How's Freeport and Baldwin?

[bigjretrac]

Baldwin isn't a neighborhood you spend your whole life aspiring to live in, but it's certainly nowhere near the hell hole people on this forum try to make it out to be. What's funny is that I never come across this sentiment outside of this forum.

Speaking of Freeport...I don't think I'd send my kids to Freeport High School or the middle school, but there are a lot of nice pockets in that neighborhood. The problem is that the bad areas are straight up terrible and skew the statistics for whole village. I have a hard time believing South Freeport and Sterns Park are suffering high crime.

[BigMike50]

Originally Posted by PrestigiousReputability

Before I begin, it's really ridiculous to place Baldwin and Freeport in the same category since they have NOTHING in common by ANY of the metrics (not income, not educ. attainment, not school performance, not crime and not even ethnic makeup)

I just haven't seen anything remotely valid or even plausible that indicates Baldwin being a bad place to live. I've heard several ppl on here say Baldwin is not a good place to live but with absolute nothing to back them up. I mean i'm sure some of you can dig up isolated random news articles but anybody with access to a search engine can dig up dirt on any city, county, country, town and state that they want to.

By the way, Baldwin was fairly recently ranked the 25th best place to live in the entire nation by CNN Money Magazine, here's the article:
Best Places to Live: Top 100 - Baldwin, N.Y. (25) - Money Magazine

As for illegal apartments and undocumented residents, there is no data available on that since they are just what their names suggest: Illegal and undocumented! All you can rely on in this case is gossip and hearsay, which is often inaccurate.

Here are the crime rates of all 4 communities. As you can see they are all reasonably close to each other and are all significantly lower than the New York state average(for the exception of Freeport).

East Rockaway (crime is 61% lower than NY state avg):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Baldwin (crime is 34% lower than NY state avg):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Baldwin Harbor (crime is 54% lower than NY state avg):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Oceanside (crime is 52% lower than NY state avg):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Freeport (crime is 15% higher than NY state avg):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

One practical thing that you MUST also keep in mind is the level of commercial activity that each community has. Baldwin has an LIRR stop where a lot of ppl from all over go through, lots of commercial activity on multiple roads and borders different types of towns [to the north and east] than Oceanside and E.Rock

Hearsay

Well I lived in Baldwin for 14 years and Oceanside for 22 so that has to count for something I felt safer in Oceanside and have written about my experiences (crimes) in Baldwin over the years....personal experiences not stats I lived 36 years in that area plus two years in Queens, I think I know what I'm talking about....Baldwin changed a lot in the last 20 years and I personally don't feel its gotten better...you may disagree. I couldn't wait to move out!

[bigjretrac]

Originally Posted by BigMike50

Well I lived in Baldwin for 14 years and Oceanside for 22 so that has to count for something I felt safer in Oceanside and have written about my experiences (crimes) in Baldwin over the years....personal experiences not stats

1) How long has it been since you last lived there? You've been in Virginia for some time, haven't you?

2) Feeling safe is subjective-- I walk through some neighborhoods that others wouldn't, and I know people who walk through certain neighborhoods that I wouldn't dare walk through. If you don't know somebody, then it's disingenuous to talk to them about a subjective barometer of safety when they have no way of calibrating it to their preferences.

Again, I'm not discounting your experiences (I do believe you), but it leads to a slippery slope on forums like these. I can come here and say I've lived in Baldwin for X years and didn't have any of the problems you did, and then where does that leave us?

[BigMike50]

Originally Posted by bigjretrac

1) How long has it been since you last lived there? You've been in Virginia for some time, haven't you?

2) Feeling safe is subjective-- I walk through some neighborhoods that others wouldn't, and I know people who walk through certain neighborhoods that I wouldn't dare walk through. If you don't know somebody, then it's disingenuous to talk to them about a subjective barometer of safety when they have no way of calibrating it to their preferences.

Again, I'm not discounting your experiences (I do believe you), but it leads to a slippery slope on forums like these. I can come here and say I've lived in Baldwin for X years and didn't have any of the problems you did, and then where does that leave us?

Moved out Dec 08, last visited 3 weeks ago ( been back around 4-5x's). Have some friends still there and even stayed a couple of nights at one of their homes and they feel the same way. My old block is a complete turn around and 14 families moved out while I lived there anyhow. I would say somewhere between 75% of the people I know have already moved for various reasons and for the other ones it's just a matter of time.

Man if you or anyone else likes living there so be it, to each their own....I'm just glad I moved when I did and got what I did. This is my personal experiences and like I said you might or might not agree and I'm fine with that!