Certainly back to Hoovervilles and Shantytowns. America was even more of a violent country then than than it is now. But from 1946 or so, right after the Second World War, through around 1963, America was about the most financially prosperous nation on earth.
Again though, this doesn't mean things were perfect or even close. It never is.
Not Sweden but its neighbour Denmark was in t( news yesterday. It was sad to see that the Prime Minister was attacked in the street. I was in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. It's not somewhere you'd expect to see trouble like that.
Jeg ogsaa, men Kobenhavn er blevet farlig. In '86, Olaf Palme was assassinated in Stockholm and now this in what many once considered the most peaceful metropolis anywhere, certainly in Europe!