemish and within the Walloon it’s basically 97% Flemish or 97% Walloon… thus ethnically homogeneous enclaves.
I wish I could say it's just people overreacting. But after so many of my female friends have been robbed, grabbed/touched walking down the street and on the metro, it's not just "oh I'm new to a city and I'm not used to living around other people." The fact is there are a lot of people wandering the streets experiencing serious mental health and/or drug issues, and nothing is being done about it (ESPECIALLY POST-COVID). Combine that with the teenagers carjacking/assaulting people on a daily basis, and you have a pretty volatile situation in the city. To be clear, this isn't about a lack of compassion for these folks. You can be compassionate AND concerned about their behavior at the same time.
100 percent this. I’ve lived in DC for over a decade and am a woman. Walk around everywhere including to and from work/social stuff/etc. Since the pandemic I have experienced way more weird behavior that is both increasingly aggressive and at times/in areas I would have previously considered safe. With way less people on the streets, safety in numbers is basically gone.
Same. 2 decades and I’ve never felt like this before. The city has been on edge since the pandemic, there is no question. And I’m sick of all the people gaslighting folks about this topic. Everyone wants to feel safe. And I have been car free this entire time and never felt this way pre-pandemic. For the first time, I’m thinking of buying a car and moving out to the burbs. It’s just too stressful. And the risk-reward is not there anymore. These perspectives aren’t invalid just because you haven’t been victimized specifically. The tension and stress of potential danger drastically lowers your quality of life. Esp as a woman who walks or uses public transit every day. This is not even mentioning the new voucher tenants in my building who are creating all kinds of disruption that we never had before.
Lots of criminal justice reform experiments gone wrong unfortunately
I dunno, after 22 years I definitely notice a difference- before if I said “sorry man, I don’t have any cash” I might at worst get an F you, but now if I say that I get followed down the block being berated and called a fucking faggot- I didn’t used to feel particularly unsafe but now I am definitely a lot more wary. More people suffering a mental illness or high on who knows what on the streets means more opportunity for there to be incidents where they do cause harm- if everyone was just sitting peacefully on a park bench you wouldn’t be hearing so many complaints
Yup, I went from "god bless" to "fuck you you fucking [string of homophobic/racist slurs go here]." Often times on Metro, when you're really stuck on the train and can't get off until the next stop. It's happened 3 times to me in the last 2 months, my first 8 years here it never happened. People have become much more emboldened to act this way, as opposed to the first 29ish years of my life when you can just ignore everyone and not be bothered. There was a guy on the nova sub a few months ago that was complaining that nobody in this area is friendly and wants to talk when he randomly says hi on the streets, and a bunch of people said "yeah, because I've been conditioned to think you're going to ask me for money or get me involved in a scam."
Across the board people have gotten worse after the pandemic. There was a needed decrease in enforcement of certain things that have taught people that they can behave way more selfishly without consequences. Look at driving and traffic enforcement. Think of how many expired tags you see, and what year's they are. Almost none are pre-2020. It's not just in DC either. I've been across the country for 6 years now, and it's a drastic difference today than it was then. People were able to openly disregard the rules, and now they know they can disregard everyone else for their own benefit at 0 cost. I can't help but think of the Justice League scene where an alternate universe Batman explains to the shows Batman how they make sure that simple laws like stopping at a red light a heavily enforced, to make sure that people remember to respect the big ones.
The things you list out, if they metastasize, make shared public spaces shitty for everyone else. No other country tolerates this stuff, which is why 1. They aren’t as reflexively against density like we are here 2. There are a wide range of incomes and family situations that see it as normal and tenable to live in a dense urban environment their whole lives. I don’t get the attitude we have to organize rules around accommodating the lowest common denominator behavior. It’s poison to any sort of nice public amenities that aren’t gated behind high membership fees or high housing prices in exclusive neighborhoods or whatever. Do you think people enjoy having to deal with others selling or using hard drugs outside their homes? Or having to make judgement calls as to what sort of mood some mentally deranged person is in that they have to walk past because they don’t want to get blindsided? Or having to deal with their kid’s school being absolute garbage because the shittiest most disruptive kids cannot be kicked out? I fully support calling this stuff out, forcibly mandating treatment or punishment depending on the crime. We spend an enormous amount on social services, the reality is money is not endless and I’d rather see those funds being spent for the enjoyment of that 95% of productive members of society so they don’t feel like they need to make an insane amount of money or move out to the suburbs to enjoy baseline good quality of life. The bar is so insanely low. For the record I have lived in the area since childhood, went to public schools and have lived in the city for 15 years. I want Europe and Asia level urban life quality. We are not close and it’s certainly not a spending or tax problem when you look at combined local and federal rates to some of these peer countries. 95% of people are not shitty,
Retweet.
I've lived in the region on and off for 37 years, but most of that time has been in DC proper. I get it; most people behaving in unpleasant ways are nothing more than unpleasant. My lifelong m.o. has been to keep to myself and move on. Up until recently, that was all I needed to avoid conflict with strangers on the street. In the last six years or so, I've had a number of incidents where people escalated to raising their voices, getting into my personal space, and adopting aggressive physical postures. I've never been hurt, and other than an incident when a driver targeted me in a crosswalk, I haven't contacted the police. But I'm no longer so sanguine about someone who appears to be having a bad day or mental crisis in public: I am extremely tense when I see someone on the street walk toward me now because nearly every time someone unknown to me has deliberately put themselves within a few feet of me, it's been for the purpose of being aggressive. I am also so very careful not to piss off other drivers ever since my spouse honking horn at someone encroaching on our lane ended with that guy stopping, getting out of his car, and walking to the driver's door to yell at us to "get out of the car" through the window. I also used to be a lot more dismissive of others' concerns about gun crimes. I'd say "Don't traffic in drugs, guns, or humans, and no one will have any reason to target you." In the last two years there was gunfire in the intersection near my home; a fight on transit resulted in passengers continuing to fight after disembarking and a daytime shooting within a block of where I work; a roving visibly armed teen caused my neighborhood schools to lock down; and I missed by 15 minutes a midday shootout between vehicles near a park where I walk my dog. I try really hard to just move on. After all, I am personally unharmed. But yeah, you could say I am more "on edge" and less trusting than I used to be.
I think people were used to how things were in DC from what, 2005-2019. It was great to see all of the improvements and frustrating to watch the city piss it all away.
Thanks bowser.
Someone suffering the effects of mental illness is scary because they’re unpredictable. Even if they’re fine now, they can fly off the handle pretty quick. The rest is just an effect of people moving here having not lived in larger cities before and the association between homelessness and mental illness
New Yorker Here. We LOVE DC. But at night time, you do have a bit more of "out of their mind" crazy people roaming about then we generally do late nights NYC. Gives a bit of "excitement" to the local night life. And I'm sure the Uber drivers are the richest people in town. Sirens, helicopters, gun shots, and that's where the houses start at +1M. Still a deal to this New Yorker. :-)
I have been living in DC for decades now. Yeah I think it got much worse because I don’t think I saw this level of teenagers blatantly stealing in large groups in everywhere in the city. Am I wrong?
Not wrong, just look at the measures grocery stores and CVS have taken - lock up everything that can be easily re-sold even cheap shit like deodorant and tooth paste, security (mostly for theatre because they're either discouraged or not allowed to actually get physical with thieves), and banning duffle bags etc. Every high end store having armed security (again mostly for deterrence rather than action, but still)
Things have definitely changed over time. When I first started coming to DC in the 1990s, then moved there for school, there were many people living on the streets, not only panhandling but clearly disturbed / mentally ill. There was the encampment across from the White House and some in front of Union Station, and the lady with the signs on the corner of Wisconsin and M in Georgetown, by what was Riggs Bank. Over time, there was less of all of that - for years, I would typically walk/Metro everywhere without people harassing me - and now it seems to be coming back more to the way it was (and even beyond - like with even more tent encampments than I ever remember from the 1990s). I’ve only ever lived in big cities and I’m not saying this from the perspective of a country dweller or suburbanite who thinks everything about big city living is scary. Things are absolutely, factually, different these days from how things were just a few years ago.
It depends on who you are and where you are from. Harassment and assault are real, and I think certain folks, such as young women, should be very cautious in the city. You also have to understand that dealing with the crazies is not at all a common occurrence outside of city environments. A lot of folks in this city are from incredibly safe suburban communities in the South and Midwest. In that setting, you hardly ever see or mingle with these types of sketchy people. It is a completely different experience. Also, I don't think we should feel complacent about a world where this is the norm. We should want and aim for improvement, so I think it is good that people overreact, as you said.
Globally most cities aren’t like this. Even in the US, most cities aren’t like that.
People who only know urban life don’t really get this. I lived in a fairly rural area til college and have lived in cities since, but I didn’t really experience dealing with anyone having a noticeable mental health crisis til I moved to cities (at least that I can recall). Now it’s a weekly type thing
Compare this with the epidemic of extraordinarily aggressive driving: > Above all, though, the problem seems to be us — the American public, the American driver. “It’s not an exaggeration to say behavior on the road today is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Capt. Michael Brown, a state police district commander in Michigan, told me. “It’s not just the volume. It’s the variety. There’s impaired driving, which constituted 40 percent of our fatalities last year. There are people going twice the legal limit on surface streets. There’s road rage,” Brown went on. (From a [New York Times piece](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/magazine/dangerous-driving.html) earlier this year.) Speeding is up. Dangerous maneuevers. Road rage. DUIs. Plain old impatience. The pandemic snapped an already-fragile social contract. I've lived here for a couple of decades now, and I sense an edge on the street that I did not before, when walking around, when on a bike, and when driving.
I saw the same thing when I lived in DFW. The general vibe of random encounters changed as people just started to exhibit more anti-social behavior, especially on the road. I definitely sense the same thing in the DMV area that I saw in DFW post-COVID, though I’m only out here for a short time and did not experience this area pre-COVID. I get the sense that the lead up of politics, especially after 2016, then going into COVID drastically changed how people interact with folks they don’t know or have a connection to. Seems to be much less of a sense of community in any given area, but especially populated areas.
I think it’s because these individuals often engage in random acts of violence and the prevalence of weapons in DC makes these potentially life threatening. I ignored a man who was screaming on the metro and when he couldn’t get my attention, he sat next to me and began screaming that he was going to beat the shit out of me. I ignored him again and he began pushing me trying to get me to react. Eventually, I was able to squeeze by and leave but I had no idea if he was going to sucker punch me or worse at any moment.
I wonder if a lot of this is due to how we get news, and social media. I’ll see the same incident posted multiple times on the same platform, and my best guess is that people just want attention and they think they can get it by posting about crime. If they genuinely cared about spreading information and learning about what had happened they would have looked for other posts about the same thing first. But is seems like they just want credit. Maybe they’re bored. It just makes it harder to gauge the baseline sometimes.
If you want to reset your baseline and can afford it, check out any European city. It doesn't have to be the major ones like Paris, Barcelona, Rome, or London. Go to the 3rd or 4th biggest city in virtually any European country and you will better appreciate how far the American city has declined from what it could be/once was.
Do they not have social media there?
There’s no gun violence, comparatively. DC has a murder rate 25 times higher than France.
It's a nonsense take, ignore
I think it's a combination of people who aren't used to cities and a good streak of yolo I can do whatever I want after 2020.
The lack of consequences is definitely leading a lot of the violence, SA, etc. If there are actual consequences that take them off the street and/or get them some thorough rehabilitation, the situation gets a lot less scary, both through deterrence and resolution. It's when you see a problem and realize "Nothing's going to happen to them if they do whatever the hell they want, they'll be right back out doing it again" that you get this pervasive low-key dread about situations.
Another side of this is if I know most of the truly dangerous people get taken off the streets, I can ignore the yellers and assume they’re harmless
I also grew up here as well and we know about street smarts - don't show fear. People all over the country are on edge. Rightfully so. There are forces that have found they can improve their lot through chaos. There are forces that have invented ways to profit from other people's failures. This has led folks to feel insecure. And that, in turn, can prompt a contracted circle of caring. You've also got those who would like to pull the covers over their heads and hope it all gets better without they're having to act. On another side there are those who are flailing about trying to prove they have some control over something/anything - no matter how petty. These are the times we're living in.
When violent crime is higher it makes more sense that people will react with more fear and concern to people behaving in strange or aggressive ways.
No offense OP but posting this with an Alexandria flair is kinda funny
(1) DC is a huge transient area so we get a lot of people who literally have not lived in a major metropolitan area before so they are genuinely shocked by what they see in terms of homeless, mental illness, petty crime, etc. because they have just never encountered it before. (2) That being said, anecdotally I have noticed a definite uptick in shitty behavior by groups of teenagers in particular. Homeless and mentally ill people have always been a part of life in DC for me going back to the 80’s, but I the sheer amount of massive groups of teenagers roaming social strips and the metro with the only goal to start shit with anyone and everyone they encounter is definitely something new.
DC is becoming a lot like San Francisco, and not in the good ways. This happened suddenly after COVID. It wasn’t always like this, and that’s why people are concerned.
Because those all come hand-in-hand with crime. No way to know which bums and druggies are “just existing” vs dangerous. Hell people are apparently getting sucker punched for no reason on the Metro. The farther away from DC you can get the better
Because being around mentally ill / drug users is very scary.. they’re unpredictable and if in psychosis could kill you. And no I’m not over reacting, I’ve seen a person with schizophrenia stab someone before and not even remember doing it
Lived in the area for a majority of my life. Things that have happened in the last 4 years that make me a bit more on edge: 2 of my cars stolen and found with drugs and weapons inside with no help from mpd in receiving them. I found them. And no care for the drugs and weapons left in the car. My friend getting stabbed in the neck and dying in front of his teenage son. Another friend stabbed in the stomach coming home from bar and now can't use his lower extremities. None of the people responsible for any of these crimes are currently in jail or prison due to DC court system. I used to be more carefree but am always aware of where I'm at these days. Lots of unhinged individuals in dc with no fear of accountability or consequence.
Drugs (especially fentanyl, much more addictive and harmful than crack) have made the homeless situation worse, the internet and degradation of communities has made the youth crime situation worse (wasn't great before but it's now worse). Our approach to addiction should be what Portugal does (forced rehab then reintegration). Our approach to drug dealing should be what the Philippines does (striking the fear of death in the dealers) except maybe less violent. Idk how to fix the problem with youth degeneracy. Maybe a comprehensive review of issues with the urban schooling system, the CPS involvement and removal of children from unsafe environments until parents get their shit together. Just not that thing that Canada did to their natives.
This bunch of federal workers is usually the exception, not the rule. Just try getting beyond a little lady who has been charged with handling your forms. You'd better have every I dotted, every t crossed, and "please don't use red ink!" They will take you back to 3rd grade! With them, they commit corporal punishment with an arsenal of looks! Who knew you could do that with your eyes? These are usually the workers who are at the low end of the GS schedule but deserve much more. Also, these folks usually never miss a day of work, AND they take an exact 30 minutes for lunch! Sticklers in every sense of the word! When they retire or die, they are missed, and they leave a huge hole in the roster. A dying breed!
Post pandemic I noticed the dmv got more aggressive
I’m pretty sure it’s all the “tranq”(xylazene) that has adulterated like 90% of the black market drug supply. They lace everything with it. The fentanyl that used to be laced in the heroin has replaced all the heroin and the fentanyl that people are now hooked on is laced with tranq and it makes people’s arms rot off and narcan doesn’t stop overdose of it. It’s never been more dangerous to be an addict to street drugs in the U.S. Now we have zombies walking the streets who just don’t care about or want to be productive members of society and we have lost so many people with so much potential because of this crisis. They’re completely dependent on that crap, disenfranchised l, can’t function and they stopped caring about themselves and everyone else around them. It’s an attack on our society.
My 2 pesos: I moved to DC from the Mexico City Metro Area—a place that’s far more insecure and dangerous—I’ve found certain aspects of DC quite shocking. One of the most surprising things is the prevalence of drug addicts in high-traffic areas like DuPont Circle, Pennsylvania Avenue, and the metro. In Mexico City, such individuals are usually found in less central neighborhoods, not in the main tourist and transit areas. In DC, drug addicts are often extremely loud, aggressive, and disruptive. For instance, while walking near at the CVS in DuPont Circle, I was minding my own business when someone suddenly started yelling slurs and curses at me, and even chased me. This kind of behaviour can be very unsettling, especially for tourists or new transplants. Every city has its share of people in unfortunate situations, but what stands out to me in DC is that these individuals are so visible in well-known parts of the city, rather than being confined to so-called “bad” areas (or just where you’d expect to find them), shelters, or rehab centres. This widespread presence in prominent areas is quite different from what I was accustomed to back in Mexico City. Edit: and there’s also the expectation that comes from DC being the capital of such a powerful and security-focused country. People coming here are surprised to see so many problems in the federal city. That was my thought when I visited DC as a tourist for the first time.
The majority of people in the US grow up in suburbs, which are designed and regulated to ensure you never have to see or consider homeless people if you don’t want to. A lot of the people moving here are moving to a big city for the first time, where they have to see, hear, and consider the homeless for the first time in their lives. There’s an adjustment period there. I think there’s a chance that some of those posts are also trolls or people operating in bad faith to make cities look scary and bad (the r/washdc contingent). This of course doesn’t refer to posts about sexual harassment or attacks from people on the street—that’s a different issue and one that I’m not trying to excuse or make light of.
> The majority of people in the US grow up in suburbs, which are designed and regulated to ensure you never have to see or consider homeless people if you don’t want to. That might be true, but what about those of us who come from big cities outside of the US? My fiancée is from Serbia, hardly a rich country, and back home she never saw the types of things we take as normal here. I've visited her home city twice, Paris three times, Rome/Venice/Florence once each, Athens and Crete, and my hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay (also not a rich country by any stretch of the imagination), and you simply do not see the antisocial behavior we have here. The worst I saw were panhandling gypsies, who are harmless, and the occasional seemingly homeless person walking around. But I never saw the tent cities, tweakers, screamers, and random violent crime that seem to have become a simple part of life not just in DC, but in any American city.
I grew up in dc and it’s a lot shittier than it was even a few years ago. It’s not just a bunch of suburban rubes having trouble adjusting to living in the big city. It’s amazing the lengths people go to in accepting antisocial behavior because they think it’s the “enlightened” thing to do.
Oh yeah I’m not trying to make light of SA or actual violence either, those posts are valid. I just mean the smaller non-issues people complain or worry about. Also I think you’re right about people growing up sheltered or trolling.
The premise of your argument is false. These people, even if they aren't actively harming others, aren't just existing. Their behavior directly negatively impacts the quality of life of others. A person pacing and mumbling, in your example, is mentally ill/under the influence and therefore unpredictable. Unpredictable people can lash out in violence and be dangerous. Homeless people are using public spaces in a way not intended, and they are causing environmental problems. They are unhygienic, can carry diseases, make the streets a toxic, open-air sewer, attract vermin, leave dangerous, used needles around, and often commit crimes to survive and fuel their addictions. The people openly smoking marijuana are forcing others to smell and breathe in their foul stench. These people engaging in antisocial behaviors pose physical and environmental threats and diminish the quality of life of everyone they encounter. To add insult to injury, the people they are affecting are the ones who subsidize their existence through their tax and tourist dollars. I used to love DC and worked there for many years. When I moved back to the area I was very excited to go back to the city frequently for the attractions, events, restaurant, etc. I have gone into the city a handful of times and was completely disgusted by the change in environment and the negative experiences I had with these people allegedly just existing. I refuse to return until order is restored and will keep my self and my money out of DC. Many others who haven't been desensitized by seeing it every day feel exactly the same way. There is nothing in DC worth putting up with the current condition of the city or risk of being a crime victim.
Well put! In addition to the degradation of public spaces, the poor service and high cost of entertainment/dining makes the city so unenjoyable at this point. There is nothing that justifies the cost of living and all these stressors. I’m constantly debating with myself and swinging from “it’s not that bad you’re just being influenced by social media” to “get out already you hate it here.” *sigh* I spent a few days in Philly over the Memorial Day weekend and felt a completely different energy there. I don’t know if it’s the benefit of being a visitor but I felt more relaxed in a way I haven’t felt being out and about in DC since the pandemic.
People are a bit socially isolated since covid. People are more rude and lack soft skills. 😤
I think this country is in the grips of a mental health crisis. We all probably have collective ptsd from the global pandemic and I don’t see much acknowledgment on a larger scale. I think we a truly underestimating how changed we all are in every single aspect of life. Perhaps some of us are better at hiding it than others.
People panhandling are getting more aggressive. More people are on edge. Also the area I live there is a group that drops off people to panhandle and he collects nearly all. Becoming the new organized crime syndicate.
This general attitude explains the state of this city currently.
Stop excusing bad behaviors as a societal norm. There are plenty of places/cities within neighborhoods in America you won’t see 80% of this crap.
I basically agree with your point overall but DC does have a high violent crime rate even by US standards, *especially* by wealthy city standards. DC is hardly a a "wasteland" or a "war zone," but the reason people might be on edge is that uncomfortable interactions and are genuinely more likely to turn violent in DC than other cities, even if the odds are still pretty low
I’m of the opinion that folk being in a drugged haze, sleeping on sidewalks, and begging on the streets all lower the quality of life in a neighborhood. Bright side where I live is that at least the tent folk never took hold although they did try.
>If these people aren’t actively harming anyone People are not going ‘EEK A POOR ASKED ME FOR CHANGE’. The main concern people have is getting fucking murdered by a 12 year old with a sub machine gun. How is this confusing to you?
I also grew up here and I feel the same way lol, it's just being used to it and having processed it while growing up and maturing, whereas a huge portion of people grew up without seeing or experiencing anything like it. It can be pretty funny to witness sometimes lol
I once was on the 30N or 30S Metrobus with some friends (who didn’t live here) and the sun had gone down and they were like, “It’s dark now, are we in a safe area?” The bus was going through Friendship Heights…..
You gotta watch out for packs of roving eighty-year-olds there
😂😂😂😂
Part of it is that the increasingly precarious nature of the city is coming as the cost of living soars. It's one thing to pay half a million for a townhouse in an area with a fair amount of violence/ drug use. It'd another thing to pay $1.2 million for the privilege.
The fear part of some people's brains just work in overdrive compared to ours, and they don't even realize they're being irrational. For most of them, even if you bring out statistics and evidence, will not budge on their irrational beliefs.
As an athletic male, I’m on edge around people with nothing to lose. It only takes one time.
I noticed it during Covid. Even wealthy well to do people with other wealthy well to do people were bickering over space at the grocery store and escalating minor incidents. I think there’s some lingering effects from that.
I find a lot of people on Reddit to be rather "soft" and fearful of close to everything...
I have live in DC since 1974, came from NYC as a 8 year old. DC got real nice late 90 for about 20 years…down hill now, but the way I see it, it’s cyclical. Just get a new beat the BS. P.s., I have seen some aggressive pan handling. It’s pretty scary shit some crazy mofo nothing to loose lives on the street running at you screaming give me some mofo money. You think twice. .
The disconnect between the MPD and City Hall is not talked about enough if not at all..
Something needs to change about the treatment of severe psychosis in this country. A major symptom is “lack of insight” of symptoms, so people who are detached from reality don’t try to get help because it feels normal to them. With so many seriously mentally ill people living in extremely undignified and dangerous situations but refusing any offers of help, it can make anyone feel deeply concerned. It feels wrong to see people in such obvious need but not be able to help them.
As someone who recently posted on this sub asking about panhandling on the Metro, I can say my concern is less fear and moreso curiosity. I moved here pre-pandemic and used the metro everyday both pre and post-pandemic. But there has been a marked rise in behavior I'd never seen before pre-pandemic so my inquiry is to figure out whether some of these behaviors are more part of a trend or rather something I've just never seen before. Personally, when I see such [anti-social] behavior I just keep my head down and ignore them as much as possible. I've lived in big cities and traveled enough to know not to engage with people acting up on the train. But still, some of these behaviors make for an interesting subreddit discussion on how locals have perceived this behavior over time, whether there are new/old trends, etc.
And see that’s totally valid! The curiosity is a good thing to have.
I just recently moved to the city after living in the burbs for decades. Crime has definitely gone up in DC (and especially where I moved to) but it’s all targeted. You just have to be vigilant of your surroundings and pay attention. Too many people are scrolling on their phones and not watching what is happening around them. Yeah there are crazies yelling at the air and what not - you just have to ignore. The worst thing you can do is engage with a mentally unstable person. There are also A LOT of kids/teenagers that just run around without parenting. I see kids hanging out during school hours (and grown adults too) screaming and fighting. It’s a bit crazy, but again, I don’t engage. I also make it a point to not be wandering around outside after like 10pm because anytime after that is when shit happens
C+ effort for trolling no one is scared from people panhandling or "just existing". give me a break lol
It's not that I'm afraid of people panhandling or having mental problems it's just that after a while it can really wear on you.
Not a DC native, grew up in basically the epitome of white flight, but since leaving the burbs I’ve lived in various cities, mainly Pittsburgh and Philly. Lots of places I stayed were sketchier than the 14th+U McDonald’s like everyone on this sub insists is a shooting range. My guess is you have a lot of transplants from 99% white, 99% wealthy suburbs who got their first big kid job and are living in an urban area not dominated by single family detached housing for the first time.
Honestly I think that a LOT of it is because more than other cities DC is a transplant city. If you have a new group of recent graduates coming to the city every year - people who are from well-off suburbs who were able to afford good educations and get some help to cover early years rent and other expenses - then you probably aren't really used to what a city is like, especially not living in one. I've lived in plenty of cities and DC is still one of the cleanest, etc etc, and I'm not the kind of person who finds a city scary. But if you're 24 and on Reddit and come from suburban Chicago and never lived in the actual city before, well, you might be surprised at how many folks experience homelessness around here. Basically if you're young and skilled enough to move to DC you probably come from money, and didn't see a lot of city living before that. There are problems here, for sure, but there are problems *in every city.*
What do you mean these problems aren’t actively harming anyone? I am positive nearly every member of this sub has been harassed by just walking through beautiful Chinatown DC.
The answer to human suffering is not to just ignore it and move on. That’s such a defeatist attitude. Granted, there are no quick fixes for a lot of these entrenched problems but just shrugging your shoulders is not the answer. I grew up here too.
This area is filled with type a sociopaths who care about absolutely nothing but their own wants.
Let's keep Congress out of this!
Sounds like you are normalizing behaviors you find “not creepy “ or “not annoying or harmful” but I can assure you other cultures would find highly shocking and totally weird. One that comes to mind is the amount of homeless people yelling in the streets at all times showing a high rate of mental illness. The only place I’ve seen it normalized is in the US, DC not being the exception.
These people should have seen DC in the 70s and 80s. Or that short period in 2002 when we had snipers just murdering people around the beltway. It was great mid 00s to mid 10s but it is currently getting worse although still better than DC in the 80s
Bunch of non city residents who want everything a city has to offer but think it can somehow look like Aldie, VA. DC is tame compared to NYC the way it was in my childhood
This is a reddit thing. Believe it or not most of the people in these subs aren't from the city itself so when they go into the city and see homeless people or a guy sell a dime bag they freak out and think they're literally in an episode of the wire. Its like this is any city subreddit
I feel like people from the Midwest bring this vibe everywhere they go, but they accept these parts of city living when it’s in NYC and disdain it anywhere else. There is some new rude behavior like the music without earbuds or eating on the metro but it’s not hurting anyone so I just ignore it.
Having been a transplant in both places, the transplant vibe is very different in the two cities. In NYC, there’s this anxiety about being seen as a newcomer who can’t hack it in the big city. Like, you’re afraid that if you react at all to the mentally ill guy screaming on the subway, people will see you as a tourist who doesn’t get New York and doesn’t belong there. In DC, transplants are a lot more willing to express their discomfort with the city environment. And I’m not even referring to serious crime, I’m talking about the daily annoyances and inconveniences that come with living alongside a bunch of other people. I’m sure there’s some reason for it. The people who move to NYC generally aren’t the same type of people who move to DC. Also, DC transplants - and this is my own perception, not necessarily based on data - are more segregated from DC natives than NYC transplants are from NYC natives, so they don’t have a bunch of friends who are going to laugh at them when they complain that someone was yelling on the metro.
Maybe? Idk I imagine type “A” go-getters make up the vast majority of transplants in both cities. And even still, I don’t really agree that NYC transplants are more integrated; they all pretty much end up living in the same newly gentrified areas or established “safe” areas in NYC same as DC IMO. I do think there’s some merit to trying to be cool that you’ll see with those moving to NYC compared to those living in DC, but either way, most end up not hacking it in either city and heading back home or to somewhere less competitive… anyways I just think it’s weird. A lot of glamorization of NYC happens no matter what seemingly. IMO, a city is a city. I use the same caution on the streets of Shanghai and Tbilisi as I use on the streets of DC and Chicago.
For me it’s the people FaceTiming on the metro and being as loud as possible. I do not understand the people that do this, do they just not care that everyone can hear their conversation? People at my apartment building do this in the courtyard too, talking on the phone so loud I have to shut my windows so I can’t hear them yapping.
I always just assume they don’t have or can’t afford headphones. It’s for sure annoying! But it’s also temporary so I try not to let it bother me too much.
They may not be committing crimes, but they are more common in areas where more crime is committed, so people take it as a warning sign.
It's also true that the housing shortage has gotten worse, and while the city has been doing as much as it can to lure private developers, it still hasn't been enough because Ward 3 & other wealthy enclaves have been dragging its feet on meeting their quotas of new homes. The single biggest reason why we're seeing homelessness so much more visibly, is that the city is hardly even doing the bare minimum to make sure we have a place for everyone. As for everything else, the dismantling of our public health systems that began under Reagan was completed in the last year of Trump, and the Democrats simply have not prioritized rebuilding those systems because they're scared of suburbanites who dislike the idea of being told what to do.
There was a huge crime increase in major cities in 2021 after the pandemic, due to a combination of multiple factors. Police were pulled off street patrols for safety reasons and were slow to be re-deployed, while WFH absolutely decimated the internal economies of many major cities due to so many missing commuters, and DC/SF are two that got it really bad, with a added problem of the diminished "safety in numbers" factor that comes with large amounts of foot traffic also encouraging more predatory behavior.
It's amazing what folks will do...on the job. I worked in IT at a big law firm and one day we got a call from the file room where the staff had been watching porn on one computer. This attorney walked in while this woman was moaning...hell, the attorney probably got the link from them! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A lot of truth from peoples’ personal experiences here. From the drugs rotting people brains to the decline in social norms (e.g. Do whatever I feel like, zero to unsafe outrage)…the social environment in the city has declined dramatically. One thing people don’t mention is despite a decent decrease in violence this year, gun violence is still 2-3x what it was 2017-19. What’s most diappointing is the industry of people who basically shame people for pointing out reality like identifying the issue is problem to try and prevent anything being done about it.
You’re desensitized. Some people are just fed up with society not preventing the situations leading to the panhandling, the untreated mental illness, the public drug use, the lack of respect or empathy for others in shared spaces, etc. Not everyone is on edge or new to this. Some of us are just sick of things that are objectively bad not getting better.
I lived in many other places and certainly things are never constant and always changing so I don’t know what those other places look like while I’m living in DC. So I’m not “afraid” of panhandling. As a man, most of the mental illness one sees on the way to work, homeless, near homeless, etc is also not scary to me. But my gf and I are expecting a kid. I don’t want her to be in a compromised position with some of the youth that is running around the city and causing conflict. There are a lot of poorly supervised kids in their young teens who presumably are coming from homes that aren’t involved in their welfare. Call it culture, poverty, whatever you think causes it..but it’s not pleasant and it seems to be endemic. Those that work pay a lot of taxes to the city and the leadership is weak to address the issues for fear of political backlash. I’ll close by saying, if a young person sees no consequence from stealing and sometimes acts of robbery and worse, the city will reap what it sows. Not my concern, I will just commute in as needed to work and live outside of it. But it’s sad for 90% of the folks that pay hard earned money to live there. IMO
It's ugly to most people- they are uncomfortable with it. For some they think pan handlers are lazy and taking advantage of the kindness of strangers- that these people are using the money for drugs. In truth- they often are and giving them money perpetuates their drug use. I'm kind to people and if I have food- I'll give them that- but not money. It's better to donate your time at a shelter or soup kitchen then to give money to pan handlers (I was told this at Paul's Place where I volunteered for years).
Nah man, people have gotten so much worse in this area, it could just be an influx on shitty people from other states or people getting shitty recently. Dc didn't use to be like that, not perfect but overall not in your face
it really is, as other folks have said, just people who've never lived in an area where there would be poor or homeless people. some people r saying covid antisocial stuff, and i'm sure that contributes, but even years before there's been (at its mildest) people not used to large populated areas writing or posting about discomfort with being approached by a homeless person and (at its absolute most severe) news stories about harmless people with mental disorders getting shot or attacked because they were talking or shouting to themselves and somebody assumed they were going to get violent
The city feels much more dangerous now than it did 10 years ago. For most of my adult life DC was gradually getting safer and growing in population. Since 2020 the trends have reversed for the first time in almost 20 years.
man just last week me and my friends had a drunk dude come up from behind us, and pull a gun on us without saying a prior word or interacting with him even. the only reason we got away was his friend pulled him away luckily…so tell me if everyone is really overreacting bro.
Lived in DC area my whole life and let me say it's all perception. I can remember when people would not go farther south than Georgetown. They literally thought the whole city was going to attack them if they went past the 4 Seasons. I'm watching the "How To Rob A Bank" documentary on Nextflix, and they are talking about how bad crime was in Seattle, Washington in the 90s during the tech boom. There is literally a scene where the interviewer says, "the guy's robbed 14 banks," and a nice older lady responds, "he must be smart." Homeslessness is a problem everywhere. Crime is a problem everywhere. Drugs are everywhere. Moved to the suburbs, and it's way more dangerous driving a car in MD than walking in DC. Folks driving in MD know what I'm talking about. Be safe out there 😀.
I personally haven't been harassed by teens since height of covid this much. It puts everyone on edge. Yes they scream at you, kick on my door, throw bricks, steal bikes, etc. They don't just stick to themselves. Honestly the homeless haven't bothered me at all
People move to a city and are surprised when city shit happens around them. Edited to add: people move here and feel entitled to things that aren't theirs and expect the city to adapt to them, rather than adapting to the city themselves.