How safe do Madisonites feel? (Milwaukee, Rochester: cheap apartments, low crime, homes)

[kemachs]

Madison has felt like a safe place every time I've been there (which admittedly isn't enough to judge how safe it would feel living here), but I was just wondering if there is a more unsafe feeling now with the recent murder cases? There's crime in all cities, but it is a bit unsettling for a future college student that whoever did this to Brittany Zimmerman is still out there...

I guess what I'm looking for is some reassurance. Is the Madison police force competent? Do neighbors generally look out for one another?

[MidwesternBookWorm]

I certainly still feel safe in Madison. The Madison PD is a pretty good one; they make errors as all humans do, but in general I think they usually get it right. And many neighborhoods have active neighborhood associations, neighborhood watch programs, and neighbors do get to know each other.

Of course, when I say "many neighborhoods", that does not mean ALL neighborhoods. There are areas of the city where I'd be reluctant to walk alone. I wouldn't walk alone downtown late at night, particularly not if I had been drinking (though at my age, I've long since put that habit behind me). I wouldn't walk alone at any time of day in the Badger Road area or around Allied Drive. There are a couple of pockets on the north side and just off East Washington where I'd be reluctant to walk alone.

However, for one who grew up in Detroit, this feels like a pretty safe place to be. If you grew up in a tiny rural hamlet where you knew everyone by name before you were 10 years old, Madison might be scary. But in my experience, it feels pretty safe.

[Drover]

Madison's highest murder rate in the last decade has been 3.7 per 100,000, which is still well below the national average. If you can't feel safe in Madison, then you can't feel safe in any remotely urban environment.

[Megan1967]

Madison is very safe with the exception of a few areas, some of which MWBW discussed. The only place I've ever felt threatened is in the Allied Drive area.

[Chelito23]

I would be careful with people telling you how overly safe Madison is. I mean, it IS a city with over 200,000 people so this isn't Mayberry like some posters make it out to be. You will always have people here tell you it isn't like LA or Chicago, but of course it isn't, there is no comparison. Madison is just a run of the mill place. It doesn't have any true ghettos. The worst areas are just chalk full of cheap apartments and usually located in out of the way areas, so you wouldn't stumble across them unless you were specifically looking for them.

Now, the most common crimes here are hold ups at gas stations, break-ins when the home is left alone, crimes of opportunity(stolen bikes), etc. There isn't too much of a drug or gang culture or at least not to the degree in bigger cities. However, people here DO sleep with their doors locked at night. Now, Madison has grown and evolved over the past 10 years, and some people have a perception about Madison that hasn't existed since the 1990s.

Every place in the world has good and bad, don't be fooled by people that tell you otherwise.

[Sorge]

Things happen, you know.... As to Zimmermann, it wasn't a street shooting, so there is a good chance that even if you live in the safest spot on the planet you still might be murdered.
Madison (Madison area is ~600 000, btw) feels MUCH safer than many other places and yes, there are no totally bad neighborhoods, I would not be scared to go ANYWHERE in the Madison area in the daytime. I often walk couple miles from my work at ~9-10 pm.
Back to Zimmermann, yes we are scared, there might be a mentally ill guy with a gun or something walking around our homes. But you know, I still feel safe to leave my kid playing alone outside, something that I simply could not afford to do in Boston.

[Milwaukee Ronnie]

In my city, murders don't even make the front page of the newspaper, since they happen 2 to 3 times per week. I would love it if my city had 4 or 5 murders a year, like Madison has. So, yes, in comparison to big cities, Madison is Mayberry. It's a laid back place where people aren't numbed to a constant drumbeat of murder and mayhem on their nightly TV news. I grew up in the City of Milwaukee, which I love, and lived in Madison for six years, which I did not care for. But one thing I can say for Madison is that I literally never once felt even the least bit insecure living there. I hear Madisonians talk about how bad Allied Drive is, and, I gotta tell ya folks, it's nothing compared to the raw, simmering ghettoes in Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, or St. Louis. This is obviously a good thing.

[Chelito23]

The previous poster just proved my point. It is like a mantra with some people to compare Madison to these large cities and it is so silly, I mean Madison is like a big town and then people say it is safe compared tot he raw ghettos of Chicago??? Duh! But for a city its size, you get the run of the mill stuff. The people who think Madison is Mayberry either do not live here or are living in a Madison that hasn't existed for over a decade.

[Drover]

It's not just that Madison is safe compared to big cities. It's even safe compared to other cities of its size and compared the national average as a whole. It has less violent crime than Des Moines, Fort Wayne IN, Lubbock TX, Baton Rouge LA, Shreveport LA, Salt Lake City, Akron OH, Montgomery AL, Grand Rapids MI, and Rochester NY -- all cities with populations around 200,000. If Des Moines, Fort Wayne and Salt Lake City don't scare you, Madison certainly shouldn't.

[Chelito23]

Thanks Drover, that is exactly what I was saying. Madison feels about as safe as any other city of its size. If the mean streets of Des Moines don't scare you, Madison's shouldn't either. But to say there is virtually no crime "compared" to major cities, it is just bizzare. But the people who make those arguments are usually people who don't live here. I mean, I could go to Muscoda, Wisconsin and rave about its low crime rate and how people leave keys in the car when they are parked and how people have their doors unlocked at night. And coming from Madison it would be "sooooo" safe. It is all relative. We just need to explain to the OP that Madison is not some fairy tale place that is crime free, but it isn't a ghettofied community either. Just a run of the mill big town/small city with what most people would expect. Nothing more, nothing less.