The Bad Parts of the North Side (Pittsburgh, Beaver: real estate, transporting)

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by Drover

Not only is Troy Hill not outrageously dangerous, it is one of the least problematic neighborhoods in the city. Troy Hill's biggest issue is that it is outrageously ugly, and therefore it's not a giant leap to draw the conclusion it might not be the safest place in the city. Troy Hill is a case where looks are deceiving.

I agree. The areas further out are especially safe. However, lower Troy Hill, the area immediately around North Catholic, has problems similar to Spring Garden and Spring Hill though.

[PPG]

Hopes, maps are cool! Maybe you could also provide a list of shootings (from the beging of the year till now) on the northside, particularly in Manchester (for me). This list may help some decide what is what and where is where. Thanks.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by PPG

Hopes, maps are cool! Maybe you could also provide a list of shootings (from the beging of the year till now) on the northside, particularly in Manchester (for me). This list may help some decide what is what and where is where. Thanks.

What Pittsburgh needs is its own version of the Chicago Crime Database. The CPD is kind enough to make every reported crime (except really petty stuff like vandalism) on a web database. However, theirs only goes back two weeks. The guy who runs this page keeps a running database going back to late 2005.

[PPG]

It would also be nice if they had the birds eye view for Pittsburgh on that live search satelite view.

[Hopes]

Chicago's website is so comprehensive, it's cool!

It would be great if we could do something more scientific (than our mere opinions), but I wonder how we would collect that data. Even though it's public record, we'd probably run into politics. Plus, Pittsburgh, itself, might not even have such detailed data.

Check out this page on the Chicago site:

Developer services
The data on this site is public record and deserves to be available in digital format to whomever wants it.

Web developers: Stay tuned for APIs, which are coming soon. Subscribing to the site news RSS feed is a good way to stay updated.

Important disclaimer: This site is not affiliated with the Chicago Police Department. This site uses crime data obtained from the CPD's Citizen ICAM Web site, which is a publicly available database of reported crime. Please read the Citizen ICAM disclaimer to understand the data fully.

That seems to indicate that he has run into some political oppression.

Yep, he has run into stone walls obtaining data: About chicagocrime.org | chicagocrime.org

Pimps, do you know anyone in the Manchester police station? How often would you say there are shootings in Manchester and North Side? I attended an anti-drug meeting at my school district last spring. Our police department had a map depicting shootings in the north side that involved suburban teens who went into the area to obtain drugs. Most of those shootings (not homicides---just all shootings) on the map were in the Spring Garden, Spring Hill and Perrysville Avenue areas. Granted, Manchester probably wasn't on the map because suburban teens don't dare go into Manchester to obtain drugs. I was just curious how often you feel there are shootings in North Side and Manchester since you literally live in Manchester,

[Hopes]

We need to start out on a small scale first.

Let's pick one type of violent crime to see if we can map.

Should it be shootings or simply murders? (I think shootings because it will provide a better picture.)

Let's brainstorm.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by PPG

Hopes, maps are cool! Maybe you could also provide a list of shootings (from the beging of the year till now) on the northside, particularly in Manchester (for me). This list may help some decide what is what and where is where. Thanks.

Until we figure out how to do this, here's a 2006 study with all sorts of maps for violent crime in Pittsburgh.

http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/dh...sburgh2006.pdf

The maps start on Page 17.

Check them out. They validate much of what you're saying about which areas are dangerous.

There are some interesting pie charts towards the end of the report showing the cause of the homocides. And there is a bar chart that validates it's safer in the early mornings and anytime throughout the weekends during the day. Shootings most often happen in the weekend late nights, but that's followed by weekday work period being the next most dangerous time.

[Hopes]

I just found One Vision One Life's 2005 report.

Page 21 and 22 show the relationship between neighborhoods for murders. The diagram depicts what neighborhoods the victims were from and where they were shot. Basically, most people who are killed in Homewood, Northside and the Hill District are not residents of those neighborhoods.

Here's the 2005 report: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/dhs/1V1L/da/03-04.pdf

There is also a small report that shows what neighborhoods murders occurred in Allegheny County. Penn Hills didn't fair very well: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/dh...2002-03-04.pdf Northside is by far the worst area of Pittsburgh followed by the Hill District and then Homewood. I'm surprised. We all seemed to think it was the other way around.

[vtPGH]

Regarding the homicide stats linked above...
While the Northside may have the highest numeric murders a year in Allegheny County, I'd wager to bet that the number per 100,000, while high, is not the highest in the county. The stats alluded to above chose to lump all 18 or so North Side neighborhoods as one, an area of roughly 55,000-60,000 residents. This is a much larger population than a Homewood or the Hill District.

[Hopes]

True.

I also noticed that while the actual murders are higher in North Side, the shootings are higher in Homewood.

North Side must have better marksmen.