Waterloo statements and facts about this city. (Sioux City, Iowa City: crime, chapel)

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by Stevie

I agree with Bob. When I think of Waterloo the first thing that comes to mind is poverty, not crime. When I've heard other people's opinions on the city they always say something like "It's in bad shape" which could mean anything. But they always say how it's dying or that the area around downtown is in bad shape or how the "east side" is treacherous and from what I've seen there driving through I would agree.

As for murders, those can be committed by anyone, whether it is a homeless person in Waterloo or a rich yuppie from West Des Moines. And like Luke said you can *almost* be murdered and not get counted in the stats. Also when we're comparing 1 murder to 5 murders in cities of TENS of THOUSANDS of people it is silly to suggest that one is "safer" than the other. I mean those are only a few murders. If a serial killer lived in a small town he could commit dozens of murders each year without getting caught and each of those murders would be counted in the stats for that town.

Obviously the crime stats here on city-data are not going to tell the whole picture. Many of the people who state that Waterloo has high crime have probably heard it elsewhere like on the news or in the newspaper. It may not be that bad but the stats here on city-data are not enough. They're not going to tell you the story of each crime or what caused the crime. They're just numbers.

With all that said I just want to add that Waterloo is certainly not the only city in Iowa that gets such a bad reputation. People are always talking about how Davenport is crime-ridden, Cedar Rapids smells, etc.

P.S. I'd take an Atlanta suburb over Waterloo any day.

Perhaps you might take an Atlanta suburb over Waterloo as far as poverty goes, at the same time, you will find the same things in some of the Atlanta suburbs. The difference is that Waterloo(I could be wrong) is more compact and the poverty is more visible because it is more upclose. In Atlanta(Marietta specifically), the suburbs are so spread out that you can trap yourself inside a sea a rich people and avoid the poor sections easily(in most cases). If you are commuting through the southern ATL suburbs or through Dekalb County, that might not be so easy.


I would not want to live in an area where the place looked very grimy. I have seen the grimy sections of the some the suburbs. They are there. I concur with you there. As far as crime and murder goes, I would feel safer in Waterloo than Marietta. That is just me.

Btw, Marietta has a similar population count to Waterloo(actually, Waterloo has more people). I was talking about a suburb, not Atlanta.

[Stevie]

I suppose that's true about suburbs. Some of Chicago's suburbs are getting pretty old. Evanston is an example.

I guess my point was that Waterloo just isn't appealing overall. The main upside of living there would be the cheap cost of living IMO. But the economy is in pretty bad shape. I know every city will have its bad areas but Waterloo is more like a rust belt city. It hasn't really progressed much.

Des Moines does have bad areas but the economy is booming by Iowa standards. That makes the bad areas a lot less noticeable. Also, I doubt that Des Moines has as much blight as Waterloo. The economy is also in good enough shape that it could probably redevelop the bad areas very nicely.

I guess I should have been more specific about preferring an Atlanta suburb over Waterloo. An Atlanta suburb, though maybe not the most appealing suburb, would still be a part of Atlanta's economy, which is booming, and also be close to all the cultural and job opportunities Atlanta has to offer. Waterloo doesn't really have much to offer.

Waterloo's economy, as I've stated before, is in pretty bad shape. Which results in bad neighborhoods, bad schools, fewer jobs, etc. Another thing it leads to is crime, like Pearlbob has stated. Not that the crime would be extremely high but with all the other bad things going on there it probably makes the crime a lot more noticeable, similar to what you stated before about the poverty being more noticeable. And fewer people would want to live in a place that has about the same or "slightly" lower crime than other cities its size yet not have nearly as much opportunities that those other cities provide.

That to me seems to play a big part in Waterloo's bad reputation.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by Stevie

I suppose that's true about suburbs. Some of Chicago's suburbs are getting pretty old. Evanston is an example.

I guess my point was that Waterloo just isn't appealing overall. The main upside of living there would be the cheap cost of living IMO. But the economy is in pretty bad shape. I know every city will have its bad areas but Waterloo is more like a rust belt city. It hasn't really progressed much.

Des Moines does have bad areas but the economy is booming by Iowa standards. That makes the bad areas a lot less noticeable. Also, I doubt that Des Moines has as much blight as Waterloo. The economy is also in good enough shape that it could probably redevelop the bad areas very nicely.

I guess I should have been more specific about preferring an Atlanta suburb over Waterloo. An Atlanta suburb, though maybe not the most appealing suburb, would still be a part of Atlanta's economy, which is booming, and also be close to all the cultural and job opportunities Atlanta has to offer. Waterloo doesn't really have much to offer.

Waterloo's economy, as I've stated before, is in pretty bad shape. Which results in bad neighborhoods, bad schools, fewer jobs, etc. Another thing it leads to is crime, like Pearlbob has stated. Not that the crime would be extremely high but with all the other bad things going on there it probably makes the crime a lot more noticeable, similar to what you stated before about the poverty being more noticeable. And fewer people would want to live in a place that has about the same or "slightly" lower crime than other cities its size yet not have nearly as much opportunities that those other cities provide.

That to me seems to play a big part in Waterloo's bad reputation.

I do agree with you that Waterloo looks grimy. It does have a Rust Belt feel. I just don't like it being called "violent". Looks wise, Waterloo doesn't look that appealing, but is it a violent city? I guess it may have to do with my perspective of living near a city that is truly violent.

[Stevie]

Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte

I do agree with you that Waterloo looks grimy. It does have a Rust Belt feel. I just don't like it being called "violent". Looks wise, Waterloo doesn't look that appealing, but is it a violent city? I guess it may have to do with my perspective of living near a city that is truly violent.

I’ve never heard anyone refer to Waterloo as "violent". I live in Central Iowa and have asked a number of people here about Waterloo. It's always negative stuff but not one person I've asked has ever mentioned the crime there. And then of course we have this forum. Yes, some people on here do mention the crime but I don't think anyone has ever made it sound like the biggest problem there. I think for the most part people just mention the crime as one of the many negative things about the city. For example: "poverty, bad schools, blight, high crime". It seems like they just add it as an example of why Waterloo is in bad shape. It doesn't mean they're giving it a reputation as "crime-ridden".

But for the record I’ll do a little crime rate comparison between Waterloo and other Iowa cities:

In another thread you compared the crime rate of Waterloo to the crime rates of Des Moines, Davenport and Council Bluffs. Well, I tend to think Des Moines has a higher crime rate because of its large size compared to Waterloo. Also, if you look at the population change for the city of Des Moines you'll see that it is declining, so I'm sure it has its problems. The strong economic growth in the suburbs and in downtown sort of hide the crime a bit. But Des Moines proper is 3x the size of Waterloo and yet the crime index for Des Moines in 2005 is nowhere near 3x the crime index for Waterloo of that year.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Des-Moines-Iowa.html
http://www.city-data.com/city/Waterloo-Iowa.html

Davenport has a higher crime rate but if you read some of the posts on here they almost ALWAYS mention the high crime rate there. It's sort of caused by cheap cost of living and close proximity to Chicago. A lot of gangs from Chicago have moved into that area.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Davenport-Iowa.html

Council Bluffs has a higher crime rate and yet it's smaller than Waterloo but I think that it being right next to Omaha (which is bigger than Des Moines) and the fact that it sort of struggles with weak growth can give an explanation for that.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Council-Bluffs-Iowa.html

Sioux City is bigger than Waterloo yet it had a lower crime index for 2005 (people on here have also mentioned about crime in Sioux City).

http://www.city-data.com/city/Sioux-City-Iowa.html

With all that said I would just like to point out that even though Waterloo had a lower number of murders than Marietta in 2005 (which is not a big difference considering it was only a few extra murders) it actually had a higher crime index for that year.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Marietta-Georgia.html

But as I said, the crime statistics here on city-data don't tell the whole picture, they’re just numbers. They do give credible information though.

[Stevie]

I forgot to include Cedar Rapids...

Cedar Rapids is bigger than Waterloo but it has a lower crime index for 2005. It also had only 1 murder for that year.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Cedar-Rapids-Iowa.html

[jeffs]

Ive been through Waterloo once or twice. Most parts arent too bad. The east side ive heard has its fair share of crime. Like ive read in a lot of posts before, the bigger problem is the same problem as a lot of Iowa cities. Their economies were hurt badly when the manufacturing boom ended in the 80's. Cities like Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City have gotten a lot more white collar while cities like Waterloo and Davenport have struggled more. I live in davenport and the crime rate was in the 750 range for a lot of years. Cheap low income housing and a lot of gangs moving in from Chicago are to blame for that. No city in Iowa is going to have a lot of murders. Davenports highest ever was 11 I think, which is not good, but compared to a lot of other cities, isnt bad. Burglary, Robbery, assault, car theft, forgery, are a lot bigger problems around here than murders. I assume Waterloo is a lot like davenport, there are a lot of good parts of the city, but there is crime in certain isolated areas. If you avoid those areas you should be ok.

[Isaysos]

I find Cedar Falls to be a pretty nice city. It is like Waterloo's twin city. For that reason, I would rather be in Waterloo/Cedar Falls than a place like Sioux City. And overall, I dont think the whole area (Waterloo) is bad, perhaps a touch on the blue collar/ industrial side, but some good restaurants and shopping.

[SoccerMom811]

We lived in CF from 1999 to 2006 when our girls were almost 4 and 7. We chose CF over Waterloo for the better public schools. We never regretted that decision. That being said, I think Kingsley Elementary in W'loo is a fabulous school. Waterloo was in a mess because their physical buildings were falling down around them and politics was getting in the way of fixing the problems. Both realtors we worked with lived in Waterloo, and both sent their kids to parochial schools. That makes an impression on a new person!

CF is better than most of Waterloo for resale, although the converse of that is that you can get more house for your money in Waterloo. I would never buy in Waterloo w/o looking at CF first. Waverly is more of a commute but a very nice town w/ good schools. **** is very small with very small schools, same w/ Hudson. I didn't even look there for that reason.

Good luck to you and congrats on the new job!

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by SoccerMom811

We lived in CF from 1999 to 2006 when our girls were almost 4 and 7. We chose CF over Waterloo for the better public schools. We never regretted that decision. That being said, I think Kingsley Elementary in W'loo is a fabulous school. Waterloo was in a mess because their physical buildings were falling down around them and politics was getting in the way of fixing the problems. Both realtors we worked with lived in Waterloo, and both sent their kids to parochial schools. That makes an impression on a new person!

CF is better than most of Waterloo for resale, although the converse of that is that you can get more house for your money in Waterloo. I would never buy in Waterloo w/o looking at CF first. Waverly is more of a commute but a very nice town w/ good schools. **** is very small with very small schools, same w/ Hudson. I didn't even look there for that reason.

Good luck to you and congrats on the new job!

I don't know much about Cedar Falls, but I do know that Waterloo is suffering from some economic problems. With that, there are some nice areas in Waterloo. A bad economy can me bad things more noticeable.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by beemer1010

"D i k e" is the ****, i'm not being dirty.... its really a town west of here out on 20!

Too funny!