What you describe here is not at all unique to your area. I work at a university and the kids there do that too. A lot cross the street with their faces glued to their phones and laugh when they almost get hit by a car. They walk down the steps like that. They ride bicycles or skateboards like that. And these are middle-class kids, not the rich ones in your area. Lots of social media addicts there too.

So you're in the sprawl area of Silicon Valley, that sure explains a lot. Almost all IT people, even the low-level ones who fix computers in schools and universities, have a real nastiness about them, along with a Social Darwinist outlook. My sister is one, and a cold-blooded narcissist to boot.

I don't think that there is a such a thing as a safe city, but that cultural climate breeds the very worst in humanity from the haves and have-nots alike. The haves might have material abundance, but their behavior clearly shows that they're every bit as emotionally and spiritually impoverished as the people living on the streets. People who are forced to live in such appalling conditions like those slums absorb the messages that they belong there, no one welcomes them, what they have inside is reflected by what's outside, and so on. I've lived in some crappy and dangerous areas and it had a huge impact on my self-esteem, and that was in an apartment, not on the street. I know what it is to live without hope, and to think with a survival brain. The problem is that very few of our leaders have any clue, and worse, don't care to know. That's a major reason I support the candidate I do: his own husband has had rough times in his life, survived repeated abuse, and spent time homeless.

Modern paths to success demand pretty extreme levels of narcissism to get anywhere. I've noticed that a lack of narcissism is so often misinterpreted as a lack of confidence or even a lack of worthiness, while leaders are chosen based on their own overinflated view of themselves and their competence. And we wonder who we got to where we are now? Without a major seismic shift to our culture, the same problems will keep on happening over and over again, and get worse each time.

Thanks for the info about the UK system, it's a valuable model worthy of emulation.