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I think Clifton has more crime than expected is because the kids have stuff to steal. Every college kid apartment has Xbox, Ipod, Laptop, etc. You could break into 20 OTR apartments and not find an Xbox. My son had two of them burgled in Clifton.
I'm going to chime in and speak my piece. First, as a caution, I'm going to repeat the former warning about anecdotal evidence: it isn't necessarily valid. That applies to my story as well as all others.
I have never once felt threatened or harassed in Clifton Gaslight. I live on Ludlow Avenue and will soon be moving to Lorraine Avenue.
I walk to the university (about a mile) every single day at least once. I have never once been harassed or threatened. There are a few people asking for money on Ludlow Avenue occasionally but they're just panhandlers and they're also regulars.
On three rather stupid occasions I have gotten plastered at Arlin's Bar and walked home at 2:30AM alone. I am a long-haired, 125 pound "odd" kid. I am a prime target for a mugging. :-p (Also, the "odd" should be replaced by a synonym which begins with "Q")
Other than that I walk around often. I am also a sociologist, so I study the area closely. I would suggest using the Cincinnati Enquirer's page to examine police calls and arrests. You'll find very very few calls or arrests in Clifton Gaslight proper. If you use the neighborhood index you can even profile specific addresses to get nearby crime statistics.
Obviously, you need to be smart about living in any city anywhere (e.g. walking home stumbling drunk at 2:30am is never a good idea). However, the crime statistics for this neighborhood are quite low and in many ways comparable to many of the other Cincinnati neighborhoods.
One major problem with looking up simply "crime statistics" on Clifton is that the city lumps Gaslight Clifton with other areas also known as Clifton that aren't as desirable. However, even with those undesirable areas Clifton Gaslight at most times accounts for less than 1% of the total city crime.
My only word of note is this: The CPD prowls Gaslight's streets pretty hard. I park on-street. Once they posted "No Parking" signs the day of a construction project, towed my car, and charged me a total of $250. Just this week I went out to find that my car was labeled "abandoned" because I hadn't moved it in a few days. If you don't have off-street parking and you don't drive often you will need to move your car frequently or be expected to be patronized by the CPD for not having normative driving habits.
This is my input on the neighborhood: I love it. It reminds me a lot of the last place I lived: Asheville, North Carolina. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to live here, but you have to be prepared to live like you're living in a city. It can not, and will not, ever be like living in the suburbs or semi-rural surrounding areas.
Last edited by Arctic_6; 07-19-2011 at 07:23 PM..
Reason: Clarification
I am also a sociologist, so I study the area closely. I would suggest using the Cincinnati Enquirer's page to examine police calls and arrests.\
I find the Enquirer crime data map very interesting (its also great for real estate). However as a sociologist you might find the following anecdote (related to the data collection , critical to any sociological set of data!) interesting.
While living on Lorraine someone tried to steal our Mt Bikes, valued over $4,000 total. It was a very clever, professional job: they scoped the place carefully, obviously saw the bikes in the basement. They carefully removed one of the basement windows on the other side of the very large house, then put the window back so it was not obvious it had been removed (so they could come back later presumably). They crossed the basement and cut the visible cable/chain on the bikes.
At this point I think they saw the Kryptonite lock on the bikes, and gave up and left. In any event although they cut the first cable they didnt get the bikes.
Now, I called the police to file a report. They actually sent someone. I thought they would be interested to know there was a professional burglar running around Clifton. I showed her the setup and she listened with a somewhat bemused expression. Then, she found out we were not the owners and said that the owner could file a police report if they wanted to, and she left.
The owner didn't want to. It turns out if you have bought a nice old building and spent a lot of money rehabbing it to modern apartments, you don't want reports of burglary etc on the building. It would be a monetary disincentive. Since 85% of the buildings on Lorraine are rentals, I think this might actually be a significant effect!
So our crime (breaking and entering) was never actually recorded. A few months later, a thief came back and stole our neighbor's bike (hidden from view in the basement, and the window had been repaired)-- worth about 1200. We moved shortly after-- we had a lot of nice stuff that other people really wanted to steal.
So, many of the crimes don't ever get reported and there may be good sociological reasons for this!
Crime reports are pretty dodgy at times. I usually scout out an area with several different mappers, both professional and user-generated, to get a full idea. Of course, on the user-generated ones you get people making up things that didn't happen (though I'll never understand why). :-p
When did you live on Loraine? I've been under the impression for a while now that Loraine is easily one of the quietest streets in this neighborhood. Not that I expect burglars that came even a few years ago to come back (and not like I have much to steal), but I'm always interested.
Also, I forgot to add my cautionary note that I always add when I talk stats:
***Don't Make an Aggregation Fallacy in Reading Statistics***
Repeat that a few times: Statistics are an aggregation of data points that do not precisely predict individual outcomes. In other words: You do not have an "x in y" chance of being a victim of a violent crime because the numbers say such in such. That is saying that on average, that number of crimes will happen in an area.
Too many people don't think that statistics are about them. They aren't. Statistics are about everyone! That means that the people who leave their stereos in their cars in plain view are not increasing *your* chance of having your stereo stolen if you don't do the same. The people getting mugged at 3:00am in Corryville are not increasing your chances of getting mugged at lunch in Five Guys, etc. There are too many intervening factors to make that sort of judgment off of statistics. This is why they train people to work with and read statistics (and why any time the news reports stats you should ignore it outright just to be safe).
***Don't Make an Aggregation Fallacy in Reading Statistics***
Repeat that a few times: Statistics are an aggregation of data points that do not precisely predict individual outcomes. In other words: You do not have an "x in y" chance of being a victim of a violent crime because the numbers say such in such. That is saying that on average, that number of crimes will happen in an area.
Too many people don't think that statistics are about them. They aren't. Statistics are about everyone! That means that the people who leave their stereos in their cars in plain view are not increasing *your* chance of having your stereo stolen if you don't do the same. The people getting mugged at 3:00am in Corryville are not increasing your chances of getting mugged at lunch in Five Guys, etc. There are too many intervening factors to make that sort of judgment off of statistics. This is why they train people to work with and read statistics (and why any time the news reports stats you should ignore it outright just to be safe).
Lesson over! :-P
Well, lets see, I guess it has been 1.5 years since we left Clifton. Lorraine was a very quiet street (literally). If you saw my other post about traffic noise-- I loved Lorraine.
Your point is well taken that if there were 50 car break ins/year in Clifton Gaslight, but all the cars had visible stuff, then if I dont leave any visible stuff, my risk is not the same. (I dont have the aggregate risk). But, however, I think you'd have to agree that a neighborhood, from a sociological perspective, that has 50 car break ins/year, may have certain other sets of characteristics that may increase my risk of other crimes or even car break ins.
For example, if the economy keeps worsening, the threshold for smashing a car window may decrease for the perp. Because, there "might" be some change in that center console. In fact recently in some Cincy neighborhoods this has been increasing: windows smashed for 50 cents of change.
In addition, a neighborhood that is adjacent to very poor neighborhoods, and is "canvassed" by the residents of such neighborhoods, eventually may experience other associated crimes. Even though there is an aggregation fallacy, much more common is the reverse fallacy: the statistics are wrong, because it never happened to ME! Maybe we could call that the "n=1" fallacy!
I am convinced that there are a complex set of factors, maybe not all so obvious as petit crime, that do increase the risk of experiencing crime for most residents. Such factors could include tagging, for example, when it is used to "mark" territory. Other factors could be the proximity of neighborhoods with much fewer socioeconomic resources, or population density, education level, members per household, median income etc.
It is true that after we stopped being comfortable walking around Clifton Gaslight at night we moved. That was the final threshold, a feeling of being ever so slightly trapped in ones house.
Sorry if that stats lesson seemed aimed at you, Wolden. It was more of a caution aimed at everyone who examines crime statistics (or any statistics, for that matter) from someone with a strong grounding in them.
There are myriad factors going into crime. So many that even people who study criminology don't know all of them. You make great points, really. I agree with pretty much all of the above points, but I wanted to interject one thing:
When considering statistics, patterns, etc. (especially with crime) it is incredibly easy to get into a habit of looking at what *increases* your risk. Just remember that there are just as many factors which can decrease your risk, too. For the half that is really popular to consider (what is bad) there is a good side as well.
Yet again, this is just general advice and not really addressing any particular post.
...Now, I called the police to file a report. They actually sent someone. I thought they would be interested to know there was a professional burglar running around Clifton. I showed her the setup and she listened with a somewhat bemused expression. Then, she found out we were not the owners and said that the owner could file a police report if they wanted to, and she left.
The owner didn't want to...
Very interesting, and not something people might immediately realize.
This is not exactly relevant to the conversation, but still maybe worth mentioning. On the several streets that constitute my neighborhood, I don't think there've been more than 3 or 4 actual police-reported crimes in the 10 years we've lived here. I discovered that when a woman who lives up the street and owns rental property elsewhere reported burglaries at her rentals, they were reported under her own residence address (making them appear as if they happened at that address). This is another example in which the data are not what they seem to be.
The police also report as "burglaries" when they get a call after someone's security system has been activated. Those false alarms peak in the summer when a lot of people are on vacation, we have severe thunderstorms, etc.
The shooting of the Ambar India owner was believed to be a hit, not a mugging, right? Even he has said he thought it was a hired hit. No property stolen, guy was waiting for him, etc. Sounds like really unfriendly competition, to be honest. Not that it's a fantastic thing, but there's little evidence it was an attempted mugging, especially from the owner's description (man was waiting on him, walked up to the window of his car and shot him, then ran away).
I never really considered that a thing that made the neighborhood dangerous because there was the general consensus in both the press and the area that it was a targeted, paid crime based on an overblown business rivalry. Maybe I'm wrong, though?
Clifton? I've never felt unsafe there. It's got some great urban living and the University has provided phenomenal shops and businesses in the areas. One of my friends did get mugged there, but it was 4 AM and he was stumbling drunk with a lampshade on his head and his pants around his ankles (he's normally not like that... but... college... Jager... some of us have been there, fortunately, I haven't).
Clifton's parties can be a tad wild, but if you don't have a problem with the students, they won't have a problem with you. Areas bordering OTR can be a tad sketch but most of the area is livable, even quite nice.
I live in Clifton and I have never felt harmed in any way. Of course I'm not out at 4:00 A.M. stumbling around drunk, demanding attention.
In my opinion, Gaslight District is a bit "safer" than Clifton Heights. Clifton is in the middle of the city, so just like any other city, you have to be aware of your surroundings.
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