How are these three areas with regard to safety? (Harrisburg: lease, high crime)

[monicapies]

First of all how is Etters? I noticed a mostly abandoned shopping center there with what appears to have been a Super Fresh, and I believe it still has a Wine & Spirits store, but with liquor stores come crime stemming from addiction.

How is Middletown? I also noticed a run down shopping center here with a Sharp Shopper Grocery Outlet that appeared to have been a Jamesway store many years ago, perhaps ending in 1995 when that chain went out of business. There also was a Wine & Spirits here.

And how is Camp Hill? I noticed a quaint but sort of creepy small shopping center there that yet also had a Wine & Spirits store, and not a very bright or flashy one.

[Hopes]

Are you serious that you think a liquor store is a sign of crime and addiction? I think you'll have a hard time finding someone to answer your question when you're basing your judgments merely off of shopping centers and liquor stores. I don't know about the other two areas because I've never been to them, but Camp Hill is definitely safe.

[JettaPA]

LOL, this is probably too informative of a post that this thread deserves but...Etters is about as safe as you can get. Its a little trashy around that area because of all the trailer parks, but there is no crime or criminal element there.

Camp Hill is pretty safe too, but its a little bigger town with more stores and stuff.

I can't speak on Middletown, but I know the shopping center you are refering too, if that's what you're worried about, you might want to wrap up in a plastic bubble when you go outside.

You are really basing your thoughts off of liquor stores? Oh man, good stuff...

[ki0eh]

In states with privatized liquor stores they seem to become more noticeable in poorer and higher crime neighborhoods. Some readers may be unaware that, at least for the moment, wine and spirits in PA are a state monopoly so not as heavily weighted as the true private market would place them. Or the state store lease won't move as quickly as a private sector owner might out of a dying but not dead strip.

Possibly the Middletown area around the former Jamesway Plaza will see large scale redevelopment in the next couple of years. Some of that area floods, challenging development and redevelopment proposals. Middletown is sort of middle ground, a mixed race area not as trashy as nearby Steelton or Highspire. The borough has good walkability and also Amtrak, with the Penn State branch campus possibly more upside than downside potential.

Camp Hill considers itself the Main Line of Harrisburg. I am frankly having trouble figuring out which state store location the OP is talking about. Maybe 3760 Market St which is on the older end of Hampden Township in poorly planned postwar development, but locally highest rated Cumberland Valley school district with Good Shepherd Catholic school just down the street. Not high crime by any metro standard at all.