Crime in Madison.... (Newark: lease, crime rates, home)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by ryanj0

I am not referencing your area to begin with... Anything on Hammersly from McKenna to Whitney has always (or for as long as I can remember, about 6 years since I knew the area)... Anything down Raymond any further than McKenna has for some time been a higher crime area...

I lived near Hammersly and Prarie in the 1970s... I'm confused by your statement... Are you saying there are shootings there now? I worked on a roads project at Whitney and Hammersly in the 1990s and it was getting a little bit trashier, but was still a very safe area. Has it gotten worse? I'll have to check it out next time I'm in town. The last time I went by the old house (probably four years ago) I did notice that the paint job hadn't been maintained as well.

[Megan1967]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I lived near Hammersly and Prarie in the 1970s... I'm confused by your statement... Are you saying there are shootings there now?

It is a very undesirable neighborhood right now. Lots of drugs and gang activity. I think the economy is the biggest culprit in its decline. People out of work with nothing but time on their hands.

[Frau Kartoffelkopf]

I just got back from spending a week in Madison and Sparta where my uncle and aunt live. The city was very clean, with lots of trees, and everyone was very courteous. My father has lived in many large cities, and he was very impressed. By the time we left they were helping look at apartment listings.
Also, my aunt used to live in Madison in the 80s, and she lived in a bad part of town with a lot of drug activity, though she called it the "rough part". She said it's gotten a lot better since she lived there, though there is a bad part and a good part to every city. She told me that as long as I moved there and used common sense I should be alright. If I go in walking around like a naive farm girl then yeah, there's that chance I could get mugged.

But the important part is that my parents were impressed and are now being very compliant with my move. Compared to South Bend this city is doing pretty good.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Megan1967

It is a very undesirable neighborhood right now. Lots of drugs and gang activity. I think the economy is the biggest culprit in its decline. People out of work with nothing but time on their hands.

That's shocking to me. It was still very decent as late as of the late 90s, though there was that terrible gasoline attack on a B Bus right at the intersection of Prarie and Hammersley (back when the buses still had lettered routes instead of numbered ones). But that had nothing to do with the neighborhood conditions. It was a mentally ill person who boarded the bus elsewhere.

But of course, a bad neighborhood in Madison is never really that bad. I'd actually be more worried walking around 500 E. Doty or Main after midnight.

[ryanj0]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I lived near Hammersly and Prarie in the 1970s... I'm confused by your statement... Are you saying there are shootings there now? I worked on a roads project at Whitney and Hammersly in the 1990s and it was getting a little bit trashier, but was still a very safe area. Has it gotten worse? I'll have to check it out next time I'm in town. The last time I went by the old house (probably four years ago) I did notice that the paint job hadn't been maintained as well.

Well there was a shooting or two this year, but like you say, and I agree, a few isolated incidents or even a couple bad years, do not mean a trend. What I was referring to, for the last however many years that neighborhood has been a hot spot for cops. I was not meaning shootings, but other crimes, it was never, for as long as I've been in the Madison area (maybe about 10 years), been a low crime area for Madison. I never felt unsafe there, but I was just pointing out that the people in that area that are complaining that their "quiet neighborhood" is in shambles, could have seen years ago that it was not a quiet neighborhood. But just because a neighborhood is not quiet does not make it unsafe...

[Lookout Kid]

In the late 60s/early 70s my parents thought their neighborhood by the Colliseum was "going down the tubes" because there were more dogs barking and a few domestic disturbance calls (even though there were really no minorities of any kind moving in). People can be very sensitive to even a hint of neighborhood change. Now it seems like all of the places they rented in the 60s and 70s are considered undesirable by Madison standards (the aforementioned place off of Hammersley, Sherman Terrace, and near the Colliseum). But I don't think any of these areas are like Allied Drive, Badger Road, or the neighborhood formerly known as Broadway Simpson. And in Chicago people would consider a three-block buffer zone from any low-income enclave a safe distance, while people in Madison want to be at least five miles away.

[Megan1967]

Originally Posted by Frau Kartoffelkopf

If I go in walking around like a naive farm girl then yeah, there's that chance I could get mugged.

Normally, I would say your chances of being mugged in Madison were about zilch unless you were in a questionable neighborhood all by yourself and really without any street smarts, but I was shocked that an elderly woman was robbed and beat up (my definition of "mugged") on North Thompson, just blocks from my house within the last month - by neighborhood kids, no less. I don't consider my neighborhood "questionable" either.....

[Chelito23]

What some posters dislike is when they share experiences about crime and then people tell them there really isn't much crime. That is not something that people who are trying to share the other side of the coin want to hear when the lack of crime is already the dominant theme in the thread.

I notice in almost any other forum people accept crime and say, everyplace has it's good and bad areas, even if they are small towns. But not here, here people will say the bad areas really aren't "bad," they are perceived to be that way, there are worse areas in X city, etc. instead of just sucking it up and accepting the writing that's on the wall. It's kind of strange....

I think a lot of people remember Madison the way it was 20 years ago and when bad things happen, they are shocked and by detaching themselves from the crime they feel like they are still safe. There are also some crazy, random things that happen as well, that may happen anywhere, but they have happened in Madison, which is why people factor it into the "crime" here. Another common ocurrence I have noticed in this thread is to disregard crimes as "isolated" incidents. It is funny, when things happen in other places they aren't "isolated" incidents, it is because it is the "real world" where there is crime. But here, crimes are just flukes in the Madison Universe where crime and problems from the outside do not penetrate. Here, a rise in crime isn't a necessarily a trend, but in other places it is. Those are some of Madison's convenient theories. No one has ever said Madison is a hot bed for crime or is like Detroit, but it isn't exactly Mayberry either.

Madisonians definantly love to donwplay negative aspects about the city in general. It is always easier to forgive and overlook what goes wrong here and then say look how bad neighboring cities are. I agree that Madison is pretty nice and safe, but she ain't what she used to be, and burying your head in the sand doesn't make the problems or experiences of others go away or less real.

[gold*dust1]

[quote=Chelito23;10397294]What some posters dislike is when they share experiences about crime and then people tell them there really isn't much crime. That is not something that people who are trying to share the other side of the coin want to hear when the lack of crime is already the dominant theme in the thread.

I notice in almost any other forum people accept crime and say, everyplace has it's good and bad areas, even if they are small towns. But not here, here people will say the bad areas really aren't "bad," they are perceived to be that way, there are worse areas in X city, etc. instead of just sucking it up and accepting the writing that's on the wall. It's kind of strange....

I think a lot of people remember Madison the way it was 20 years ago and when bad things happen, they are shocked and by detaching themselves from the crime they feel like they are still safe. There are also some crazy, random things that happen as well, that may happen anywhere, but they have happened in Madison, which is why people factor it into the "crime" here. Another common ocurrence I have noticed in this thread is to disregard crimes as "isolated" incidents. It is funny, when things happen in other places they aren't "isolated" incidents, it is because it is the "real world" where there is crime. But here, crimes are just flukes in the Madison Universe where crime and problems from the outside do not penetrate. Here, a rise in crime isn't a necessarily a trend, but in other places it is. Those are some of Madison's convenient theories. No one has ever said Madison is a hot bed for crime or is like Detroit, but it isn't exactly Mayberry either.

Madisonians definantly love to donwplay negative aspects about the city in general. It is always easier to forgive and overlook what goes wrong here and then say look how bad neighboring cities are. I agree that Madison is pretty nice and safe, but she ain't what she used to be, and burying your head in the sand doesn't make the problems or experiences of others go away or less real.[/quote]

I enjoyed your post. I feel like your comments are applicable to this board, but as a native don't really find it in real life, which is why it's also perplexing to me.

[gold*dust1]

Originally Posted by Megan1967

Normally, I would say your chances of being mugged in Madison were about zilch unless you were in a questionable neighborhood all by yourself and really without any street smarts, but I was shocked that an elderly woman was robbed and beat up (my definition of "mugged") on North Thompson, just blocks from my house within the last month - by neighborhood kids, no less. I don't consider my neighborhood "questionable" either.....

Thompson has many rentals with people constantly moving in and out. Someone was also just mugged in the same manner on the near west side.