Wasn't Western Mississauga Safer Once?

I know I'm not alone in saying I'm saddened by yesterday's stabbings at St. Joseph Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga. For those of us who went there, we remember fights and drugs and prostitution, but it never reached these heights. I hate to say it seems that times are changing, and there was a time when these sorts of things simply did not happen in our backyards. I could sit around and contemplate which precise factors in our neighbourhoods have made this sort of thing possible, but what's the use? What's done is done.
Somebody lashed out at me last week for thinking that Mississauga is some Shangri-La, some amazing city where no wrong ever happens. I found it amusing, mainly because I talk enough about wanting to move to the country, to Peterborough or Port Hope or Acton or Northern Burlington (if I must stay in the city), and in general about wanting to get the hell out of Mississauga. The allegation was entirely misinformed, and I may have been insulted if my accuser was not quite simply ignorant through and through - no better can be expected of such people. Regardless, I could bring on the social commentary in response to the new violence in our neighbourhoods, but I'd rather not. I'd rather leave, and hope that the world doesn't find me wherever I go. I'm sad to say it probably will.