Neil, Thanks for the response. Your impressions are quite different than mine, so it is interesting to hear your perspective on this.

In my case I don't worry much in either environment, but in the mile or two ride from my house before I get to relatively rural roads I am more likely than not to pass a crack head. I am used to being around hard cases and in rough neighborhoods. I spent enough of my life in such places to feel relatively at home. For whatever reason in most situations the low-life types tend to treat me like a peer. That probably doesn't say anything good about me

FWIW: I always thought Baltimore was a much worse town for crime than St Louis, but on checking I find... Baltimore is number 2 for murder rates in the US (second only to Detroit), but St Louis has a substantially higher overall violent crime rate and property crime rate.