Man complains about decline of old neighborhood, lives in Cranberry (Pittsburgh: legally, beach)

[norcider]

You can't reason with people like t Clifton, he sees it his way and that's it. I am done arguing about something I never said, and others here even pointed it out to him. Hey, some people are just stubborn.

[Merge]

Originally Posted by that412

I think Merge is imagining that a totally different person is crankily complaining about how Cranberry "used to be" to make the point that everywhere changes over time and nostalgia makes fools of us all.

And unfortunately I have to rely on someone else to say what I meant more succinctly (and actually quite elegantly).

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by norcider

You can't reason with people like t Clifton, he sees it his way and that's it. I am done arguing about something I never said, and others here even pointed it out to him. Hey, some people are just stubborn.

Yup, people are stubborn. Even after 30+ years some are still mad that people leave/left for their greener pastures.

[tclifton]

Originally Posted by norcider

You can't reason with people like t Clifton, he sees it his way and that's it. I am done arguing about something I never said, and others here even pointed it out to him. Hey, some people are just stubborn.

You're arguing with yourself. You made a statement about how crime in the city is just perception and you were presented with facts and an opportunity to back up your claim with a real world experiment. You then turned the discussion around with word parsing to obfuscate the original point.

I'll ask you flat out. Do you think the you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime in the city of Pittsburgh or the township of Cranberry? I'm trying to show that there are legitimate reasons why somebody would want to move from the northside to Cranberry, and crime is one of those reasons.

[erieguy]

One only has to watch the daily local news to have your point proven.

[steindle]

I would never argue that crime in the city at large is lower than that in Cranberry. To say that would be incredibly naive or willfully ignorant, and would be kind of insulting to the people who live each day in poverty and under a higher threat of violence. I will say a few things, however:

(1) Looking at crime numbers for the city as a whole is kind of meaningless -- i.e., there is an incredibly wide range. I would bet that, yes, places like Oakwood or Swisshelm Park are pretty comparable to Cranberry. Homewood is undeniably not. It's senseless to compare "the city" to Cranberry, when "the city" varies massively from place to place.
(2) If your focus on crime is actually a more general concern with public safety / chance of being injured or killed, I do think it's fair to mention traffic injuries and fatalities in the same argument -- and that's a statistic where I'm pretty confident Cranberry has Homewood beat by a substantial margin. But that's not sensational enough to make:

Originally Posted by erieguy

the daily local news

... which is a laughably arbitrary measure of anything. Do you think you're getting an objective representation of everything that has occurred on the daily local news? No, you're disproportionately getting stories about urban violence, because that's what sells to the average consumer who wants his/her environment and choices to be validated, or at least not questioned.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by steindle

Do you think you're getting an objective representation of everything that has occurred on the daily local news?

The local news is completely unwatchable. Before the internet, you were stuck with it if you needed to know anything more current than what happened before 3:00 a.m. yesterday, but now we're free.

[norcider]

Oh, something happened in the North Side. I'm sure if I googled Cranberry Twp crime it would turn up no results? Nah, not like that Lowe's theft ring that was recently in the news, or any assaults or robberies committed in the shopping centers up there right? Or the smash and grab robberies that take place in the idyllic neighborhoods, nah that stuff doesn't happen. Anyhow, keep beating that horse guys.

[tclifton]

Originally Posted by norcider

Oh, something happened in the North Side. I'm sure if I googled Cranberry Twp crime it would turn up no results? Nah, not like that Lowe's theft ring that was recently in the news, or any assaults or robberies committed in the shopping centers up there right? Or the smash and grab robberies that take place in the idyllic neighborhoods, nah that stuff doesn't happen. Anyhow, keep beating that horse guys.

Are you implying that crime rates is equivalent in the northside and cranberry? Talk about rose colored glasses.

[tclifton]

Originally Posted by steindle

(1) Looking at crime numbers for the city as a whole is kind of meaningless -- i.e., there is an incredibly wide range. I would bet that, yes, places like Oakwood or Swisshelm Park are pretty comparable to Cranberry. Homewood is undeniably not. It's senseless to compare "the city" to Cranberry, when "the city" varies massively from place to place.

I was only responding to this:

Are you suggesting if you place me on Brushton Ave at 12AM Friday I'm going to witness crime or be the victim of one? If you think this you just may have too active of an imagination. Now, if I were to walk a poorly lit stretch of some Cranberry road late at night, there would be a chance I'd be struck by a speeding car because there is no sidewalk. I'll take my chances on Brushton.