Maplewood and South Orange (Newark, Jersey City: renters, crime rate, neighborhood)

[pattiv]

Originally Posted by kaday

If it wasn't for my husbands job change I'd be there right now in Dicken's village with my kids then over to the pub for lunch and maybe a beer! It is a great town with great character and good people. I miss it especially at Christmas!

Have you seen maplewoodonline.com
I just visited that sight, and its a great way to keep up with events and
old friends, etc.

[kaday]

Originally Posted by pattiv

Have you seen maplewoodonline.com
I just visited that sight, and its a great way to keep up with events and
old friends, etc.

I do look at occasionally and when I lived there I was on it all the time! We come back a visit a few times a year. It's a great community. It must have been fun to grow up there!

[Wes501]

Sounds like maplewood is really nice, I'm a single 30something female looking to buy my first home or condo and I'm interested in maplewood. Is it an easy commute into the city? What is the quality of life like in Maplewood? What areas are within walking distance to transit? I would like to know more. Thanks !

[Ryze]

I happen to live in South Orange, with about 2 miles or so from our apartment until reaching the Newark border, and I feel perfectly safe walking around even late into the evening. Newark gets more of a bad rap than it deserves, too. Not everyone on every corner is looking to shoot, rape, or kill you by any means! Oh, and as this may be news to some of you, not everybody standing on a corner is a criminal--they are probably just waiting to catch the bus. These are mostly hard-working people just trying to make it. And I hear you people moan about your property taxes and your condos and stuff, my goodness, it must be you same people that think West Orange is a dangerous place-LOL! Maplewood is lovely and safe as well I would like to mention while I am at it! Just because it isn't like Short Hills or Summit does not a slum make; furthermore, I much prefer the down-to-earth people of SO to Summit nose-in-the-airers, anyday.

To those of who whom I offend, then good, you needed to realize you are prejudiced so that you can stop denying it and start working on it. And for the rest of my fellow sane people my apologies for a bit of a rant here, but I feel strongly that these words flying around about staying away from certain Oranges,or all of them, etc., on this thread and unfortunately way too many others that I have perused this morning.

I can clearly see the ignorance on this board that people fear what feels unknown and unfamiliar and so they hate it instead since that is more comfortable and agreeable to the judgemental mind.

Just because you are not used to seeing people of diverse "colors" and "classes," does not make our lovely multicultural areas slums! This is the most prejudiced forum I have ever read. Oh, be ware, if you see black people/hippies/poor folk/..... it must be a bad neighborhood--what a crock!!! Take it from a woman who has grown up and lived in various parts of NJ for practically all my life because I am calling it how I see it and it feels like truth to me.

Disgusted after my 1st visit
Formerly hopeful to find advice on living in the wilderness up north, but if I end up living next door to Bush-lovers.....

[Carat98]

You many want to add Trenton to your list.

Originally Posted by PLPD333

Ok if your in NJ and never benn there befor you may not want to go to these places becuase if u take a wrong turn u may regret it

Camden
Passaic
Patterson
W.Orange
Newark
Jersey City
Alantic City
Linden
Plainfield
S.Plainfield
Bloomfeild
Irvinginton

Yea stay away from ALL the ORANGES

[metaljaybird]

Originally Posted by Ryze

I happen to live in South Orange, with about 2 miles or so from our apartment until reaching the Newark border, and I feel perfectly safe walking around even late into the evening. Newark gets more of a bad rap than it deserves, too. Not everyone on every corner is looking to shoot, rape, or kill you by any means! Oh, and as this may be news to some of you, not everybody standing on a corner is a criminal--they are probably just waiting to catch the bus. These are mostly hard-working people just trying to make it. And I hear you people moan about your property taxes and your condos and stuff, my goodness, it must be you same people that think West Orange is a dangerous place-LOL! Maplewood is lovely and safe as well I would like to mention while I am at it! Just because it isn't like Short Hills or Summit does not a slum make; furthermore, I much prefer the down-to-earth people of SO to Summit nose-in-the-airers, anyday.

To those of who whom I offend, then good, you needed to realize you are prejudiced so that you can stop denying it and start working on it. And for the rest of my fellow sane people my apologies for a bit of a rant here, but I feel strongly that these words flying around about staying away from certain Oranges,or all of them, etc., on this thread and unfortunately way too many others that I have perused this morning.

I can clearly see the ignorance on this board that people fear what feels unknown and unfamiliar and so they hate it instead since that is more comfortable and agreeable to the judgemental mind.

Just because you are not used to seeing people of diverse "colors" and "classes," does not make our lovely multicultural areas slums! This is the most prejudiced forum I have ever read. Oh, be ware, if you see black people/hippies/poor folk/..... it must be a bad neighborhood--what a crock!!! Take it from a woman who has grown up and lived in various parts of NJ for practically all my life because I am calling it how I see it and it feels like truth to me.

Disgusted after my 1st visit
Formerly hopeful to find advice on living in the wilderness up north, but if I end up living next door to Bush-lovers.....

While I agree with most of what you said, I don't agree that people here were being racist simply because they believe a neighborhood to be dangerous.

Your self-righteous statements do not sit well imo, and I would suggest not falling into the trap of reverse-snobbery.

[Onizuka]

Forget opinions, here are some numbers on Maplewood and South Orange (based on FBI violent crime data from 2004):

http://www.homesurfer.com/crimerepor...g.cfm?state=NJ

Out of 238 cities ranked in NJ, #238 is the worst (high crime) and #1 is the best (low crime), with the pure crime rate in parentheses. Avg crime rate in NJ is 391.3, and nationally it is 596. This crime rate is number of incidents per 100,000 people. So NJ's overall violent crime rate is 391.3 violent crime incidents per 100,000 people.

238. Irvington (2372.8) - It has the worst crime rate in all of NJ. This town borders on a large part of Maplewood.
233. East Orange (1598.3) - It has the 6th worst crime rate in all of NJ. This town borders on a part of South Orange.
228. Newark (1024.5) - It has the 11th worst crime rate in all of NJ and borders on both Maplewood and South Orange.
204. South Orange (405.5)
190. Maplewood (340.2)


For comparison, other very close towns to whom Maplewood and South Orange are constantly compared on this forum:

84. Millburn (90.9)
45. Summit (60.7)

Interpret these numbers as you wish.

[metaljaybird]

There is a massive difference between South Orange and Newark!!

[Ryze]

Originally Posted by metaljaybird

While I agree with most of what you said, I don't agree that people here were being racist simply because they believe a neighborhood to be dangerous.

Your self-righteous statements do not sit well imo, and I would suggest not falling into the trap of reverse-snobbery.

The definition of self-righteous? It is defined as: holier-than-thou; excessively or hypocritically pious. I really do not think that my post portrayed this quality at all, but I find it somewhat interesting that you felt the need to pass judgment on my opinion and to interpret it as such.

No, I do not choose to "enjoy" the company of snobby people. Financial success, when come about from honest work that does no harm, is a wonderful "extra" to have in life--I do not begrudge people for this. Honestly I have no problem with any people who give back to their communities/world, but I do see something startling wrong with making an above-average to ridiculously-high income and not using a portion of the "expendable" resources for a good cause.

If you look up the statistics, you will see that people in the lower and middle "classes" give much more to charities and such, as proportional to their incomes, than those of the upper classes. The people who have the means to make a difference in the world and choose not to do so are snobs who do not deserve a single cent of their funds. If this point of view I am expressing here now is "reverse snobbery" then I must be guilty as charged. Or maybe I am just a believer in helping others and like to help where I can with the ignorance and hatred in the world before we further destroy our earth and quite possibly humankind as we know it. It seems worthwhile to me anyway.

As far as racism, this term does not only include hate crimes, KKK, and other visible horrors; conversely, it is much more often found in what is NOT said. Furthermore, I did not say that I found this to be true so much in this thread in particular, but rather more so on this NJ board in general. If my writing was unclear as to this point, I do apologize.

I am OK with people having different opinions than me, but I believe I have the right to have my own as well, without being given "polite" insults.

That being said, I think I would rather not visit anymore.

[mead]

Yeah South Orange isn't too bad. West Orange is a fine town, with a small somewhat bad section. Orange is kind of borderline, and East Orange is straight out hood.

So that's basically my take on the Oranges...

South Orange = Good
East Orange = SCARY