Spending most of my early adolescence in Seoul, one of the safest megacities in the world, I grew up believing that safety was a default setting of urban life. However, when my family moved to New York City, that assumption was quickly challenged. NYC was framed to me not only as a place of opportunity or culture, but as a city where I needed to survive. From the moment we arrived, our family friends warned me to be cautious at night, not to wander too far, avoid certain neighborhoods, and...