"bad" neighborhoods

[treelizard]

Since most martial artists scoff at statistics, I was wondering if y'all could tell me how you determine what is a "bad neighborhood." Sleazy bars? How many homeless people live in your dumpster? How often you hear gunshots and how close they sound? How often helicopters circle over your house?

[Tant01]

If you live near apartment complexes chances are good that you'll have cops visiting your area regularly. If there are a high number of low income people in your neighborhood chances are good that you'll have a druggie culture too. If you have drug users in your neighborhood chances are good some of them have guns. If you have poor drug users with guns in your neighborhood, MOVE...Gangs are probably a growing problem there. Dumpster divers visit regularly looking for recycle stuff but I shred all personal mail and bills/ recipts for security...

Circumstances prevent me from relocating but I live in a townhouse apartment complex. My neighbors grow weed in their garage. The guy across the way shot his brother in law a few years ago... A friend of mine was stabbed in the heart a few years back leaving a nearby 24 hour market by a local gang of hispanic thugs... I met my wife ten years ago at central station (a sleazy bar) up on the main drag of our little town... Cops regularly persue suspects that try to evade and hide out in the overgrown areas near here... Helocopters are rare but not unusual. I own guns and a video camera w/ night vision to deter the activity in my immediate area. So far I haven't needed either... I have had a couple guys served with restraining orders to comply with the laws of the state in my effort to avoid killing anyone but things seem relativly low key lately...

A woman was attacked by a knife weilding suspect last year (attempted rape) up on central ave. a few blocks from here. she managed to fight him off but got a few cuts on her arms and hands. There are several police calls made each week around here but most are typical DV disturbances or drunkenness type crap. Major assaults and murders are less frequent but I live in a rural Co. in northern Ca. (Humboldt) We get the occasional drive by shootings and such but mostly the idiots shoot the guns off around the new year and 4th of july...

[defenduman]

gentlemen-there are no such things as bad neighbourhoods All you have to do is pay the right people the right amount of money for the right protection if you know what I mean, my brotyher in arms and mentor knows such people well and can easily put you in touch with his own brothers and why not? the world has its ways

[Sagacious Lu]

This is a good question. I think any time you're in a densely populated area you need to be aware. That said nothing frustrates me more than when I meet someone from the suburbs or the country that thinks the whole city is just one big ghetto. It seems like a lot of people who aren't familiar with cities are just intimidated by them and are convinced that you're taking your life in your hands just by walking down the street.
To some degree you just have to know the city you're in, but there are definately things that you can look for. The thing to remember is that it's desperation that makes people dangerous, so that's what you want to look for signs of. You can look at the private residences- projects and low income housing are usualy easy to spot because they're in poor repair and there are frequently people just "hanging out" because they have nothing better to do at all hours. Keep an eye out for syringes, used condoms, empty plastic bags(that drugs come in) and an abundance of beer/liquor bottles among the litter. Another sure sign is if you see street walkers, crack addicts (they're usually emaciated, the whites of there eyes sometimes take on a sickly yellow color and they twitch occasionally) and an abundance of homeless people.
It's hard to nail down exactly what it is though. For a while I lived in an area where there were a lot of illegal immigrants (mostly mexican) who frequently have a lot of people crammed into very small apartments. If you'll forgive me for making a generality (always dangerous, I despise stereotypes) for the most part the people I saw seemed to be very family oriented and willing to work their fingers to the bone 16 hours a day for very little money. Although their life-style may seem desperate to some the atmosphere there never felt menacing. The people in that particular community have hard lives by anyone's standard but I got the impression that they were essentially decent, hard working people that were doing the best they could with what they had. That's why I said it really comes down to knowing the town you're in.

gentlemen-there are no such things as bad neighbourhoods All you have to do is pay the right people the right amount of money for the right protection if you know what I mean, my brotyher in arms and mentor knows such people well and can easily put you in touch with his own brothers and why not? the world has its ways

I think you've seen to many movies

[Tant01]

Up town...

Since most martial artists scoff at statistics, I was wondering if y'all could tell me how you determine what is a "bad neighborhood." Sleazy bars? How many homeless people live in your dumpster? How often you hear gunshots and how close they sound? How often helicopters circle over your house?

Tue. evening at aprox. 7:40 pm a young woman was sexually assaulted in front of her home near the university campus (HSU) A man approached her from behind while she was retrieving groceries from her car and forced her at knifepoint into the vehicle where he proceded to assault (rape) her.

[treelizard]

The truth about rape that few people ever want to talk about is that the majority of women who are raped, are raped by acquaintances and family members, behind closed doors and in good neighborhoods...

Anyways, I started this thread because I'm about to move... I've been working two jobs and saving up money so I can move to a better neighborhood (sick and tired of the gunshots, helicopters, drugs, run down houses, worrying about the apartment complex nearby, and having to call the cops on someone every other time I go to the laundromat) and the stats are in my favor, but then I found an article about crime in the place I'm moving into. To be honest, I thought the article was a good sign--it showed me that there are neighborhood association meetings whenever anybody has an incident, that there is community dialogue about what needs to get done and that press releases are going out, in response (Sometimes reports are filed in my 'hood but we have no community effort to address the BS here.) . But it made me wonder how I made my decision.

Factors I looked into include:

*crime statistic comparison

*TYPES of crime (i.e. I care less about extortion and even drug use than I do about assault and violent crimes)

*houses versus apartments (okay, maybe this isnt' fair--in my town you can really find cheap duplexes and studios just as easily as apartment complexes, and yet it seems as someone noted that crime is always higher in packed-in housing)

*talking to residents again noting TYPE of crime (I kind of don't care as much if people got their bikes stolen when they locked them up, but I do care about assaults, break-ins, etc.)

*how run down do the buildings look (I wonder if buildings that are well-maintained are a deterrent)

*how do I feel when I bike through the 'hood--do I feel like looking over my shoulder every three seconds, or do I feel mellow and happy as I should while riding my bicycle

The problem areas I've noticed in almost every neighborhood I looked into moving into:

*when looking at registered sex offenders, there were always several in each neighborhood, and some neighborhoods even had one house that all these ex-cons lived in

*every neighborhood i've ever been to in this area that i could afford to live in has ONE park or ONE circle K or ONE area that is sketchy. Strangely enough, it usually does not extend past certain boundaries (like it's JUST that park or JUST that street corner) which are easily avoidable, but I wonder if I'm being naive by assuming it never will extend past those boundaries...

If there's any San Franciscans reading this, when I spent the summer in CA I noticed that if I got off on the 16th and Mission BART stop, I'd always have to contend with about a half dozen sketchy guys trying to sell me heroin, but if I got off on 24th and Mission, I was fine. So I went to some cafe on 18th and Mission and get off on 24th and just walk the extra four blocks...

Food for thought. Do you all think there are ANY uses for statistics at all? I really did spend hours poring over them and noticed that EVERY comparison between these two neighborhoods there were less incidents in the "good" on--does that mean anything?

[Tom Yum]

Food for thought. Do you all think there are ANY uses for statistics at all? I really did spend hours poring over them and noticed that EVERY comparison between these two neighborhoods there were less incidents in the "good" on--does that mean anything?

Yes. Statistics give you an indication or a rough estimate. They are tools to be used according to the user's purpose.

For example, there are many wholes behind looking at the mean or average of a set of variables which begs more questions, as you probably are aware....

They're not perfect, but they are usefull.

[Sagacious Lu]

*how run down do the buildings look (I wonder if buildings that are well-maintained are a deterrent)

I don't think that well-maintained buildings are a deterent to crime, but I do think that a community that takes pride in it's home is less likely to have a lot of predators. That's because I think taking pride in your home shows character. It's not a hard and fast rule or a guarantee or anything, it's just one detail among many that I look at.

[treelizard]

Do you think abandoned and run-down buildings are more likely to have predators b/c it looks like people don't care?

[Sagacious Lu]

Do you think abandoned and run-down buildings are more likely to have predators b/c it looks like people don't care?

Yes, if there are a lot of people that are so desperate that they don't take care of their home then I would expect there to be some people among them who make their living by preying on others. That and the fact that abandoned buildings frequently become crack houses or flop houses for those who have no where else to go.

[treelizard]

Somebody e-mailed this to me, lol...

If you have more bullets then food in your pantry you live in a bad neighborhood.

You live in a bad neighborhood if you have a penny to your name and get robbed.

If you have 8 cars parked on your lawn and 2 of them are actually running, you live in a bad neighborhood.

If the police consider it dangorous to be there with less then a platoon, you live in a bad neighborhood.

If your neighbor tries to sell crack to the repo guy you live in a bad neighborhood.

You live in a bad neighborhood when your neighbor waves to you while he's being arrested.

If you see a baby at 3:00 in the morning just standin there, not scared or nothing, you live in a bad neighborhood.

If there's more Drug Dealers then Drug Addicts, you live in a bad neighborhood

If every other house on your block is a crack house you livei n a bad neighborhood

When there's more gangbangers then nerds at your school, you live in a bad neighborhood

you live in a bad neighborhood when you have food stamps on in a money clip.

If you get beat up for looking at someone the wrong way you might live in a bad neighborhood.

[Hardball]

I'm answering twice--once before I read the thread then again after I read this thread. Nice topic.

This is my before answer:

To me a bad neighborhood is one were there is a lot of Dope (Heron and Crack) traffic. One were the gunshots you hear are automatics. One where the police may be the Bad guys. ( No offense to Good cops all over america.) One were low life dope fiends prey on the elderly, the children or the strong. One were people look at home invasions and car jackings as a normal part of life--not to be reported because you will be labeled a "Snitch" One were witness intimidation runs rampant and people are terrified of reporting perpertrators even when they themselves are the victims.

[Hardball]

My second response is that even the best middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods can have trauma.

I like all of the above responses especially the one received by email. Ha Ha Ha

[defenduman]

gents-surely you knw by now what THE truth is and answer TO your worries about bad neighbourhoods! Just learn the only things you will ever need.

[SamuraiGuy]

[QUOTE=defenduman]gents-surely you knw by now what THE truth is and answer TO your worries about bad neighbourhoods! Just learn the only things you will ever need.[/QUOTE

Learn a harvard education, preferably in law so you will live in a rich neighbourhood?