Is Paterson, NJ dangerous? (Fair Lawn, Ridgewood: HOA, cheap home, unemployed)

[truthspeaker]

Paterson is really nice, it is an extremely safe place as long as you trade in your current car for a Sherman Tank!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Make sure you live right next to the jail!! good luck!

[awegrzyn]

Like gangster movies? Come to Pat. We'll show ya.

People, no city in this country will be safe if it's going the way it's going. The rich people figured this thing out long time ago. They know they can not change some type of people. So what did they do? They gave up the cities to the poor. They raised property taxes in nice areas and left the nice suburbs to themselves. Fair? Sure. Is this optimal? No. In order to have nice cities and suburbs we would have to follow the Russian model. Singe race, negative demographics, strong police, no littering. Maybe then rich people would not have to pay 25K in taxes in order to live quite and safe. People that lose the most: poor safe white people, rich black people.

A.W.

[mrsyi]

I'm a woman of rather slight build and I feel very comfortable in most areas of Paterson day and night. Of course, I am also a recent transplant from NYC, and the various faces of urban living do not phase me. Actually, I rather enjoy them.

I think the question of Paterson is really very individual. I also think that many of the people who post on this board and have negative things to say about Paterson are from suburban areas. As a result they tend to be somewhat limited in their ability to appreciate urban living.

[citycrawler]

Stay away. That is all I will say.

[Blondie621]

I played with fire there......very dangerous! But then again I had a one track mind and did not have time to fear anything. You never want to live in Paterson or even visit there.

[Mike Rogers]

You don't want to live in Patterson, a matter of fact you don't want to drive through Patterson. Yes it is dangerous, and Wayne is night and day when compared to it.

[franksmith]

paterson makes 1978 Harlem look like Alpine today. Paterson is a dump of maximum proportions.

[SilkCity0416]

Okay. It seems to me that this thread has become too populated with trolls. As for Paterson being worst than 1978 Harlem, get real. I don't get it, if Paterson does nothing, the city gets slammed, if Paterson goes through a renovation, the city still gets slammed. It seems to me that either some folks have no type of knowledge about Paterson, or sadly some can't stand the fact that a poor, minority town is making a turn around.

[BKTony]

Paterson is a dangerous city as is every large city in the northeast. Its seems due to industrial decline and jobs moving overseas it affected New Jersey's inner cities very hard. All the cities like Newark, Camden, Trenton, Irvington, etc. fell into urban decay. Poverty in Paterson is very high so as you would expect crime is high there too. The level of poverty in a large city is usually an indicator of crime.

[TheEmissary]

Originally Posted by SilkCity0416

Okay. It seems to me that this thread has become too populated with trolls. As for Paterson being worst than 1978 Harlem, get real. I don't get it, if Paterson does nothing, the city gets slammed, if Paterson goes through a renovation, the city still gets slammed. It seems to me that either some folks have no type of knowledge about Paterson, or sadly some can't stand the fact that a poor, minority town is making a turn around.

I especially hate posters that spell Paterson with 2 "t"s. Makes me think that their knowledge is second-hand at best. There is a "Patterson" in NY state! Paterson will never be a place to attract the wealthy. Most of its history is that of a lower middle-class city and immigrant city. It has an appeal to NJ's poor who can't afford anything better, who basically have been steered there by outside forces. There are tons of two-family houses on 25x100 lots that comprise the vast majority of its housing. Most of the folks with more middle-class aspirations left for the suburbs ages ago. They were the children and grandchildren of those who got "off the boat" in the late 19th and early 20th century prospered a bit and left. There has always been the vacuum left by the "latest to go" who are replaced with immigrants - legal and otherwise. Paterson, like other NJ cities, are places you live in bacause you have to, due to economics and then, as you move up the economic scale, you move away from! Paterson, like most NJ cities is simply too small in land area to really transform itself into something much greater than it is. The negativity expressed about NJ cities is due in part to crime and the fact that even as a country of immigrants, we don't like immigrants and if you're a poor immigrant, NJ cities are your only choice.

I'd like to see what would happen if a block of existing houses on say, Van Dien Ave in Ridgewood were bulldozed for a Section 8 housing complex. I suspect I could hear the screams down here in NC. Those that complain about Abbott money for schools, should realize that's the price you pay to keep the foreign and poor "out of sight" and to a large extent, "out of mind"!