First place = highest crime. 261st place = lowest crime.

There are parts of every urban area that are bad as Detroit and other areas that are fairly safe.

In any case, most of the urban areas actively manage their crime statistics by various means so that they are not as meaningful as one would hope for.

Reading anything into them as a survival tactic is not going to be as helpful as one might hope. Raw numbers like this just do not tell you anything useful.

You cannot really depend on being safe in areas considered safe either. An acquaintance of mine was murdered about 10 years ago in a well to do area that had virtually no crime, and there has been very little crime since in that area.

There are some Google maps that have been put together by various entities that show where crimes have occurred. The maps show clusters of crimes that make for good information on what areas of town to avoid.

Thanks for clarifying, Bing, but you missed my point. (I added your original quote to clarify a little further.) Regardless of which is the high end of scale, 246th isn't 1st or 261st, so "New York is America's safest big city by a mile," is an exaggeration.

I don't belabour the point to argue about how safe NYC is or isn't, or even how best to interpret the stats. We could do that all day and accomplish nothing but tick off everybody here by further sidetracking this thread.

My point is don't take the news, or even statistics, at face value. The same goes for what you need or how to prep or carry for EDC, GHB, BOB, etc. The OP has already received conflicting information about defensive weapons, as an example, demonstrating the need to wade through it all to figure out what works best for him, instead of getting caught up in endless debates about which is the best whatever.

My simplest advice is to do your research. Get advice and opinion. Be discerning. Listen to your experience and your gut. Remember that other people's prep lists may not accurately reflect your threat assessment, even if you live/work/commute through/visit the exact same city.

Now, back to the "30 uses for a bandana" post, where is a good place (online probably) to find large good quality (printed on both sides preferably, hemmed all the way around) cotton bandanas? Looking at all of mine, I think they are on the smallish side. And they are all about 500 years old. Time for some replacements I think.

LOL! Thanks haertig!

Great question!

I've been pondering the bandana question myself. About two years ago I discovered "Buff". They're those bandana-like things they use on the TV show Survivor. It's one piece of fabric that's cut in a tube instead of a square. I've added one to my kits, but not removed any bandanas.

You can use them for many of the same uses as a bandana, but I've noticed these key differences:

-buffs work better as clothing (I.e. a head wrap) than a bandana because you don't need a knot. You just slip it on.
-buffs don't work as well as a sling because the material is thinner and stretchier than a regular cotton bandana. To get the support you need for a sling, you need to pull it taught, which makes it more constricting. Of course, that might be a good thing too sometimes.
--also, because some applications need a bigger piece of fabric, (i.e. a signal flag) you might need to cut it to make it work. Then again, in an emergency situation, who cares.
-buffs are more expensive than bandanas, at least brand name retail. I'm thinking of making my own out of one of my daughter's onsies.

I just started looking around online (Amazon, etc.)

From what I have researched, a "good quality bandana" is defined as

27"x27"
100% cotton
hemmed on all four sides
printed on both sides

So far, I haven't found any that posses all four of these traits. I'll keep looking...

Thinking back to that sewing machine thread, maybe I can just go to a fabric store and buy the material and thread to make some myself. I haven't sewed in many years, but a hem is pretty basic to accomplish.

All I've seen are smaller ones, likely just like what you have, and then up to a shemaugh or pashmina.

I've never had the stomach to watch even one episode of Survivor, so I have never heard of a "buff". I think I'd like a regular bandana better, but I will check out these newfangled buff things just to see what they are...

I was thinking the same thing. I have a plaid cotton shirt that fit me while I was pregnant but is too big now. I think I'm going to hack that up and give it a go. An old bed sheet would probably work well too.