The “bad part of town” is somebody’s home, with somebody’s grandma on the porch.

Labels for neighbourhoods get repeated by people who have never been in them, and they flatten several thousand lives into one adjective. Inside the same few streets there are kids walking to school, people who have lived there sixty years, somebody sitting outside watching the afternoon. The label travels much further than the truth.

Notice who taught you which areas to avoid, and whether they know anything first-hand. You do not have to be reckless about where you go. You can stop repeating a description of somebody’s home that you have not earned.