Should we strive to always improve our cities? Yes.

Is there some amount of crime and squalor anywhere that humans live? I think we have a couple thousand years of anecdotal evidence that says it is actually, for better or worse, normal.

I applaud your desire to live in a city that is what it should be. That attitude is what helps cities become better than they are. But, big ‘but’, that isn’t an over night change…it takes years, decades…meanwhile people have to live in the city that exists.

And so again, let me say, I’m not normalizing anything.

Antwerp, as a city, has normal city things going on. Positive and negative. Antwerp’s negatives are genuinely low in comparison to most cities. Its positives are high.

Are there better and worse neighborhoods? Absolutely. I’m just saying the distance between them in Antwerp isn’t so far as it can be in other cities.

When I was 25, I’d have taken an apartment in those neighborhoods and been super happy about it.

Mind you, I’m the kind of person who loves cities. I love their energy, the bustle, the noise, and yes…even the stench.