Halloween was a few weeks ago but it is a good place to comment on an interesting urban creation.
Several people commented on the fact that Halloween today is not like the Halloween when they grew up. The difference is that they went door-to-door with other kids in their neighborhood.
Today in large cities kids go to specific neighborhoods where all of the kids congregate and jointly go trick-or-treating with adults out in the street. In one neighborhood near me there are well over 2000 kids and a few hundred adults every Halloween. It is safe and fun for everyone. The entire neighborhood is decorated and the kids and adults are wearing fancy costumes.
This is the way the urban world has adjusted to the incrediby high crime rate of the 1980s that extended into the 1990s. Today's way of celebrating Halloween is a vestige of our solution to that high crime era.
Of course I cannot fail to mention something that most people remain blind to. We have a hereditary permanent black underclass that is illiterate and innumerate with a high proportion of criminals. It constitutes half of our crime problem today and indefinitely into the future.