Some tangential thoughts:

I assume this is an exaggeration since it is coming from a fellow forum member. We are always prepared, after all, for anything from power outage to alien invasion. But I have come across people who were actually afraid to go to not just the especially bad areas of these locations, but these locations themselves. (As many of you know, DC, LA, Chicago, etc. can be quite safe and comfortable.) I wonder whether it was because they grew up in small towns, and they just never picked up the sort of common sense that any inner urban 10-year-old would have. As a consequence, they can't tell safe from unsafe, and everything looks scary to them.

If this theory is correct, is there a way to teach urban survival skills? Some guide books offer rigid advice that borders on the ridiculous, or so I've heard. This sort of "common sense" seems to be more fluid and dynamic, and cannot be codified easily and distilled into words or rules. The biggest asset seems to be how to tell when something isn't right. To me this seems like a skill that has to be acquired from experience and exposure. Maybe the "computer" for this skill really works at the subconscious or intuitive level. In other words, just as a city slicker can easily get into trouble in the outdoors because he can't recognize dangerous weather changes, can't start a fire, etc., so an outdoorsman can get into trouble in the city.

So what do you guys think? Teachable skills or not?

Da Bing