whatchoo sayin' about my neighborhood, homeslice?

[chronovore]

Worst Place to Live in Japan: (warning: linked page is mildly NSFW)

The above is a screencap (note: not included to avoid hotlinking) from a TV program with a list entitled "statistics which show the reality of Osaka." The figures show that Osaka comes out tops (worst) out of all the cities in Japan in the following categories...

* Theft
* Car vandalism
* Murder and other violent crimes
* Number of homeless
* Death by Cancer
* Number of offices declining
* Unemployment rate (2nd worse)
* Bankruptcy rate (2nd worse)
* Number of primary schools that don't serve food
* National learning proficiency test
* Child abuse deaths

Even so, with all of that against it, it still feels a lot safer here than in the USA.

Comments

[sdemory.livejournal.com]

Part of it's probably the fact that you live in it, and you haven't been rolled, kiled or laid off. You feel safe because you've been safe... other than your nephew getting rolled, things have been pretty mellow.

We must also acknowledge the fact that statistics are bullshit and easily manipulated. There's a wealthy county in Kansas that has no STDs. None. Never reported one to the Kansas board of health... because they don't have an STD clinic and send people with STDs to the WT county to the east. Not saying that Osaka's particularly ghetto (although I do recall hearing a reference to "All my niggaz in the Sock, bangin' and slangin'" in a song a while back), but your municipality may not be cooing the books as much as some.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Statistics ARE horseshit, depending on the agenda of the presenter/organizer. And as you point out, there are HEAPS of ways to ignore critical facts in a way which supports the presenter's argument.

And the thing about my nephew, yeah, that was not just relevant because he's my nephew, but because it was SO out of the blue. At the time I presented it as The Decline of Japanese Society, but I still wonder how much of this is Japanese media learning from the west about how to get the general populace worked into a good fear state so they'll agree to restrictions on personal freedom.

[nattotastic.livejournal.com]

Hey, did they ever catch the guys that rolled your nephew? I hope they let your family "talk" to them privately in a locked room at some point.