Is South Korea Becoming Too Dangerous? Seoul’s Dodgiest Neighbourhoods
Seoul has a pretty good reputation as one of the safest cities in the world. But its ranking in the Safe Cities Index has dropped from 8th in 2019 to 25th in 2021. Here’s why.
Seoul is, by and large, an extremely safe place. Koreans take pride in that fact and my mum, when visiting a couple of years ago remarked constantly how safe she felt walking the streets alone; much safer in fact than she would have in London.
But is the façade slipping? Well, it is if you pay any attention to lists like the Safe Cities Index, published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). It now ranks Seoul as the 25th safest major world city down from 8th in 2019. The most surprising stat was a fall in the ‘personal safety’ rating, which has plummeted from a world-beating 87.5 in 2019 to a worrying 69.9 in 2021. Granted, it’s often best to take lists like this with a pinch of salt- the world’s “happiest country” is supposedly Denmark but every time I’ve visited, I’ve been met with a certain kind of Nordic joylessness I’d be hard-pressed to identify as ‘happy’. So these lists are somewhat relative. Still, in rankings mad Korea, the drop down the leaderboard is sure to lead to discomfort among onlookers.
