China, Korea, Japan, has some of the largest cities in the world and violent crime is extremely rare in those cities. Crime was never on my mind when I lived in Tokyo. “Big cities” isn’t the cause.
My friend is in Japan right now and we just had a discussion about how shame is a tool of social control. I was even reminded of the old 80's introduction of the concept of "toxic shame". Obviously a lot of Westerners have no shame and are proud that no one controls them and will declare it loudly to your face.