Seattle ghetto (Tacoma, Vancouver, Federal Way: apartment, condos, home sales)

[MmeZeeZee]

Originally Posted by sean98125

Yes, Wedgewood, Laurelhurst, Madrona, Montlake and Leschi make Detroit look like Beverly Hills.

Wedgewood and Laurelhurst? Is this a joke? You've named most of the places young middle class families could ever hope to live in Seattle. The murder and violent crime rates there are quite low.

The houses aren't fancy but then, my friends from the South said that our area of Bellevue where homes are selling for half a million looked like a ghetto to them. They all have huge McMansions in unnaturally green lawns that are about 10 miles from the nearest park. Depressing to me, but to them, we live in a ghetto.

As for the crime rate--Seattle has a much lower murder rate. Murder rates, if memory serves correctly, are inversely related to other crime rates.

That's because people are more likely to steal things if they think they won't get shot. And that is in fact what happens in Seattle. Nobody will get shot if they try to take my computer. I might try to run them down, but I'm not shooting. This is common knowledge. On the other hand I'll bet nobody steals anything in Texas, where at least part of the population makes a big point of the fact that they value property over human life if that human life is the life of a criminal. The. End.

So yeah, I know Seattle has a high theft rate. But to me that is much less worrying than getting shot accidentally. I have rental insurance. Take the freaking computer. Let's just keep living, okay?

Stats, for reference:

United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We are among the lowest in murder and rape.

Among the highest in robbery.

Fine with me. But then, I'm the sort of person who would rather not have the death of another human being on my hand, even if I lose my mobile phone or god forbid a car.

[Citylove2014]

If you think South Everett is scary, you won't make it anywhere! Lol
It's just a tacky place to be. Make sure you have an alarm on your vehicle though.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

Amen.

People see a working class neighborhood in a city with a bigger percentage of minorities and the first thing they think is "ghetto." Give me a break!

I agree that they must be sheltered PNW natives who probably grew up in cow country. I'm from Jersey and lived for a short time in Newark...nough said.

I love how all these "liberals" think Rainer Beach and CD are ghetto and should be avoided. They'll vote for and defend a black president, but would never live around black people. NOT ALL LIBERALS ARE LIKE THAT, DON'T MISUNDERSTAND ME, but we all know they are ones who think that way.

At least right-wing racists are honest about it (not saying all right-wingers are racist either) I'd actually prefer the guy who says point blank that he doesn't like African Americans to the chump who goes on and on about "diversity" and "equality" but finds whatever excuse he can to move the minute the neighborhood becomes more than 5% black.

I'm about as right wing as they come and I was in Seattle briefly -- coming and going through there and it seemed really nice and i got a bit of a tour because of having to get on a bus to get to the airport on Monday. The people on the bus were mostly black and Asian but I don't know what that means in Seattle because not very many whites are on buses in the city I'm in. My city is very safe and it looks a lot more ghetto than anything I saw in Seattle. We went through some sort of run down areas but they didn't look bad.

Everyone was friendly and helpful -- I was suprised how patient people were waiting for the light rail until they told us to get out and get on those buses. And the people on the buses wee pretty helpful. I still missed my plane though.

[Bernard_]

Originally Posted by RotseCherut

Seattle suffers from the same type of crime most European cities suffer from, which is petty and property crimes.. It's a crowded city with a high population density , so you will definitely see a higher amount of property crimes as they are easier to commit in densely populated areas. In Amsterdam, you had to take so many precautions to not have your motorcycle or bicycle stolen. It was a chore to not get robbed in that town.. Another overly populated area.

Eh, Seattle actually does have relatively high rates of robbery and assault, which are considered violent crimes. I wouldn't say crime is comparable to European cities - Seattle has a significantly higher violent crime rate than most European cities.

Overall, though, Seattle is a safe city by US standards. But I wouldn't say it's the safest. San Diego is safer in terms of the numbers and from my experience there it felt very safe. San Jose and El Paso are also safer.

[Bernard_]

Originally Posted by MmeZeeZee

We are among the lowest in murder and rape.

Among the highest in robbery.

Fine with me. But then, I'm the sort of person who would rather not have the death of another human being on my hand, even if I lose my mobile phone or god forbid a car.

Don't forget, there is a difference between theft and robbery. Robbery is a violent crime while theft is not. Seattle has a relatively high robbery and assault rate.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by Bernard_

Eh, Seattle actually does have relatively high rates of robbery and assault, which are considered violent crimes. I wouldn't say crime is comparable to European cities - Seattle has a significantly higher violent crime rate than most European cities.

Overall, though, Seattle is a safe city by US standards. But I wouldn't say it's the safest. San Diego is safer in terms of the numbers and from my experience there it felt very safe. San Jose and El Paso are also safer.

San Jose's safeness is now a thing of the past. For the last two years, gang activity and murder rates have skyrocketed there. Seattle is safer than SJ these days for sure.

[DevanXL]

Originally Posted by Bernard_

Eh, Seattle actually does have relatively high rates of robbery and assault, which are considered violent crimes. I wouldn't say crime is comparable to European cities - Seattle has a significantly higher violent crime rate than most European cities.

Overall, though, Seattle is a safe city by US standards. But I wouldn't say it's the safest. San Diego is safer in terms of the numbers and from my experience there it felt very safe. San Jose and El Paso are also safer.

El Paso safe?

[PollyGlott]

Originally Posted by DevanXL

El Paso safe?

Amazingly, El Paso has been voted "safest city in the U.S." several times ... in spite of its neighbor being one of the most violent cities anywhere!

[RotseCherut]

Originally Posted by Bernard_

Eh, Seattle actually does have relatively high rates of robbery and assault, which are considered violent crimes. I wouldn't say crime is comparable to European cities - Seattle has a significantly higher violent crime rate than most European cities.

Overall, though, Seattle is a safe city by US standards. But I wouldn't say it's the safest. San Diego is safer in terms of the numbers and from my experience there it felt very safe. San Jose and El Paso are also safer.

Seattle has a lot of theft but not robbery. Seattle's violent crime rate is lower than most cities in the USA and even Canada.. Anyone who thinks Seattle is more dangerous than any Californian city has never left the tourist circuit of those Californian cities. Take a trip to South Haight area of San Francisco or almost any southern or eastern suburb of Los Angeles County (outside the San Fernando Valley) and you have neighborhoods that are way nastier than even the worst part of Rainier Beach. As a matter of fact, Rainier Beach is starting to look kinda hip and upbeat. That Columbia City strip is pretty cool. I was even looking at apartments in Rainier Beach and shocked to see that they are now freakin expensive. Now, the Seattle hood is the new and cool palce to live.. At $1000-1100 for a 1 bedroom, most people think that it is a good deal considering apartments in Fremont are going for like $1500 for the same size place.

East/SE Tacoma and Kent/Auburn are probably the only real scummy areas left in the Seattle metro. Federal Way is gritty (not scummy), but only in the apartment tracts, the rest of the city is just a mix of blue and white collar suburbia.

In 10 years, Seattle will be a completely yuppified/gentrified/rich man's city and Tacoma/Federal Way/Kent will be were the ghetto people make their final migration. These are also some of the few affordable areas left in the metro area.

[MmeZeeZee]

Originally Posted by Bernard_

Don't forget, there is a difference between theft and robbery. Robbery is a violent crime while theft is not. Seattle has a relatively high robbery and assault rate.

I don't know whether theft or robbery is higher. I'll let you two work that out. I do think, though, that if robbery is high it's because they're going to charge as many people with armed robbery as they can, even if the weapon is a really sharp stick, because that is how we do in Seattle.

It's passive aggressive, it's sometimes racist, but I'll bet they'll find a way to get at the thief.

Still better than getting shot accidentally, though.