Right now I am considering moving back to my hometown, stay closer to family and feel a more peaceful life. I read interesting arguments and useful reasoning in the answers. I googled the topic. My personal experience. The link below brings interesting and some contra intuitive data.
Check numbers of violence in the State of SP. For non Portuguese-speakers, the colors and numbers are didactic enough to understand. It is important to be aware that official numbers of violence in Brazil mostly lack precision, given the fact that not all offended people register they were victims of crime.
So, an alternative hypothesis to this view is that, more populated and structured regions have more precise numbers than farther, smaller regions, leading to misconceptions. Paulo Data says the region of SJC is not really the safest, in fact, it is safer than the Capital, safer than the cities around SP, or SP metropolitan region, safer than the south coast including important city with biggest port, Santos, and safer than Campinas Region, also very populated and powerful in economy.
The more you get to the interior of the State of SP, lower are violence rates. The more populated the region is, higher are the violence rates, these data reveal. But SJC is not a violent city at all. Indeed, googling I discovered it has innovative policies to protect its inhabitants. I read, violence in the region of SJC is closely related to it being this connection between SP and RJ, and crime is mostly drug-related and organized.
I spent my childhood in a neighborhood at the border between urban and rural SJC, in a tiny group of bigger and richer houses along two streets, surrounded by one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city, but I never felt unsafe to play on the streets in the and My house was never robbed, but most neighbors actually were.
