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Actually we HAVE been to SF MANY times over the past thirty years and it never ceases to amaze us how much kickback we get from residents (and now posts) about the fallibility of stats etc..
Well, since you have an 'affinity' towards math you should know there is a fallibility of stats. That is nothing new in this world. There is a reason there are many quotes about stats. Here are a few.
Quote:
Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. ~Gregg Easterbrook
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than for illumination. ~Andrew Lang
Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say. ~William W. Watt
Fact is (you like that?) is that many people are champions of their home. A bunch of numbers (that the FBI, who created them felt they needed a disclaimer) don't change that. Obviously looking at a bunch of numbers and not the true essence of a community is more important to you. That is your choice. Seems, to me that there are a lot of people who are successful in life choose to look at the actual city of Santa Fe instead of numbers.
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The police force is SF is minimal....
Really?
A quick google search shows that the national average of Police Officers per 1000 residents is around 2.
Santa Fe Police Officers per 1000 =2.21
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we have friends who have lived there for years and tell us that most crime is under reported.
How do they know this? Something they heard? Are they involved with the LE organizations in Santa Fe?
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Property crime is WAY UP.....
Looks to be about steady. FWIW...
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DUI and drugs off the charts.....
Ok, I'm not going to disagree with you there. Thankfully DUI statewide has continued to drop. The state went from the bottom of the list to the mid 30's over the last few years.
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education terrible...
Unfortunately that is true.
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we now see SF as a nice place to visit....but its a fast in and out for us.
Fact is, you can live in Hays, Kansas. It has a crime rate slightly lower than the national average. But, you're in Hays, Kansas.
Fact is, Santa Fe remains a much more desirable place to live. Just look at the property values. There is much more going on there than in "safer" places like Hays, Kansas (which is less safe than Santa Fe from a tornado's point of view).
I'm not a fan of Santa Fe, but I feel like if you make the most of it...you will enjoy it. (it took me 2 years to come to this point). However, if you just dwell on the bad of it, that is all you will see and you won't enjoy it as much.
So I guess it depends whether one is more afraid of climate/geology/natural disasters, or people/crime. Personally-speaking, I always felt safe in SF. But mostly we visited the plaza during daylight hours.
My wife and I wanted to make informed decisions on which place was the best to retire ( we are both math geeks and have a real affinity for numbers).....fully realizing that no one place is perfect. To our utter shock we discovered stats on Santa Fe that were quite up
setting......a snapshot:
Santa Fe crime vs National Average per 1,000 residents (National Average in italics)
Violent Crime 310 (4.52)
Property Crime 3,806 (55)
Total 4,116 vs National Average of 60 places SF on a scale of 1 (most dangerous) to 100 (safest) at a 5 which means it is safer than 5% of the cities in the US. For a small place like SF thats mind boggling!
Your chances of becoming a victim of property crime is 1 in 18 and in NM 1 in 28!!
DO YOUR HOMEWORK....its beautiful but so is a venus flytrap....search the web do your due diligence
Include the throngs of tourists visiting Santa Fe at any given time in your population estimates and you might have something approaching reality. If the resident population of Santa Fe is 69,200 (as suggested by your stats) and there's 5k tourists in town the population at that moment is 74,200k, so where in your statistics do you take into account the tourist population?
Let's see. According to the Santa Fe Convention & Visitors bureau a recent year had 1,000,000 hotel nights booked. If we assume 2 occupants on average, divided by 365 nights per year, we get an average of 5,479 people. If there were 3,806 property crime incidents, here we can calculate out. 3806 / (69,200 + 5,479) = 51 per 1,000 residents. And I bet the average hotel room is higher than 2 occupants. On top of that you have tourists staying with residents and people coming in for the day.
So, there. When you include tourists Santa Fe drops below the national average.
You're welcome.
PS: How did you get from 55 + 4.52 = 59.52, which is less than the national average 60, to SF is worse than the national average?
Is there crime in New Mexico? Well, yes there is. There's even a gang element that cannot be denied. There is heroin and has been for decades. Lots of the violence seems to center around those elements.
Are DUIs rampant all over NM? Sure, more so in McKinley Co. than Santa Fe Co. Are drugs prevalent? You bet.
Would I wander the streets at night as a woman alone in Espanola, Chimayo, Central Ave,. or even Truchas, to name a few? No I would not. Not a snowball's chance. No offense to those locations, as I'm just overly cautious.
Is Santa Fe the hot bed of crime? I certainly don't think so.
Have I and do I feel totally safe wandering the streets of Santa Fe at night? Yes, I have & I do.
If there was imminent danger in Santa Fe I hope someone would have told me by now after all these years, especially my husband who is a native New Mexican and has had his pulse on the zeitgeist of NM for many, many years. I don't think he would drop me without a vehicle for a week at a time at funky casitas in Santa Fe if there was a serious violent crime factor, minimal police force (), etc.
I too walked all over the streets of Santa Fe...alone....female...at night, sometimes VERY late at night....and sometimes slightly wobbly after a couple glasses of wine. I should have been considered a "prime target", if someone were looking for one. I had absolutely zero problems the whole time I lived there, and would have no fear if I moved back (which I would love to do).
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They all agree that property crime in Sante Fe is above average (~50% above), and violent crime is just a hair above average. But note that Santa Fe is heavily touristed, and this always results in higher crime. People coming to party and raise hell, etc... or people stealing from tourists... or people breaking into vacation homes when the owners are away.
The crime stats are pretty similar for Ruidoso, actually. And I don't have the slightest fear of walking anywhere in this town at any time of the day or night. We don't even lock our doors. It probably helps that we don't have anything worth stealing, but still...
Last edited by Yac; 02-27-2013 at 06:47 AM..
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there are different kinds of "safety"
), etc.
