Safe suburbs outside Portland? (Beaverton, Hillsboro: condos, how much, houses)

[jojo4]

Maybe the media is not reporting the rape cases.
I haven't seen much of anything in the paper or TV about rape.
Why would the statistic be wrong? I'm just asking here not trying to pick a fight or anything.

Where is the city boundary on the east side BTW? I rarely go east of 82nd so I'm not familiar with that area.

[oldtintype]

I just find the statistic surprising. I just wonder if perhaps information is collected differently in Portland, or that we have programs here that encourage reporting. If people don't feel comfortable with the police they tend to report things less...I don't know, I'm again, just surprised by the statistic--it doesn't feel right.

Boundary depends but it goes out into the 160s at least.

[oldtintype]

And the strip joints also tend to be out for the most part past 82nd, which is higher crime anyway.

[nancy thereader]

Is this north east 82nd???

[oldtintype]

NE or SE. There are pockets of nice areas though in both NE and SE past 82nd. It's just kind of a geographic stereotype that there's more crime out there and it's a stereotype for a reason. It's also more sprawl like that way. Again, there are areas such as Parkrose in NE that are past 82nd and very nice, but you need to be more vigilant about making sure (esp. if you're buying) that you're in one of the "nice" areas!

[nancy thereader]

Thanks , I will most certainly do that when I come out in April to look for a place.

[findingmesomeday]

I grew up in Philly. I lived in Portland for 4 years back in the mid 1980's. I never felt unsafe anywhere in Portland (well, except North Portland but I never had reason to go there). My husband dragged me out of there kicking and screaming in 1988 and he's only now starting to regret it! Unfortunately, the job market for what we do just isn't there.

I just watched the Ducks crush Univ. of Spoiled Children. How sweet that was! My oldest (11th grade) mentioned wanting to go to Dad's alma mater the other day. So my husband is downstairs on his laptop with realtor.com, yelling upstairs "Honey, what do you think of buying a "fixer" in Eugene and having the roommates basically pay the rent while our son attends college?

LOL

I could live in Eugene. I think. (But the fixer would be for my son and his future roommates.)

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by oldtintype

I just find the statistic surprising. I just wonder if perhaps information is collected differently in Portland, or that we have programs here that encourage reporting. If people don't feel comfortable with the police they tend to report things less...I don't know, I'm again, just surprised by the statistic--it doesn't feel right.

Boundary depends but it goes out into the 160s at least.

I completely agree. Until this past summer I lived in Portland for 18+ years. In most parts of the city I never felt like I was unsafe, even at night alone. I've walked several Portland neighborhoods and downtown streest at night alone and never was bothered. There are just some areas that others have mentioned that you just knew to stay away from.

Portland has alot of services for women including rape support and these services were very prevelant and VOCAL. I don't think the services were built out of a greater need, but rather a greater respect and care for women. These additional vocal services probably have women reporting incidences more often. And the news might not be reporting them because maybe they are mostly date rape, like most rape is in general.

But I always felt like the the news did a good job of covering these sort of issues.

[Tesaje]

Originally Posted by angelbug

Hmmm, maybe I should just stay where I am... though even here our rape rate is higher than the national average - I suspect that involves a lot of date rape on campus, though. I've only heard of one rape reported in the media the entire 6 years I've been here, and that was on one of the bike paths in the middle of the day on a Sunday!
Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

The Portland rape stats surprised me too. I went to school in Davis and the big thing was the paroles from the state prison in Vacaville just 10 miles away made for easy pickings with all the college girls on bikes. That's why the crime stats were high in Davis.

[ElenaF]

Here's some good tools I use for reasearching PDX neighborhoods:

Portland OR Zip Code Map for a visual zipcode map of the metro

Google Maps the "street view" feature that was already mentioned (wow, is that cool or what!)

CrimeMapper detailed crime stats, you can drill down to specific types of crimes for an area to get a better perspective

Transportation Maps to figure out the kind of transportation options available in a particular area

City of Portland, Oregon for just about everything you might want to know about the city and its services. Amazing portal, very useful.