PGH pedestrian friendly? and real story on crime (Pittsburgh, Brentwood: violent crime, homes)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by bboy36win

You know what's interesting? When you look at Homewood via close-up arial photography at Google Maps, it's interesting to note how many empty lots there are - just an empty square of green. Same with the Hill District. Former homesites that have been razed?

Probably. You see a lot of the same in Chicago too. There's an L train I occasionally take out to a near west suburb that traverses the worst parts of Chicago, and you get an ariel view from the tracks that are 20 feet in the air. And it absolutely stuns me how many vacant lots there are out in that part of the city. In many of those lots, you can clearly see the outline of a foundation where a house or a two-flat once sat. Talk about a reality check: vacant single lots in my neighborhood fetch about $125,000. And in this town, a single lot is only 25 by 125... and in that space you have to squeeze in a house, a garage and a yard. Vacant lots don't last long in this neighborhood even at 125K -- and I don't even live in a "hot" neighborhood. Whenever I roll through the 'hood on the L, it's hard to believe it's part of the same city I live in and that there is so little hope for these places that, even though it's in the epicenter of one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, these lots still sit vacant.

[Hopes]

Those vacant lots were definitely razed houses. It's important to get rid of the abandoned homes because illegal activity takes place inside them. There are plenty more to be torn down, but the city doesn't have the money.

[subdivisions]

[quote=Hopes;753934]You have a good point. I've only ventured through the part between Bennett and Penn---and only as far as N. Braddock Ave. QUOTE]

Well, for one thing, half of that area isn't even Homewood - it's N. Point Breeze, which, while certainly not a perfect area of town is hardly the ghetto either. Aside from one well-publicized incident a few years ago involving a robbery of a postman gone wrong, they don't have shoot-outs, there are no drug deals or prostitutes on the corners. At least not in the section I live in (Meade St near Linden). Also, I have a friend who lives farther NE in N. Point Breeze just across the tracks from Homewood/Brushton. I've asked whether he's seen crazy stuff over there, and he also says everything seems fine despite the rumors he heard before he moved there. I personally feel ok being on the street near my house in the daytime, and apparently so do all of the other "normal" people I see walking their dogs, bicycling back from the East End food Co-op, coming home from work, and so forth.

Anyway, I guess my point is I don't think you can adequately make statements about the safety of Homewood based on your experiences walking around in N. Point Breeze. Also, the section you described which is actually Homewood (the part north of the tracks) has a number of small businesses and seems to me to be not so bad as far as crappy areas go. We take our cat to the groomer in that area. While I definitely wouldn't want to be walking around on the street after dark there under any circumstances, I haven't felt like we were going to get carjacked or shot driving our cat to get shaved. We also drive through there on 5th Ave. on a regular basis to visit friends on the other side of the river and visit the zoo and have never had problems. So that might just be the "nicer" section of Homewood. I hear pretty bad things about the sections farther in and to the NE, and that's where a lot of the recent shootings seem to have taken place (where PPG was talking about the stuff being boarded up).

[zip95]

I think a big part of the problem is that you Pittsburghers have no idea how good you have things (crime wise). I'm a Philadelphia transport who has lived in Allegheny county for a few years now. I can tell you that with the exception of a few blocks in Homewood and Mckeesport, the Pittsburgh region is comparatively crime free.

Notice I said comparatively crime free. My intent is not to trivialize crime, but compared to Philadelphia, or Reading, or Trenton, or Camden...Pittsburgh is, in Drover's words, Fox Chapel.

This is something to be proud of, not something to argue about. Do you realize Philadelphia has less than 20% the population of New York, but has almost double the raw number of murders....a travesty. Safety is a huge asset.

[PPG]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

PPG, you misinterpreted what Drover was saying here... that's a problem with the internet, you can't hear all of the nuance in the words.

Drover wasn't saying Homewood was like Fox Chapel, he was saying that Homewood is so much better than the bad areas of Chicago, that the difference is as great as that between Homewood and Fox Chapel. The people who live in the bad parts of Chicago would actually think Homewood was decent in comparison to where they are now.

Thats what I was disagreeing with. I'm saying every "hood" in USA is basicly the same. IMO.

Also, according to area connect, Pittsburgh has more murder per cap.

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[PPG]

I have a suprise for you all. I actually have video of Pittsburghs bad neighborhoods that I will be posting shortly!

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by PPG

Also, according to area connect, Pittsburgh has more murder per cap.
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Pimps, if you compare any smaller city against any larger city the per cap will generally be higher for the smaller city. In other words, if you compare Pittsburgh to a small town that had one murder, it's possible the small town's per cap would be higher than Pittsburgh. I hope that makes sense. If you want a realistic idea of what crime is like in a city, you need to compare it to a city with the same size population.

Here's an example: Pittsburgh and Cincinnati have similar populations just above 330,000.

Cincinatti has a higher murder rate than Pittsburgh: Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

[Elder18]

This is good.
I think one problem is that people don't really know how life in these neighborhoods really is.

When I was in town last weekend, I thought about driving through some of the "rougher" parts of Pittsburgh but, remembering a promise I had made to my wonderful wife, I decided not to.

But I think that until people really see what life is like in Homewood and the Hill District we really can't say how bad crime is or isn't.

It's all a matter of perception, really.

[Denforent]

Now Now Children.. let's play NICELY together. Holy Pittsburgh!! Is this exemplary of the wonderful attitude of the locals/ex-locals? If it is I'd suggest a move to a friendly place like Detroit or Miami where locals enjoy reaching out and touching someone. ROF And the beat goes on.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Pimps, if you compare any smaller city against any larger city the per cap will generally be higher for the smaller city. In other words, if you compare Pittsburgh to a small town that had one murder, it's possible the small town's per cap would be higher than Pittsburgh. I hope that makes sense. If you want a realistic idea of what crime is like in a city, you need to compare it to a city with the same size population.

Here's an example: Pittsburgh and Cincinnati have similar populations just above 330,000.

Cincinatti has a higher murder rate than Pittsburgh: Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

But then you've got places like Omaha, DeMoines and Madison that have substantially lower crime rates than Pittsburgh, or poor little Gary Indiana whose crime rate is through the roof. Same with Detroit at nearly a million people. Once you have enough population density to create an urban setting, I don't know how much population has to do with a city's crime rate.

Pittsburgh's higher per-capita murder rate than Chicago is actually a pretty recent development. Between the years 2003 and 2004, the CPD changed policing tactics and our murder rate instantly dropped by a third and has stayed there. Pittsburgh's murder rate, on the other hand, has been absolutely all over the map, and areaconnect is using an unusually bad year for Pittsburgh as its baseline. Take a look at the Pittsburgh crime stats on this web page. If you evened out the murder rate over a number of years, I believe Pittsburgh's murder rate would still be lower than Chicago's.

It's astonishing how Pittsburgh's murder rate rises and falls as much as 40% from year to year. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to it.