Raleigh/durham....safe???? (Cary: places to live, stats, murders)

[autumngal]

Final warning. If you cannot keep your posts in a civil manner and within the TOS then move on out of this thread. As infractions will be issued for any further TOS violations. Yup, I am serious, and not joking.

[Dire Wolf]

So back to the original question and in attempt to be positive and balanced, I just want to emphasize that I've never said Durham is "unsafe". The threshold of what a person considers safe or unsafe is an individual one. I only jumped in because someone basically said that Durham and Raleigh were the same. The facts do not back that up. Raleigh is statistically safer than Durham.

Personally I do not avoid Durham as a whole because of safety issues. I go to Bulls games several times a season. I go out to eat at many of Durham's excellent restaurants. I work in the RTP-corner of Durham. I go to Southpoint mall and that area for many of my shopping needs. I posted recently that I thought Durham had a ton of potential Downtown for investment, and I think a lot of that potential will be realized.

But I just don't want to sugar coat things. There are real problems in Durham. On the whole, there are real differences between it and some of the other towns/cities. If you are moving here, you should be aware of these things and make informed decisions.

[9/9]

Originally Posted by Dire Wolf

So back to the original question and in attempt to be positive and balanced, I just want to emphasize that I've never said Durham is "unsafe". The threshold of what a person considers safe or unsafe is an individual one. I only jumped in because someone basically said that Durham and Raleigh were the same. The facts do not back that up. Raleigh is statistically safer than Durham.

Personally I do not avoid Durham as a whole because of safety issues. I go to Bulls games several times a season. I go out to eat at many of Durham's excellent restaurants. I work in the RTP-corner of Durham. I go to Southpoint mall and that area for many of my shopping needs. I posted recently that I thought Durham had a ton of potential Downtown for investment, and I think a lot of that potential will be realized.

But I just don't want to sugar coat things. There are real problems in Durham. On the whole, there are real differences between it and some of the other towns/cities. If you are moving here, you should be aware of these things and make informed decisions.

I am not going to argue with any of your points about Durham, mostly because everyone is pretty much just going around in circles here. The point that you make about not avoiding all of Durham just goes to reinforce some of the peoples' objections (or at least mine) to the continual focus on the overall crime numbers and nothing else. You say that you go to Southpoint for shopping. Do you really think that the odds of being murdered in the Southpoint parking lot is the same as it is in the worst parts of eastern Durham? I don't (just like I don't think the odds of being a victim of crime is the same in all different parts of Raleigh).

You have referred a few times to the chances of an "average citizen" being murdered in the two cities. Who is this "average" person? Is this person a man or woman, because I suspect the rates of crime by gender are different. How about race? The odds of being a victim of crime most likely vary by race as well (not to mention, what does an "average" even mean in terms of race?).

To paint either town by the broad brush of overall crime numbers alone implies that everyone in the city is the same and all crime is randomly distributed. I think this does a disservice to both Durham and Raleigh.

I would really like to get a break down of the crime in both cities by gender, race, income, etc. Anyone know where to get that data?

[Dire Wolf]

Average is an average of all citizens - men, women, rich, poor, black, white, hispanic, asian.

If you have a better way to objectively compare crime in the two cities, I'm all for hearing it. But given the info available, to claim they are the same is just not valid.

[9/9]

Originally Posted by Dire Wolf

Average is an average of all citizens - men, women, rich, poor, black, white, hispanic, asian.

If you have a better way to objectively compare crime in the two cities, I'm all for hearing it. But given the info available, to claim they are the same is just not valid.

I have never met someone that is a man, woman, rich, poor, black, white, hispanic and asian. I guess I have never met an average person.

To be clear, I have never made the claim that Durham and Raleigh are the same. I think that there are many differences between the two, not just including crime rates.

My point is that crime rates is a complicated issue and cannot be fairly compared in such a simplistic manner. You seem to want something that I just don't think exists.

[Dire Wolf]

It isn't terribly complicated. You take the population and divide by the number of crimes and move a decimal point to account for per 100,000 or whatever. It tells you on average how much crime there is. It is a tool that is useful in comparing the two cities.

Does it tell you everything? No. Does it tell you that all things else being equal (normalized) that Durham has more crime than Raleigh? Yes.

[MrsSteel]

It's just two ways of looking at the issue. One is more general (city-wide crime rates). The other is more specific (crime for a specific neighborhood). Both serve their purposes, but I personally find the more specific information about certain areas to be far more helpful. But that's just me.

[9/9]

I give up. Me repeating the same thing over and over again isn't going to do anyone any good.

(edit)

Congrats. I guess you win.

(One last thing. Actually, it is pretty easy to prove that the crime in Durham and Raleigh is exactly the same. Just look at the overall crime rate for the state of NC. Using the logic we have been seeing here, that rate applies to the entire state, including the entire Triangle.)

[Dire Wolf]

Originally Posted by MrsSteel

It's just two ways of looking at the issue. One is more general (city-wide crime rates). The other is more specific (crime for a specific neighborhood). Both serve their purposes, but I personally find the more specific information about certain areas to be far more helpful. But that's just me.

If you are comparing two neighborhoods, then that is extremely useful. If you are comparing cities, you compare the per city stats. Most people don't spend all their time in their neighborhood, so it good to understand how safe (or not) your city is for when you venture off to stores and parks, etc. Certainly no one has ever said there aren't neighborhoods in Durham that are safer that some neighborhoods in Raleigh.

[metro.m]

Originally Posted by Dire Wolf

It isn't terribly complicated. You take the population and divide by the number of crimes and move a decimal point to account for per 100,000 or whatever. It tells you on average how much crime there is. It is a tool that is useful in comparing the two cities.

Does it tell you everything? No. Does it tell you that all things else being equal (normalized) that Durham has more crime than Raleigh? Yes.

No Raleigh has more crime numerically, if you want to get specific. Durham had 12 murders in 2007. Raleigh had almost twice as many. Durham is not some crime capital. It simply isn't. If anyone hangs out in Durham, they would quickly find that out. However jumping on the worst aspects of a city while ignoring the positives, makes those who've never been there create a negative image.

Durham experienced the highest percentage of growth out of all Triangle cities during the 90's. That has diminished however, because of all of the negative press on crime, even though crime has fallen since the 90's. That's the reason people get so emotional when folks bash a city just because of social issues.