Safety in McKeesport (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown: section 8, crime rate, daycare)

[pghlibrarian]

Originally Posted by PPG

Yeah but those statistics can be very misleading. To me, Pittsburgh ghettos are just as bad as north philly, it's just that pittsburghs ghettos aren't all stuck together like north philly, which may make it seem worse. Pittsburgh has a lot of natural bounderies that prevent this. Also, I don't give much weight to stats.

You do have a point there PPG. The more socioeconomically depressed areas in Pittsburgh are more evenly distributed across the city in Pittsburgh than in other cities I have lived in or visited. It has to be due to the varied topography (the rivers, the hills, etc.)

You gave North Philly as an example, and off the top of my head I could probably say that this is the case in Baltimore, DC, Buffalo, Chicago and others. These cities don't have the same "pockets" of ghetto that Pittsburgh has. The closest example I could come up with is San Francisco, and I'd guess it's for the same reasons.

[Elder18]

The academic in me wonders if there has been any sort of study showing how much natural barriers, such as the hills and things in Pittsburgh, have on the formation of ghettos and crime in general.

An even more interesting question would be the effect that man-made barriers, like highways, airports, etc. have on the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the reason East Liberty went downhill was because the city leaders built roads which led to many people leaving the area.

I know this is something that happened nationwide as well. There is a strong correlation between the highway system and the decay of urban areas in America.

That's very interesting to me.

[zip95]

Originally Posted by PPG

Yeah but those statistics can be very misleading. To me, Pittsburgh ghettos are just as bad as north philly, it's just that pittsburghs ghettos aren't all stuck together like north philly, which may make it seem worse. Pittsburgh has a lot of natural bounderies that prevent this. Also, I don't give much weight to stats.

I'm not trying to start anything here, but this subject in not debatable, and your feelings and intuition are not relevent. Facts are facts, dead bodies are dead bodies...there is no room for anyone's opinion.

If you want to say that 1 murder on a block sucks just as badly as 5 murders on a block.....I can understand that point. But you can't just assume that crime and poverty are the same everywhere.

It would be like me saying "...statistics can be misleading. All cities are pretty big, so to me, all cities have the same population. Just some cities are spread out so they seem smaller...". Demonstrably wrong.

[PPG]

Example: A town that has 2 people and one gets killed the murder rate would be extremely high. People would see the stats and say "oh, we can't go there".

Example: A town that has a lot of shootings but no one gets hit. It would not be on the news or the stats. It doesn't mean no one is shooting.

Fact: A lot of Pittsburgh's neighborhoods do not end or begin exactly where the lines are drawn. Which affect stats.

My final point is that Pittsburgh is an east coast/midwest city very much like Philly, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, DC, New Jersey, etc..... Some of you would prefer rather to compare it with ghettos in Idaho or Nebraska.

My argument seems to be confronted by people who never in their lives spent a night or a week in any ghetto/projects.

[PPG]

This morning on WPXI they reported that a man was shot on walnut st. in Mckeesport and was listed in grave condition. WPXI was the only one to cover it but when I looked for the report on their website it was not there. Other news oulets have not reported it. Either WPXI was mistaken, or somebody is hidding something.

[PPG]

Originally Posted by Elder18

The academic in me wonders if there has been any sort of study showing how much natural barriers, such as the hills and things in Pittsburgh, have on the formation of ghettos and crime in general.

An even more interesting question would be the effect that man-made barriers, like highways, airports, etc. have on the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the reason East Liberty went downhill was because the city leaders built roads which led to many people leaving the area.

I know this is something that happened nationwide as well. There is a strong correlation between the highway system and the decay of urban areas in America.

That's very interesting to me.

Pittsburgh has used it's natural boundaries to seperated project housing from everything else, where as genius leaders in other cities put there projects downtown or close to public areas. You may never see a Pittsburgh housing project because they are put way out on the edge of the city on a big mountain or a deep valley somewhere. Making it easier for poor people to find jobs and commute to work. (Joke)

[zip95]

Originally Posted by PPG

Example: A town that has 2 people and one gets killed the murder rate would be extremely high. People would see the stats and say "oh, we can't go there".

But a town that has 1000 people and 500 murders would be a place to avoid at all costs. You are correct in noticing that statistics lose validity when numbers are small. Luckily when comparing cities or towns we never deal with numbers that small. So when the stats say "watch out" the stats are more-or-less correct.

Originally Posted by PPG

Example: A town that has a lot of shootings but no one gets hit. It would not be on the news or the stats. It doesn't mean no one is shooting.

That's the whole point, as long as you're dealing with large numbers everything averages out. There is no reason to think that the tons of shooters in Pittsburgh have, on average, worse aim than the tons of shooters in B-more.

Originally Posted by PPG

Fact: A lot of Pittsburgh's neighborhoods do not end or begin exactly where the lines are drawn. Which affect stats.

Not exactly sure what you're saying...If you are trying to saying that violence does not respect neighborhood boundaries, so there is a measure of ambiguity in the statistics when analyzing neighborhoods.....then I agree, this is a valid point.

As an example: We have some fictional neighborhood, half of the streets are heaven-on-earth, half of the streets are hell-on-earth. Since the neighborhood boundaries enclose both heaven and hell, the statistics lose some accuracy. People could misintrepret and conclude things like: this fictional town sucks. It's much worse than some other town where every street is heavon-on-earth....or....this fictional town is great. It's much better that some other town where every street is 100% hell-on-earth.

Originally Posted by PPG

My final point is that Pittsburgh is an east coast/midwest city very much like Philly, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, DC, New Jersey, etc..... Some of you would prefer rather to compare it with ghettos in Idaho or Nebraska.

This statement is about feelings and has nothing to do with statistics. My opinion is that gateway cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland are more similar to other midwestern cities than they are are to the East Coast cities....just my feelings.

[zip95]

Originally Posted by PPG

This morning on WPXI they reported that a man was shot on walnut st. in Mckeesport and was listed in grave condition. WPXI was the only one to cover it but when I looked for the report on their website it was not there. Other news oulets have not reported it. Either WPXI was mistaken, or somebody is hidding something.

He died, I saw it on the evening news.

[Katiana]

Some of you would prefer rather to compare it [Pittsburgh] with ghettos in Idaho or Nebraska

.

Actually, Omaha has a pretty decent ghetto, as ghettos go. Boise probably does, too.

[zip95]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

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Actually, Omaha has a pretty decent ghetto, as ghettos go. Boise probably does, too.

what's a decent ghetto???