The truth? Well, here goes.

I've lived in Philly for over 8 years and have travelled around the world, including China.

During my time in Philly, I have never been the victim of a mugging, physical assault, or even a pickpocketing. Meanwhile, I've been pickpocketed in Europe and drugged and robbed in Manila.

All that said, I lived in Center City and that made a lot of difference. A friend of mine who has lived in just about every other section of Philly except the Northeast has been the victim of numerous muggings. It's gotten to the point that we joke that he attracts those people. A lot of your experiences will depend on where you stay and what areas of the city you visit.

As noted previously, a lot of the crime in Philly is between 2 people who know each other. I'd say, compared with Europe and some other areas of the world, you stand a much less chance of getting pickpocketed as long as you stay in the so called "good areas" of the city (Center City, parts of University City, Manayunk, etc.). Once outside those areas, I'd say a lot of it depends on whether you look like you belong or not. It's sad to say, but much of Philly outside of the "good areas" is racially divided, meaning that someone of a different race venturing into those areas will be seen as an outsider and thus more vulnerable to people who are up to no good (since they know that the outsider likely doesn't have friends nearby). That was the fate of my friend (the chronic mugging victim) since he's taken to living in areas of the city where he was the only person of his race and people just assumed that he was lost.

As for violence in the US in general, I don't think the US is really any more violent than any other society. It is just that the violence tends to involve guns a lot more and thus homicide is much more common. As far as US cities are concerned, I think statistics show that violence is actually more prevalent on a per capita basis in rural areas and smaller cities in the southern US than it is elsewhere in the country. A lot of that has to do with three things: (1) the prevalence of guns (which is much mroe part of the culture south of the Mason-Dixon line); (2) poverty (the South being more poor); and (3) lack of education (schools in the deep South are consistently rated as being among the worst in the country).

Unfortuantely, these same three factors (prevalence of guns, poverty, lack of education) tend to be prevalent in some of the major cities in the northern US even when the North, overall, has less violent crime. Why? Because many cities of the North grew large on industrialization and when that declined, many people moved away to other areas or to the suburbs. The inner cities emptied out and the people who remained tended to be poorer people who couldn't move out and poverty leads to frustration which often leads to violence. Also, beacuse of the disinvestment, schools became worse and worse.

Cities like Detroit are shining examples of what can happen when a city empties out. Philly is kind of a weird hybrid. People have called it "a little bit of Boston surrounded by a lot of Detroit" and that description generally holds true. The central part of the city has held up well and people have generally not left it to move elsewhere. In fact, people have been moving in. As a result, violent crime is relatively low on a per capita basis. Other areas of the city, however, have followed the model of Detroit and have suffered severe population decline. As a result, the factors ahve worked to make those areas have a high level of violence per capita.

Unfortunately, many of the major schools in Philly are either located within the bad areas (Temple) or on the edge thereof (Penn and Drexel). So my recommendation is to realize that, the closer you are to the center of the city, the better. If you are at Temple, see if you can live closer to the center of the city and commute to Temple. If you are at Penn or Drexel, realize that the area is fine but be street smart and notice that the further east you are (closer to the center of the city), the better off you will be.