Safety of Oakland (esp. Lake Merritt area)?

[415_s2k]

It doesn't make Forbes' list of 15 most dangerous either.

After having been to Detroit, New Orleans, and St. Louis, I can't say that Oakland compared to these cities... at all.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by SylviaFromMarin

Are you saying Oakland isn't a dangerous city?

I live locally and watch KTVU in the evenings. 95% of the shooting reports are from Oakland.

It is probably more accurate to say 95% of the shootings in Oakland are covered by the media, and a significantly smaller percentage of shootings and other violent crime in other cities is covered by the media.

If you listen to the media, it would appear that violent crime is a rare occurrence in SF. I never seem to hear about it. Or on SF Gate it isn't on the front page with a huge headline. The difference of crime in SF vs Oakland isn't that big (by the numbers), but if I were to watch the news I'd believe Oakland is the scariest city in the Bay Area with few redeeming qualities. This isn't true or accurate. It is often said that 90% of the murders in Oakland happen in a few areas of the city. This is true.

There is also one other key difference in the coverage of crime in Oakland. SF crime is denoted by neighborhood. "Shooting in the Mission, the Tenderloin, North Beach...." So you associate the crime with the neighborhood and not the entire city. For Oakland crimes the neighborhood it happened in is rarely mentioned. So you assume violent crime must be throughout the entire city, everywhere.

That is also a key reasons why neighborhoods like Rockridge and Montclair are commonly referred to as Rockridge or Montclair to disassociate with "Oakland" even though they are only neighborhoods. This confuses many people because they start to assume these places are actual cities. (Realtors are very good at this, I have seen many listings labelled as "Rockridge, CA."

[415_s2k]

Originally Posted by SylviaFromMarin

Are you saying Oakland isn't a dangerous city?

I live locally and watch KTVU in the evenings. 95% of the shooting reports are from Oakland.

If Oakland was a dangerous city in its entirety, then Piedmont, Rockridge, the area around Lake Merritt, etc. wouldn't be so popular with yuppies.

There are definitely unsafe areas in Oakland. There are areas I'd never set foot in without a reason, but I also lived and have visited, shopped, etc. in some of the nastier areas and conspicuously not been shot or gunned down.

KTVU isn't going to report how today, thousands of middle-class Oaklanders had a totally, normal, trouble free day like any other, you know?

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by 415_s2k

If Oakland was a dangerous city in its entirety, then Piedmont, Rockridge, the area around Lake Merritt, etc. wouldn't be so popular with yuppies.

There are definitely unsafe areas in Oakland. There are areas I'd never set foot in without a reason, but I also lived and have visited, shopped, etc. in some of the nastier areas and conspicuously not been shot or gunned down.

KTVU isn't going to report how today, thousands of middle-class Oaklanders had a totally, normal, trouble free day like any other, you know?

Thank you for saying this. You know I had a similar conversation today with some people but not about the Bay Area. This crap happens everywhere. In the Bay Are, Oakland is the target.

[chinamen]

Yelp rated Lake Merritt with 4 stars. Around 200 people made a review. 4 stars in Yelp, that says a lot about Lake Merritt.