most dangerous sections in Boston (Somerville, Malden: house, neighborhood, elementary school)

[LeavingMA]

Don't forget that Deval Patrick will solve all of MA's problems by throwing money at every issue...all the money that grows on trees here.

Has any politician seriously addressed a main issue in MA. Why people are leaving the state and what to do about it?

[Continental]

CTownNative: Are you trying to recall Mattapan? Lately known as "Murder-pan" because of the obvious. No, you don't need a "safe conduct" pass to enter any of these Boston communities, but after dark... If you listen to Boston talk radio, (e.g. 96.9 fm) you'll get an earfull. Most folks go about leading their lives without worrying about these communities...or, the possibility of them spilling over into neighboring towns. Each of these "hood" communities is surrounded by others which are 180-degrees in the opposite direction, so... But hey, parts of Dorchester are still okay. You just have to be able to "read" the signs.

[Springfields Finest]

Springfield is definately the most dangerous city in mass...its a small city but you cant go to one block of this city without finding drugs, murder, or robberies...we get no money from the state and half the cities on welfare...Springfield has been goin down hill for years and we get no help from Boston...Theres more dope feinds and killers than ever but they say theres a 14 percent decrease in violent crimes...i live here and its more dangerous than ever...if someone doesnt do something soon Springfield is going to crumble

[maggiekate]

roxbury, dorchester, and parts of the hyde park area.

[GoSox07]

Definitely Roxbury, Mattapan, almost anywhere near Blue Hill Ave., some parts of Dorchester. I grew up in Southie, and I remember waking up to finding dope fiends dead on my front doorstep, or hearing gunshots fired, or finding used needles and drug paraphinalia scattered throughout the playground. Boston has some tough areas, some real hoods. And whoever mentioned Minneapolis and Cleveland before, theres no comparison between Boston and those two cities. Boston is waaaay worse than Minneapolis and waaaay better than Cleveland.

[mapl]

I went to Northeastern for a year back in the fall of 1970-spring 1971, lived in the dorm, and that whole area was unsafe back then. At least a couple of friends of mine in the dorm got attacked in the evening, after dark: One had his glasses broken, and one young woman received a concussion for which she stayed in the University infirmary for at least a couple of weeks. Her keys were also ripped off, along with her pocketbook, and her room key, along with the key to the front door of our dorm, had to be changed.

Later, I attended art school on the Fenway from the fall of 1973 to the spring of 1977. The Fenway area was unsafe back then, too. My first two years there, the list of casualties ran sort of like the Battle of Bull Run: One of my teachers got mugged, knocked senseless and had his wallet and watch taken from him while he was walking home from the school one night. (He lived across the Fens from the school). A couple of women (one a friend of mine) were sexually assaulted (on two separate occasions), while walking to their apartments across the park one night, also. A number of other people also got jumped by people hiding and lying in wait for some unsuspecting person(s) from behind the bushes in front of and alongside the school. When the dean of the school got mugged, all the bushes were finally cut down.

I still remember that I, too, experienced an incident, which was more minor, because I screamed. Here's what happened: It was at about 6:30 in the evening, after school hours, and I'd gone into a small, adjoining room to do my evening transcendental meditation. I was meditating, with my eyes closed, when a young white man, who I'd never seen before, came into the room, crept up behind me and put his hand over my mouth. In a rather nasty way, he warned: "Don't say a word!! Do you understand?"
"What the hell are you doing?" I shrieked. Without another word, the young man bolted from the room. Had I kept quiet, it would've been a bad, bad trip for me, for sure.

Unfortunately, from what I understand, the Fens area is still not such a safe area at night. Too bad, because it's one of the prettiest places in all of Boston proper. As a female, I still would not walk around there by myself at night, yet, at the same time, I wouldn't walk around the idyllic suburban town that I grew up in at night, either.

[deportallofthem]

We reside in a well-off area 45-1 hour north of Boston. So rarely do we encounter people in poverty of with ghetto looks, but I remember this summer we saw a couple of guys who looked like they were straight out of Dorchester. It was probably more akward for them than us. But yes, like I said Dorchester came to mind first. Dorchester has a pretty bad rep.

[ChunkyMonkey]

Originally Posted by LeavingMA

What also throws the Boston crime rate off is that it is a small city in size and lots of the bad areas are located just outside city limits. If you extended Boston city limits to include certain other areas the crime rate would be substantially higher. Many other cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Los Angeles are a lot bigger in size and include many bad areas in their city limits.

What areas outside the city limits are you talking about? Milton? Cambridge, Somerville? Brookline? All of which have very low crime rates when compared to Boston, which is considered one of the safest cities in the country in terms of crime.

From 2005 FBI stats (Boston's 2006 numbers are missing), MSAs you mention compared to Boston's MSA, which is the entire metro area and not based on arbitrary city limits, here is how they stack.

Atlanta
Violent crime rate per 100,000: 492.0

Boston
Violent crime rate per 100,000: 398.2

Charlotte
Violent crime rate per 100,000: 837.7

Los Angeles
Violent crime rate per 100,000: 575.5

Boston is quite safe when compared to these cities. It is also safer than cities such as Denver, San Francisco, NYC, Orlando. Stats don't lie, however, with a name like LeavingMA, I suspect a little bias is in play.

Table 6 - Crime in the United States 2005 (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_06.html - broken link)

[hymalaia]

Originally Posted by ChunkyMonkey

What areas outside the city limits are you talking about? Milton? Cambridge, Somerville? Brookline? All of which have very low crime rates when compared to Boston, which is considered one of the safest cities in the country in terms of crime.

I imagine LeavingMA is reffering not to the places you mentioned (maybe east Somerville) but places like Chelsea, Everett, Revere, maybe Malden. These are seperate municipalities, but they are physically far more connected to the urban core of Boston than say West Roxbury, a huge Boston neighborhood that is practically suburban. I'm sure if you "bump" the city limit boundries a mile north (to say Roslindale) and encompass Chelsea, etc. the city crime stats will go up. How much I can't say.

[CaseyB]

Boston crime map: Boston Crime