[ATL Urbanist]

This is a topic I was just talking about with my wife recently.

A couple of years ago, we were living in a townhouse in Midtown Atlanta where we were starting to feel a little unsafe due to some criminal activity happening in the area. Having a door on the ground floor that could, I assume, easily be kicked in was making me feel insecure.

For unrelated reasons, we ended up moving into a high rise condo. It has a 24 security desk, key fobs required for the elevator and a security code for the stairwell. After a couple of months in the condo, I started noticing that my night time routine was less stressful because I wasn't going back to check the lock on the front door a 2nd or 3rd time to make sure it was dead bolted.

Whatever the statistical reality is, I certainly feel safer at night in the high rise. It's just been kind of a piece-of-mind helper for me.

Jasoncw above makes a good point: there probably wouldn't be much of a difference in the feeling of safety between a detached house in low-crime neighborhood vs. a high rise.

But when it comes to living intown in my city near transit, parks and jobs (my preference for location), the detached houses in low-crime neighborhoods tend to be priced only for the richest.