But the argument is that Bangladeshi villages are more peaceful than American inner cities, despite being vastly poorer, because of cultural reasons. It’s almost as if America has a more traditional culture in the past—when it was poorer than today—and then there were massive cultural changes around the same time crime started skyrocketing.
I do want to throw in an alternative. Is it cultural, or are we all disconnected from the communities we live in because we now all view our communities as existing online? People used to be able name everyone who lived on their street and knew where they worked and a little bit about them. I have a feeling this is becoming a lot more rare. And it isn't so much of culture, but of becoming disconnected with the communities we live in. The Bangladeshi village is having BBQs with neighbors, not sitting on the couch doom scrolling twitter or consuming hours of tiktok videos.
Because people know their neighbors personally, they are less likely to steal and more likely to intervene when they see someone they don't know snooping around someone else's property. Or hell, even know who lives in the house.
I think that's partially true, at least for the people who have motive to steal. But generally, you go to a different neighborhood to steal, not your own. It's not hard to go a couple blocks to where you don't know people, and more importantly where they don't know you.
But then you ignored the other part. When you know the people on your block, you know who should and shouldn't be there and will probably be more likely to intervene is you see someone you've never seen before walking around Billy Bob's house while Billy Bob's car isn't there.
