So much for peaceful, rural areas.
I wasnt implying that rural areas are completely peaceful, quiet and law abiding. Crimes happen anywhere there are people. In general rural areas are less crime prone that cities. I have lived in rural areas where the police actually investigated when a driver put tire ruts across a lawn and caught the criminal! That county also had the occasional bank robbery.
I seldom heard a siren in Crawford County. Here in Newport News it is so common I generally dont notice them unless Im driving.
I think rural areas have been more peaceful -- but it depends on who is moving into them and from where. Many of the farmworkers are coming from the slums of Mexico City or Juarez -- they never did farm work before in their lives and many see drugs and crime as a better way of getting money than hard work. The hard working farm workers tend to come from the more rural regions of Mexico where they've always worked hard and don't mind physical hard work --- but that's not all of them.