Urban fear myths persist among lifelong city dwellers despite disconfirming experience

Evidence

My mother is so fearful of the city. She’s fearful of the Italian section because the Italians live over there and she’s fearful of the taxi cab drivers because everybody knows … [laugh]. She’s all for these myths built up and yet she’s lived in a city all her life. She was always fearful of having my sister and I go into the downtown area, because everybody knows that young girls are carried away into white slavery [laughter] … I always wanted to break away because they held on to me more tightly. And because I wanted to break away, I was always doing what they didn’t want me to do. And so I tried to experience it for myself. I was once in the downtown area by myself and nobody, never once was I carried off into white slavery. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 576

Categorization

• XREF: The fear-based mapping of ethnic sections (Italian quarter, taxi drivers) parallels Cole’s unmoored urban observer and Lofland’s argument that strangers inspire suspicion even without evidence.
• CANDY: The punchline — ‘nobody, never once was I carried off into white slavery’ — is a witty, self-contained anecdote about disproven urban panic.