northern towns are usually more dangerous and don't have guards to protect players as muchi always make my way to NCR first and farm there for a good while-guards everywhere-lots of people-easy to kill brahmin-close to mining ore/mineral-workbench, bank, trees, junk bins in towni usually only die if i run into rocket/minigun guys that are passing through the wild areas outside town -> rare to die unless i don't run from all enemies
and the 5 minute cooldown to get 5 minerals...bring a brahmin to the mining area, that way you can get an infinite number of stuff on it.