Thinking of moving to the East Bay?

[Soren]

The East Side is nice, but because of the immediate wealth in the area, it attracts crime.

I've heard a couple of people say this, but I've lived in Wayland Square for five years and haven't heard of a single event where the neighborhood attracted crime. Based on this there should be crime all over Blackstone but again, I haven't heard of any actual events. One of our employees is dating a Providence policeman who works on the east side and it sounds mostly like college student issues (noise, etc.). Any insight anyone?

[Garris]

By the way, Garris, by any chance you were in Minerva's (restaurant in Wayland Square) today? Sometime around 1:30pm, I was eating there with my wife and son and I noticed someone get up to leave, who appeared to be a doctor, and I thought to myself...who was it on UP that lived in Wayland Square? And he's a doctor, right?

You remembered correctly, but that was not me... I was in civilian clothes that day on vacation, although I was around the square! My sister, BTW, may have been there at that time. She loves Minerva's Pizza.

The East Side is nice, but because of the immediate wealth in the area, it attracts crime.

I agree with Soren. This is the stereotype, but I haven't seen the reality. The only major crime I've witnessed has been the ubiquitous graffiti and a car window broken, and that's it in 2+ yrs. I feel completely safe walking/jogging around here at any hour of the day and morning, and know many single women who feel the same way as well. For my sister, having mild developmental disabilities, this meant we looked hard at neighborhood safety before choosing where to live, and there were none better in the city than here.

- Garris

Edited June 5, 2006 by Garris

[Jerry2]

Break-ins are more commonplace on the East Side as a whole. Aside from that, it is one of the safest areas in the city...if not the safest..

[yossarian]

This is the stereotype, but I haven't seen the reality. The only major crime I've witnessed has been the ubiquitous graffiti and a car window broken, and that's it in 2+ yrs. I feel completely safe walking/jogging around here at any hour of the day and morning, and know many single women who feel the same way as well. For my sister, having mild developmental disabilities, this meant we looked hard at neighborhood safety before choosing where to live, and there were none better in the city than here.

- Garris

A couple of thoughts. Provplan.org has plenty of links to crime statistics by neighborhood. So this is one of those debates where we don't have to depend on anecodotal evidence. To generalize crime does occur on the east side. For some propery crimes, especially those don't that involve violence, many east side neighborhoods have crime rates as high or higher than neighborhoods that would be traditionally thought of as high crime. But the East Side is not monolothic. Violent crime is a rare phenomen on the east side and when present tends to be linked with a property crime (i.e. robbery )

A few highlights.

Larceny: College Hill, Fox Point, Hope and Mount Hope are all above the city wide average (39.6 per 1000 people). Wayland is below the city wide (29.9). But the bottom two are Elmhurst (18.1) and Mount Pleasant (18.1).

Larceny from a car: same as above in terms of College Hill etc., except that there the bottom two are Reservoir (4.6) and Mount Pleasant (4.6) with West End (5.2) and Elmurst (5.2) next in line. Wayland is at 10. Citywide average is 12.8

Burglary. Mount Hope and Fox Point are above the city wide of 10.7. Wayland is 8.8 . Safest is South Elmwood (4.1) and Resevoir (5.8). Elmhurst is 7.3. College Hill is 7.9.

Getting more violent, robbery without a gun. No east side neighborhood is above the city wide average of 1.9. College Hill slightly below at 1.7. Safest are Wayland and Blackstone. With South Elmwood and Elmust next in line.

For violent crimes generally speaking, Wayland, Blackstone and the other east side neighborhoods are all well below the city wide average along with Elmhurst.

That all being said. Your anecedotal experience seems spot on. You (and single women) should feel safe jogging and walking alone. Its incredibly unlikely someone would try to do you harm.... but while you (and the single women) are out jogging somebody may be breaking into your house/car. There also seems to be some truth in Jim's idea that the affluence (and I would add college students with lots of consumer electronics due to daddy's credit card) on the east side does attract a certain degree of crime.

[runawayjim]

wow, nice to see elmhurst is so low, kind of surprising considering the large amount of PC students.

some things to note about the east side... there's no reason anyone should feel unsafe walking, jogging, or whatever. obviously, more care needs to be taken at night, especially in the mount hope area. the main reason you see so much of that sort of crime is because of the college students (and they cause some of it as well). you have the most prestigious schools in the city over there. they tend to be expensive and college kids like gadgets. so you have a large amount of computers, probably mostly laptops, and with the risd folks, probably mostly apples, which are worth even more. you don't see this trend in elmhurst because elmhurst is mostly single family homes with the exception of that small area surrounded by huxley, eaton, oakland, and smith. that's where 90% of the rentals are in elmhurst. the rest of it isn't quite as densely populated, nor is it as densely populated as the east side. and yes, affluence tends to attract more burglary.

now on that note, i will say that the providence plan's website is an amazing tool for anyone looking to move to providence. not only does it have all the crime and demographic stats of every neighborhood, it also has pretty good descriptions and maps of the neighborhoods (and i think history of them as well). i used it a lot when i was trying to decide where to live.

www.provplan.org if anyone didn't know.

all that being said... i think we should link this thread in the "thinking of moving to providence" thread given that it has a lot of info about providence.

Edited June 6, 2006 by runawayjim

[Soren]

ProvPlan is an amazing resource. Great post on the crime stats, Yossarian.

One thing about the neighborhood stats that was brought up in the last Forum was that the owner occupancy stats are misleading. Because they are done on units, not buildings, the are skewed high. For example, a single owner-occupied three family would come up as 33% owner-occupied, where most of us would think of the building as 100% owner-occupied, as the owner can only live in one unit but does live in the building.