Crime and Safety (San Antonio, New Braunfels, Alamo: house, safest area, to buy)

[210]

BTW, my aunt was forced to Houston back in 2002 (i believe) as SBC was asking employees to retire or be transfered, she choose the transfer. She enjoys Houston but lives in a side of town that is extremely violent (i'm not sure which areas of Houston are but she lives on the northside) and retires next year and will be returning to San Antonio.

[hello13685]

The Places Rated Almanac is available at any Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstore (a big, fat paperback book). City crime reports will not do cross-city comparisons. The authors of this guide use official stats and compare cities. Their methods are listed within. The guide does not rate danger, just crime, I believe. I didn't say SA was dangerous or crime-ridden; I cited an outside source that rated it as having the worst crime rate in the country. Don't shoot the messenger!!

[210]

I'm not sure if you know this, but the last "Places Rated Almanac" to come out was in 1999.

Even then I highly doubt San Antonio was number 1. Highly doubt. If we're talking late 80's, sure.

[210]

Question Hello, why was St. Louis recently named the number 1 most dangerous city in the US by the FBI which used the crime rate to compile its list.

[hello13685]

Yeah, I may be citing the wrong book. I may be thinking of "Cities Ranked and Rated" that came out in 2004. Authors are Sperling and Sander. It's the blue one.

[irwin]

Originally Posted by hello13685

Yeah, I may be citing the wrong book. I may be thinking of "Cities Ranked and Rated" that came out in 2004. Authors are Sperling and Sander. It's the blue one.

Hello:

Here’s the story 210 mentioned:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15475741/
St. Louis is number one and Detroit is number two. San Antonio isn’t ranked in the top 25.

That being said, I remember another ranking that came out recently ranking Dallas as number one and Phoenix was number two. San Antonio was also ranked fairly high (or low?). Maybe that was murder rate…not sure.

Finally, as someone born and raised in San Antonio, but have moved all over the country since college, I agree that many people in San Antonio (and Texas in general) are very defensive and take any criticism as a personal threat. It’s actually rather comical. I too share your concerns with San Antonio, although I also realize why some like the place. It really depends on your priorities and lifestyle choices. For me, San Antonio is way too anti-urban and laid back. But, maybe when I am looking to retire in 30 years I’ll change my mind!

[hello13685]

Irwin:

Thanks a lot. Now that I think about it, I'm going to have to look at that book again, because maybe it was for murder that SA was ranked lowest. Anyway, I share your thoughts about SA being too laid back and non-urban. In the post above, before I was attacked, I had even said that SA has a lot to offer your average person, but that I am outside the mainstream. Now I would bet anything that some people will start foaming at the mouth because we wrote that SA is non-urban, even though these same people robotically repeat "big city with a small town feel."

[RedOregon]

Something to keep in mind... SA is the nation's 7th largest city (if I'm off by one or two I'm sure someone will correct me) and considering the population, there just isn't a lot of crime. Last I heard, it was close to a million and a half? And that's just San Antonio proper; we've got several "island cities", where there's a city totally surrounded by San Antonio, and those populations aren't counted. Again, if anyone knows a pointer to an exact number, that would be cool, but I'm betting we're close to 2 mil if you include those numbers as well.

Another thing... most of that crime is concentrated in certain neighborhoods, which means a *good* portion of the city is relatively crime-free, except for traffic accidents, family disputes, and the like.

I've been all over town at all hours, and since '98, I can't think of a single time when I felt nervous or unsafe. Pretty mellow city overall.

[Need_affordable_home]

Thats great to hear! One of my friends said S.A is a nice city to live in, very affordable housing and the crime isnt terrible. According to city-data, the crime here in south Florida is much higher than in S.A! Question: All those cheap new developments going on where a nice big new house can be had for around $150k, are those locations OK?

[George IYC]

Regarding information by neighborhood including crime info, I use neighborhoodscout.com - its a pay site these days (unfortunately), but you might find it useful. I've found it to be generally reliable and current for crime statistics - property crime appears to be a bit high in certain parts of San Antonio, but not violent crime.

You can zero in a specific neighborhoods below the zip code level. You can also look at your current neighborhood in another city, and see how it compares. Best Places is not the best place to get accurate, current information on cities and specific neighborhoods.

As for school quality, greatschools.net is more reliable for current school info and its a free site. Comments by parents and students give you a flavor for the school (positive and negative), plus you can sort all schools in a particular area or for the entire city by a number of criteria, whatever you think is important. This web site also allows you to see how your school in another city stacks up (look at the national ranking on a scale from 1 to 10) against San Antonio schools. There are a number of very good schools in San Antonio that rank well on a national basis.

Wikipedia also gives a nice overview of the entire city and describes major neighborhoods (search under San Antonio) - I think this overview is fair and current, although I don't know for sure.