Is Santa Cruz California safe?? (Watsonville, Seaside: rentals, transfer, universities)

[moonsavvy]

Well I haven't lived in either, but have frequently both regularly. So I'm speaking as an observer. My husband is a southern californian surfer and so he goes out to pleasure point quite a bit to surf. Santa Cruz if very localized, and IMO not kept up very well. Capitola one of the nicer areas, but Santa Cruz is the 'surf city' of northern california, but that label can be deceiving. It has more of an 'anything goes' mentality, very hippish, but also a college town. The last thing I would worry about is gangs, but it's more of a 'rough around the edges' place.

Monterrey on the other hand is much different. You have Salinas close by so you have many people of a certain ethnic background move there and will take jobs at the hotels and restaraunts in Monterrey. There is no question about where I would push for, definately Monterrey, but if you can afford it, why not Carmel?

[lexi]

Originally Posted by MontereyLocal

While statistics are nice, you can also gather some more information by reading the local police's log of calls. For example, Monterey PD has theirs at http://www.monterey.org/mpd/policelog.html (broken link). Santa Cruz PD has theirs at http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pd/MediaLog/daily.html. These can give you a "what happened yesterday" idea of criminal activities instead of over the last 10 years averages.

Thanks Monterey Local! This will come in handy!

[SantaCruzIsMyHome]

I have lived in Santa Cruz for the past 6 years and have never had any problems with violence whatsoever. There s a lot of talk recently about gangs and gang violence but for the most part it is blown way out of proportion by the local media.

Santa Cruz is also slow, relaxed and casual. Although the cost of living is high in Santa Cruz (also in Monterey) there are hundreds of free activities to keep you occupied in your free time, ie. hiking, surfing, mountain biking, frisbee golf, etc... The nature in S.C. beats Monterey by a mile. I do love the aquarium in Monterey though... but not much else.

Traffic, I think, is not bad in Santa Cruz as long as you stay off of Mission Street or Highway 1 (south) during rush hour. And try to stay off of highway 17 in the rain... very dangerous and lots of crazy drivers...

Check out Bohova Travel for more info on Santa Cruz.

Hope that helps and good luck,

Chris

[lagunacat]

Those of you that don't think Santa Cruz has a gang problem have your heads in the sand. Just ask the police dept if they think it is overblown by the media.

Traffic is horrendous! Santa Cruz is not the same place it was 15+ years ago.

[fashionablecowboy]

Santa Cruz is very naturally beautiful and blessed, but, like most of California, it was ruined by the people, government, and landowners.

[SantaCruzIsMyHome]

Here for everyone to look at are the official crime statistics for 1990 through 2005.

http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pd/st...lUCRreport.pdf

Stats of note:

2 homocides in 2004
2 homocides in 2005
4 homocides last year
20 homocides in the past 10 years

http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pd/st...06Homicide.pdf

They don't even have a category for gang related incidents...

There's also an average of 351 aggravated assaults in Santa Cruz per YEAR the past 16 years. That's less than 1 per day.

Wow really sounds like violence is out of control Lagunacat.

Let's compare that with Salinas which has had an average of 16 murders a year (1990-2003)

Do you know how many assaults with a firearm there were in 2005 in all of Santa Cruz? ONE, that's right a whole one.

Salinas Police Department Web Site

There are 143,000 residents of Salinas

There are 55,000 residents of Santa Cruz plus 15,000 students depending on the time of year.

Lets see, Salinas has three times the amount of people and eight times the murder rate. I did not have my head in the sand for the past 6 years of living in Santa Cruz. I was very active and all over the city. I did not find gang violence to be a serious threat. Sure there is quite a bit if theft, but none can be directly related to gangs. I did live in Salinas in 2000 and there was a drive-by shooting almost every night over gang territories.

I call that a gang problem. Santa Cruz? No. Just my opinion. I would personally not worry too much about it although there will be people that try to put the fear into you.

One thing I've learned from travelling is that everywhere you're headed people will tell you that it's soooooo dangerous where you're going. It usually turns out not to be true.

Santa Cruz is about the mellowist, non-violent places I've ever lived. People give you dirty looks if you even honk your car horn like you're some sort of crude New Yorker.

Chris

[lexi]

Thanks guys, I think we'll have to go check it out. I lived in Pismo
Beach for a year but before we moved there I wasswarned about traffic.
Except for about 3 weekends we never really experienced any big issues
over it. So that tells me it's all in the eye of the beholder. I don't mind
traffic jams or slow moving traffic... it's the crazy, 60 mph in town, tail gating,
no blinker, cutting in and out crazy southern california drivers I hate. The central coast was very polite so I'm hoping Santa Cruz/ Monterey will be similar. Thanks for the responses!

[SantaCruzIsMyHome]

Watch out on highway 17... people drive really crazy, but in town it is polite in Monterrey and Santa Cruz

Chris

[abstrak_tokatl]

i lived in Santa Cruz for two years back from 1999 to 2001, and i have to say that i never once saw a gang member. At least not by my standards of what a gang member is (born and raised in L.A., and returned). In fact, the person who was sold pot was a college member who went to L.A. to get it.

The city was nice and small, and i didn't really see any litter. But yeah, the 17 is crazy, especially at night with the clouds and fog and bad truck drivers.

[WATSONVILLEN]

Why don't you move into Watsonville? It is very safe.