Crime in the city (rant) (Louisville, Newburg: low crime, houses, neighborhoods)

[Thecitylol]

This isnt an attack on louisville itself as pretty much any city in the US in a flaming craphole but its where i live so ill make my points using it.


But im looking at some stats for zipcodes 40211,40212 and 40047 (mt washington). 40211 and 12 have about 40k people. 40047 has 18k estimated in 07, its prolly around 25-28k.

Murders for 40047 are 0 for the past 4 years. Murders for 40212 and 11 are over 100 for the last 3 years. LOL are you kidding?

Why are there not arm guards on every corner? Or 2 cops for every 10 people? Why are the inhabatants of these areas not protesting every day for something to be done? Ive lurked on this board and all everyone does is talk about how nice it is compared to -----. I used to not pay much attention to crime as it never personally effected me. But after being robbed at work this has changed.

3 black males tried to get my money, 1 got knocked out and as i jumped over his body to get away i had to worry about my brains getting blown out from the other 2. Scary stuff.

Ever notice how you cannot tell the difference between a thug wannbe and a somone who is actaully about to pull a gun on you and rob you? This is the reason i want to actually hurt all of them i see now.You all can understand im sure....

So i think im going to just move out of the city and watch it burn. mmmm maybe thats to dramatic. Maybe and ill move and watch the city continue to put up with the crime when it should be outraged. If things get to bad the people will take action, but apparetny its not bad enough already. This amazes me. Im mostly a city boy so dont bother, i lived downtown and the south end a good part of my live and its always been there. But this stuff now sickens me.

Torn up houses full of people on welfare, garbage on the streets, no one talking to each other, everyone pissed off and frustrated. Thug wannabes walking around intimidating the lady walking her baby. My mother tells me i should be a cop if im so concerned about the crime. That would not be a good idea, id be a dirty cop. To pissed at the judicial system, mad about how the community doesnt give a crap about its own neighborhoods. Why bother?

Im just going to leave, but congrats on downtown making a turnaround and slowly pushing the crap from downtown to the burbs Its made a change.... wait....no, actually it hasnt.

[tigerlillydownunder]

Before I even got to your stats I knew exactly where you were headed with this one!

The crime rates are higher in those areas, but your right--the 'burbs crime rates are on the rise as the rates of the 'inner city' are dropping, or at least not getting worse.

But I think when people talk about how nice Louisville is, they are talking about it as a whole. As a whole, the crime rate is low in comparison to other cities of similar size. When you break it down into individual areas you see where the rates are higher. Louisville, even with it's higher crime rates in 40210-12 and what not, is a darn site better than the crime rate in Perth, Western Australia. Every night on the news it's all thugs, hoons, robberies, assaults... you name it. Of course, Perth is more heavily populated than Louisville, but per capita comparisons, the rates are much much higher. and the crimes are quite a lot more severe.

I don't have much advice for you; I totally get where you're coming from though, thinking that were you to join the police force your grudge would take over, and it would be a case of , beat 'em or join 'em. I'm not sure I could be any more objective. Plenty of people with your train of thought, mate.

IMO, semi-rural or rural is the way to go. But.....I've gotten to used to space! Good luck!

[gocards1289]

When you look at crime data for large cities, Louisville has a fairly low crime rate for a city of its size (it looks quite good compared to nearby Cincinnati and St. Louis, for example). However, this is partly due to the higher population caused by the city/county merger (now nearly 700,000 compared to 250,000)-if you'd only include the old Louisville city limits than the rate would actually be rather high.
The zip codes you mentioned are pretty much the worst in the city for crime-those are all in the West End of Louisville (which has quite a bad reputation) and include blighted neighborhoods such as Russell, California, Parkland, Parkhill and Shawnee. I've been in these neighborhoods quite often and know them very well-I'll say I've never felt threatened, but the area has definitely become rundown over the years (lots of litter, some boarded up/vacant homes & businesses, buildings/homes in bad shape, etc) and some areas can feel rather intimidating at times with groups of teens/young adults "chilling." Its really a shame as much of the West End used to be desirable places to live (particulary the Shawnee area) up until the '60's-70's-most of the older generations in my family grew up there.
Other dicey areas are Smoketown/Shelby Park (40203 zip code), the west side of Taylor Blvd near the Watterson by Iroquois Homes (probably the most intimidating "projects" in the city, 40215 zip code) and Newburg/West Buechel (40218). Even some parts of Okolona (40219) are going downhill, particularly the northern part along the Preston Hwy corridor closer to Fern Valley Rd.
Some areas of the South End (especially Iroquois/Southside Drive area and Okolona) and Bullitt County have some drug issues, notably meth.
Louisville is definitely no Memphis or Detroit, but its also not as safe as many make it out to be; some parts of the city can probably rival some of the country's more notorious neighborhoods (just on a smaller scale).

[tigerlillydownunder]

Originally Posted by gocards1289

When you look at crime data for large cities, Louisville has a fairly low crime rate for a city of its size (it looks quite good compared to nearby Cincinnati and St. Louis, for example). However, this is partly due to the higher population caused by the city/county merger (now nearly 700,000 compared to 250,000)-if you'd only include the old Louisville city limits than the rate would actually be rather high.
The zip codes you mentioned are pretty much the worst in the city for crime-those are all in the West End of Louisville (which has quite a bad reputation) and include blighted neighborhoods such as Russell, California, Parkland, Parkhill and Shawnee. I've been in these neighborhoods quite often and know them very well-I'll say I've never felt threatened, but the area has definitely become rundown over the years (lots of litter, some boarded up/vacant homes & businesses, buildings/homes in bad shape, etc) and some areas can feel rather intimidating at times with groups of teens/young adults "chilling." Its really a shame as much of the West End used to be desirable places to live (particulary the Shawnee area) up until the '60's-70's-most of the older generations in my family grew up there.
Other dicey areas are Smoketown/Shelby Park (40203 zip code), the west side of Taylor Blvd near the Watterson by Iroquois Homes (probably the most intimidating "projects" in the city, 40215 zip code) and Newburg/West Buechel (40218). Even some parts of Okolona (40219) are going downhill, particularly the northern part along the Preston Hwy corridor closer to Fern Valley Rd.
Some areas of the South End (especially Iroquois/Southside Drive area and Okolona) and Bullitt County have some drug issues, notably meth.
Louisville is definitely no Memphis or Detroit, but its also not as safe as many make it out to be; some parts of the city can probably rival some of the country's more notorious neighborhoods (just on a smaller scale).

Exactly right, and excellent post. Although I personally have never felt threatened or endangered, I am always vigilant and mindful of my surroundings. Well, truth told, I'm pretty much like that anywhere I go, but you know what I mean. How many times have I traveled through those areas for whatever reason, and hear on the news that night/next day about some thing that went down--I probably lucked out many times!

But as you said, it's no Memphis or Detroit, so between those 2 and Louisville, I know where I'm goin'!

Cheers!

[tomocox]

From a Realtor's point of view, so long as there is any crime in the historically "tuff" zip codes, property values will continue to fall. Until the people of ALL AMERICA decide that crime is expensive in both blood and property terms, we will continue to see nothing but a national decline.

Prison is not a place of correction. Oldham County has three prisons and the state women's prison sits just across the county line. A warden of one of the prisons was speaking about the odds of a prisoner never coming back to "visit" his facility. Even with excellent vocational training, he expressed the odd were pretty high that he would see a prisoner within "6 months" of release.

If you have a value for life and property, prisons must become a place no one wants to be. Give each prisoner a pile of rocks and a sledge hammer. To eat today, one ton must go through the sieve before lunch, to get a cot tonight, another ton, to get out, 1000 tons per year, etc.

As Jesse Jackson said in the 1996 Democrat National Convention, "why wouldn't a guy want to be in prison? No child support, greater life expectancy, and THREE HOTS AND A COT." We must stop the turnstile of crime and prison or "profit and the club."

[spence425]

I grew up in Michigan, and have traveled around and in detroit my whole life. I never once felt threatened, though i did know which areas to avoid.

I spent the last 6 years of my life straight north of detroit, in a city called Saginaw. This city would lead the nation in crime rate if it would pick up another 5K-10K people. it was never big enough to qualify as a "city" for the national studies. I traveled in every area of that small city and did occasionally feel threatened. But, the majority of the crime was very clearly gang violence.

This is the part i haven't gotten a feel for in Louisville yet, being here only about 7 months. Is this gang violence? While gang violence is scary, it is much less scary than if these are just random acts of violence.

Has crime gotten noticeably worse in the last year? could it be a symptom of the economy (poor getting poorer), or has it been constantly growing for many years?

At any rate...there are only a couple of areas of Louisville that i have been instructed not to go...other than that, i'm still learning. But, i will agree with the comments above...1. Jail/Prison doesn't seem to do it's job (nationwide). 2. The sprawl of Louisville makes the crime statistics seem much better to an outsider than they really are.

I do, however, have bad news for you 'TheCitylol'...unless you're planning to live in the country, you will find similar situations across the nation. Cities are pretty clever at finding ways to make their statistics look better than they are, especially to an outsider.