CrimeReports.com credible for South Bay? (San Jose, Fremont: low crime, neighborhoods, to live in)

[supercaspian]

I'm hunting for a safe&low-cost neighborhood in the South Bay area. My friends recommend Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cuptertino, Milpitas, West Santa Clara and West San Jose.

I tried Welcome To CrimeReports.com, after inputting some addresses I found some interesting stats:

1. Mountain View and Sunnyvale excellent;
2. Cuptertino and Milpitas also very good;
3. The whole San Jose and Santa Clara has many events such as (vehicle) theft, assault, robbery etc.
4. Palo Alto not that good.

Is this website credible source? I found many attractive posts near Santana Row, Parkmoor, but it seems that the neighborhoods there are not safe at all. I have a family and two new cars, have to live in a safe place. Thanks for your suggestions.

[Luke9686]

I wouldn't trust that site too much. Just the fact that Cupertino isn't in the same category of Mountain View and Sunnyvale makes me not trust the site.

Mountain View, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Palo Alto are all good. Don't get Palo Alto (nice, Stanford) and East Palo Alto (ghetto, murders) confused. They are not the same.

There are going to be things like car theft, and things like that in any large city.

Most of Santa Clara and West San Jose are nice. Even parts in East San Jose are nice (Evergreen).

Santa Row is nice. So is the area around Parkmoor, but there are some dicey areas around there. And by dicey, I don't mean you will be in harms way. Just not as nice as other places. In general, the whole San Jose metro is nice, with low crime.

I suggest visiting to get a feel of neighborhoods and commute times. Don't forget to factor commute time into the housing equation.

I also like Willow Glen and the Rose Garden neighborhoods of San Jose.

[MikeSJ]

I don't think that site is very accurate. For example, East Palo Alto is by far the most crime ridden area in the south bay but the site does not show any incidents.

Although San Jose (population about 1,000,000) shows a lot of incidents, it is the 10th largest city in the US but is classified as the safest city of over 500,000 population. San Jose is below the national average in all areas of crime except auto theft. Even so, most areas of San Jose is very safe.

Overall most areas (excluding East Palo Alto and a few parts of San Jose) are very safe from Burlingame to Fremont. However, some cities without any night life (or night life scattered about the city) are probably slightly safer than cities that have an area that people can congragate in bars and resturants since crime generally does increase in those areas.

I've lived in Sunnyvale, Fremont, as well downtown San Jose and have never felt unsafe in any of those cities.

The following link may give you a better idea of the crime in the cities in California.

Table 8 (California) - Crime in the United States 2006 (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_08_ca.html - broken link)