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individual_328 t1_istozmg wrote

Reply to comment by IllustriousAd3838 in Nice and safe areas in Berkshires? by IllustriousAd3838

It is absolutely subjective. The number of innocent victims of violent crime by strangers is vanishingly small damn near everywhere. What people usually mean by "safe" is "do my neighbors look scary", and what they really mean is "are they poor or brown skinned".

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IllustriousAd3838 OP t1_isu4r4u wrote

No, but... can my child play at the local parks without me having to pick up needles... Will my car and house get broken into to fuel heroin habits? Is fentanyl going to be something I have to worry about? Western mass is a highway for a lot of trafficked drugs. You can almost draw a straight line from where it originates from in Mexico to Quebec.

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JaKr8 t1_isujj76 wrote

This is a highly unlikely scenario. But Rutland Vt was/is known as a major trafficking point.

We worry more about bears in season than anything else...

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individual_328 t1_isubd9u wrote

Yeah, all the parks in the Berkshires are chock full of junkies haphazardly tossing needles all over the place. That's totally a real thing you should be very worried about. People don't rake leaves this time of year, they rake needles.

And don't even get me started on the dangers of fentanyl. I heard about this one guy who became an addict just by being in the same building as fentanyl. It's that bad. Fentanyl can kill a grizzly bear at 100 paces. Fentanyl slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. All those youtube videos and facebook posts are completely true and you should spend your entire life utterly terrified of absolutely everything.

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IllustriousAd3838 OP t1_isudhjl wrote

Well, that's why I'm asking... Furthest west I've lived in Mass was Lawrence. I've also lived in Portland Maine and Cape Cod where this is an issue.

Pittsfield is in news all the time for drug field crimes, and since that's fairly close to the area I'm considering I'm curious as to how much of that leeches out

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individual_328 t1_isv2wpp wrote

I suspect answer for you is that you would feel unsafe in most of northern Berkshire county. Note that you would not be actually be unsafe. But even in the nicer towns and best neighborhoods, you'd need to go into Pittsfield or North Adams to get groceries and stuff. You would see people panhandling, maybe a run down building. You'd know that there are homeless encampments out there, somewhere, too close for comfort. If you think there are problems on the Cape or in Portland, you certainly aren't going to like driving down Tyler St.

Now if you go to south county, you will likely feel very safe. Everything is quaint and idyllic looking. All the bad stuff will (allegedly) be up north, far away. You can even cultivate a hyper-local disdain for the less-than inhabitants of Lee and Housatonic.

Note that you will not actually be any safer in south county. You might even be less safe. People seem to get run over in Great Barrington pretty frequently. You're much further away from the region's only real hospital if you have a medical emergency. I can assure you there is plenty of opiate addiction there too, just like everywhere else. But you will feel safe.

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8bitAdventures t1_isuniq7 wrote

Almost all of those crimes in Pittsfield happen in a few specific neighborhoods.

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anxiouscolon t1_isv8d56 wrote

Yeah, you're going to hate Western Mass. Better stay in Boston where it's nice and safe.

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IllustriousAd3838 OP t1_isv9fks wrote

I never said I was in Boston... Or was from Boston?

Apparently it's a crime to want a safe and quiet town... With good schools, and a low crime to raise a family. I imagine as a father, this is something we all want for our children, no?

Why can I not ask simple friendly questions, without getting lambasted?

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