Living in Glendale, AZ

[Zippyman]

Originally Posted by Kmccormick44

In a perfect world right!?

I know this is a total first world problem as I can afford to live in a community where I wouldn't need to post this question but being new to the area still and not knowing, figured I should ask! Who wouldn't want to build their own home if they could lol!

Well, just to put things in perspective- if you look at the crime map for your current location (59th and 101), you’ll probably see lots of “crime” at the businesses there - people stealing car stereos from apartments, people grabbing a six pack from the party store and running, shoplifting at the depot, even traffic stops where someone gets pulled over from the 101 and stops on Beardsley (and has a warrant) all end up on the map. My brother lived at 51st and 101 for ~8 years & it was actually very “Mayberry” like, but the crime map made it look pretty rough. If you park your car inside the garage, you eliminate about 90% of your chances of being a crime victim there yourself.

Part of the original focus of “crime mapping” is for cops to find out where to patrol- because just a couple of meth-heads on a multi-week binge can burglarize multiple houses per day for a few weeks before they finally get caught or shot by a homeowner. My own neighborhood had a crime spree exactly like that - we turned from “green” to “red” & back to “green” literally because of two people on meth.

Eight burglaries in two weeks in a four block area is more likely a small-time meth spree rather than living next to the guys from oceans 11. Home invasions are quite often bad people robbing other bad people.

A constant source of “crime” in my old neighborhood was the *church* across the street- when the church was remodeled, the contractors left storage trailers in the parking lot that got burglarized (for tools) sometimes twice a week. Then some car thieves decided that a church was a great place to park stolen cars for a couple days (in case they had gps/lo-jack or onstar) before re-stealing them and taking them to be chopped up.

You could be totally oblivious to “crime” like that & never really be in actual danger of being a victim- no one was getting carjacked, robbed or murdered & the entire neighborhood felt perfectly safe walking their dogs or jogging after dark.

So, just know that crime mapping isn’t the end of it - a given area might look like Beirut if you don’t dig into the data. And a bright green area might be hell on earth for homeowners if there’s a militant for-profit property management company running the HOA. I’d much rather get my ipod stolen out of my car than get (legally) shook-down by a property manager for $100 per week “violations” like forgetting to roll my trash bin into the backyard, or having a cable-tv wire that isn’t painted the same color as the house.