Why is San Diego so safe? (San Jose: crime, neighborhood, living)

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by malcorub16

I don't know, local news personalities getting gunned down in their Mercedes in front of their Scripps Ranch Home.
Today I feel a little less safe.

CBS 8 Sports Director Shot in Scripps Ranch: Station | NBC 7 San Diego

C'mon now, how many time does a news personality get shot in front of their home? This story is already making national news.

[StreetLegal]

Originally Posted by sfosyd

San Diego has invested in a lot in making it's urban areas more livable and I think that shows. Even 10 years ago, downtown was pretty much a wasteland and areas such as North Park had significantly more crime. Today, you can't touch a single family home in areas like North Park for under 700k and that's a 2/1 with poor schools. There is absolutely no denying that San Diego is safer now than it ever was.

Downtown San Diego pretty much a wasteland in 2005? I disagree. I'd say downtown San Diego was a wasteland circa the 70's and 80's. It had already turned the corner in the early 1990's when the Gaslamp was cleaned up and became a hit with the public.

I agree that San Diego is much, much safer than it was in 1980's and 1990's. But I am guessing SD circa 1940 was safer than in 2015. Granted, San Diego is very safe even by our current (high) standards for large U.S. cities.

Originally Posted by sfosyd

Even the "ghetto" areas in San Diego are relatively expensive and the poorer neighborhoods are NOTHING at all like poorer areas in Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit Houston etc.

This is similar to what has happened in NYC, DC and Boston and is currently happening in Los Angeles. Of course, as a byproduct of this development, many of the folks are getting pushed further and further out. The crime rate in areas like Victorville, Hemet and San Bernardino has significantly INCREASED. However, San Diego is a lot more diverse than it used to be with many successful immigrants from areas like India and the Philippines and I think these folks have helped make the poorer neighborhoods in SD much, much better as well.

It's actually what is long been the case in Europe: the inner cities are again becoming desirable, while the poorer and more crime ridden areas are getting pushed to the far flung exurbs. This is happening faster in the coastal US cities because there is a shortage of land to build on, and because millennials generally dislike living a car oriented lifestyle.

The OP asks a very interesting question and I think you make some very valid points above. But I think one still has to ponder what has made San Diego even safer year in and year out as compared to many of its "big city" peers.

This is a link to a UT San Diego story which reported that through year-end 2013, San Diego had the lowest murder rate among the Top Ten largest cities in the USA for the THIRD year in a row.
Murder hits near-record low in county | UTSanDiego.com

Also, even in the so called "bad days" of the late 80's/early 90's San Diego had a much lower homicide rate than perennial "top ten" cities like LA, NYC and Wash, D.C.

I don't have the city homicide figures but just looking at County-level murder rates in the early 90's (1992) when crime peaked in both LA and San Diego Counties reveals the following:
1) LA County: about 17 homicides per 100,000 residents (1992)
2) SD County: about 11 homicides per 100,000 residents (1992)

By contrast, the homicide rates in 2013:
1) LA County was 5.4 homicides per 100,000 residents and;
2) SD County was 2.2 homicides per 100,000 residents
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1036

So San Diego's "low" performance (meaning "good" or high safety) pre-dates the current demographic shift, granted it was worse back then b/c it was worse everywhere.

[Huckleberry3911948]

the cops only report 1/3 of crime, then they report that its safe and then you feel safe.
its about how safe you feel not about how safe you are. in logan, i found out after i retired what really happened at night at 47th and market. lots of dead bodies. if i had known when i worked there i would have quit.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

C'mon now, how many time does a news personality get shot in front of their home? This story is already making national news.

Guy at one time was living in a storage container. People like this (cuckooooo) give legal gun owners a black eye that's unwarranted. Anyway, glad they got him. Odd timing for this thread.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

C'mon now, how many time does a news personality get shot in front of their home? This story is already making national news.

I know, my post was more about the irony that this thread is started and then a few hours later the news broke.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

Some interesting crime stats for all metro areas from the FBI. It's pretty hard to believe that there were only 39 murders in the city of SD (1.3 million people) in 2013 -

FBI — Table 6

Interestingly, San Jose is a bit smaller in population and it clocked in at 32 homicides last year (probably the rate was the same since SJ has a smaller population).

Bay Area cities

I do think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the problem people are being pushed out of central cities due to high costs.

[AADAD]

Actually anyone look at the demographics of races here in San Diego compared to other cities it's size. May be revealing,

[sfosyd]

Originally Posted by AADAD

Actually anyone look at the demographics of races here in San Diego compared to other cities it's size. May be revealing,

I think you need to clarify what you are implying here. New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego are some of the safest big cities in the USA. I'm not seeing a lot of similiar "demographics of races" among those three, as an example.

[AADAD]

Here you go. No implications. Just facts.

The Color of Crime
Race, Crime, and Justice in America — Second, Expanded Edition, 2005

Major Findings:
Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.
Crime Rates
Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by AADAD

Here you go. No implications. Just facts.

The Color of Crime
Race, Crime, and Justice in America — Second, Expanded Edition, 2005

Major Findings:
Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.
Crime Rates
Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.

And yet those facts are seriously misleading as they do not address race outside of the parameters of racially dense neighborhoods. That is to point out that, these crime stats are not racial, per se. They are environmental. The ratios completely disintegrate when applied to well integrated neighborhoods and regions.

I do not know if you understood this when posting as you did without qualifying. If not, you should be more thoughtful in the future. If did understand and intentionally omitted the extremely salient qualification I have provided, you should be ashamed of yourself.