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I'm headed there in a couple of days, this thread makes me nervous -- from what a few memebers wrote it seems like Dowtown Providence is like Downtown L.A. Guess I'll see how things go.
You can call the police departments in any area you are considering... stay away from Providence if you can. The state is so small, you don't need to live in/near the "big" city. Check the newspaper online, many stories about crime in Providence, it's a daily occurrence there.
I prefer to live in the city. I also prefer to know what I'm getting into. Having lived in DC for 9 years I'm fairly certainly most of Providence is safe in my book.
Jim- Thank you for the info, that site had a lot of what I was looking for.
I'm headed there in a couple of days, this thread makes me nervous -- from what a few memebers wrote it seems like Dowtown Providence is like Downtown L.A. Guess I'll see how things go.
Having been to both cities (as a visitor) I can assure you, that you they are nothing alike.
By a lot. Try #87 vs. #158 out of 400. You are twice as likely to be the victim of a crime in Providence than in LA. Keep scrolling down the list and see Cranston at #326 and Warwick at #356!
I know statistics don't tell the whole story but just put that into perspective before falling into the "oh well at least we're better than Big Bad LA" defensiveness.
You also have to take quality of life into account; such as the amount of "boom boxes on wheels" driving around, trash, parking, ignorant behavior, quality of local grocery stores, auto insurance, etc. Common sense and street smarts won't protect you from those. Especially in the case of Providence with the city limits a stones throw away; play in the city, live in the burbs.
By a lot. Try #87 vs. #158 out of 400. You are twice as likely to be the victim of a crime in Providence than in LA. Keep scrolling down the list and see Cranston at #326 and Warwick at #356!
I know statistics don't tell the whole story but just put that into perspective before falling into the "oh well at least we're better than Big Bad LA" defensiveness.
You also have to take quality of life into account; such as the amount of "boom boxes on wheels" driving around, trash, parking, ignorant behavior, quality of local grocery stores, auto insurance, etc. Common sense and street smarts won't protect you from those. Especially in the case of Providence with the city limits a stones throw away; play in the city, live in the burbs.
Is that LA proper or LA county? Most of the LA crime happens outside the actual city limits. Compare Providence to Compton. The worst of Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Fall will likely not compare.
Also, some people like the noise of the city. It gives them a higher quality of life than the animals of rural areas or the sprinklers and lawn mowers of suburbia (I'm one of those people who will shoot myself if I had to deal with suburbia, give me the country or the city).
I'm headed there in a couple of days, this thread makes me nervous -- from what a few memebers wrote it seems like Dowtown Providence is like Downtown L.A. Guess I'll see how things go.
It's more like downtown Baghdad if you listen to some people on these forums.
As I said, if you like urban environments, you'll like Providence. If you don't like urban environments, you'll probably hate it. It's a city. It's a safe city, regardless of what people say. If you like cities, you probably have the common sense necessary to live in one without ever being the victim of a crime.
Here's the type of crime that occurs in Providence...
Naive college student walking down the street at night alone listening to their iPod gets mugged.
Drunken people leave a bar and start a fight.
Gang members beat/shoot/stab each other up.
House is broken into, but they don't tell you that the house next door is vacant (the side that they broke into), the place across the street has a big wall, and the house that was broken into had no alarm.
Car is stolen. Car had no alarm (most cars from 2003 and later come with passive alarm systems).
More naive college students leave a bar drunk, pay no attention to their surroundings, get mugged.
College students start fights with each other at neighboring house parties.
It's mostly petty crime and crime of opportunity. The major crimes, like shootings, stabbings, murder, etc all happen to people somehow connected to the criminal.
By a lot. Try #87 vs. #158 out of 400. You are twice as likely to be the victim of a crime in Providence than in LA. Keep scrolling down the list and see Cranston at #326 and Warwick at #356!
I know statistics don't tell the whole story but just put that into perspective before falling into the "oh well at least we're better than Big Bad LA" defensiveness.
You also have to take quality of life into account; such as the amount of "boom boxes on wheels" driving around, trash, parking, ignorant behavior, quality of local grocery stores, auto insurance, etc. Common sense and street smarts won't protect you from those. Especially in the case of Providence with the city limits a stones throw away; play in the city, live in the burbs.
I've been to Oakland (#5) on that list many, many times, depends where you go, never ran into any problems. Of course you'll probably attribute this to "gang on gang crime".
Question, are you living there now? And by now I mean currently, not a year ago, not five years ago, or I visit family from time to time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RunawayJim
It's more like downtown Baghdad if you listen to some people on these forums.
As I said, if you like urban environments, you'll like Providence. If you don't like urban environments, you'll probably hate it. It's a city. It's a safe city, regardless of what people say. If you like cities, you probably have the common sense necessary to live in one without ever being the victim of a crime.
Here's the type of crime that occurs in Providence...
Naive college student walking down the street at night alone listening to their iPod gets mugged.
Drunken people leave a bar and start a fight.
Gang members beat/shoot/stab each other up.
House is broken into, but they don't tell you that the house next door is vacant (the side that they broke into), the place across the street has a big wall, and the house that was broken into had no alarm.
Car is stolen. Car had no alarm (most cars from 2003 and later come with passive alarm systems).
More naive college students leave a bar drunk, pay no attention to their surroundings, get mugged.
College students start fights with each other at neighboring house parties.
It's mostly petty crime and crime of opportunity. The major crimes, like shootings, stabbings, murder, etc all happen to people somehow connected to the criminal.
Seriously, I'll just take my cue from people actually living there.
Seriously, I'll just take my cue from people actually living there.
I live in Providence... within the city limits... in fact, I live in what would probably be called a transitional neighborhood, bordering a ghetto. I know of 2 crimes on my street. The house that was broken into and the stolen car were both on my street. The car was last week. The break-in was a few years ago. Break-ins are common in the nicer areas of my neighborhood (not the transitional zone that I live in).
I also work at a college here, so I get the crime reports from our security office (though those are only about crimes against our students, unless it's a major crime spree in the college's neighborhood). Oh, I also happen to live about a mile from said college's campus.
I have a very realistic view on crime here. I know it exists. I have an alarm on my house that I set every time I leave no matter if I'm going to be gone for 5 minutes or 5 days. I am always aware of my surroundings when I'm alone, even during the day. I drive through some crime ridden areas regularly (there's a bar a few blocks from my house that is a Latin Kings hangout). I always lock my car and make sure I keep nothing visible (heck, I tend to keep valuables, like my GPS, in my house and try to keep the suction cup rings from it off my windshield).
My wife takes the bus to and from work pretty much everyday. She goes to class at CCRI, which isn't in a very nice area and drives home late at night alone. She'll occasionally get off the bus at a stop about 5-6 blocks from our street if she needs to stop at Walgreens rather than getting off at the stop at the end of our street and drive there. This is after work, even when it's dark. She walks that without fear.
Anyway, as I said, most of the crime is crime of opportunity. If you don't give the bad elements the opportunity, you won't fall victim. The rest of the crime tends to be bad element on bad element. If you don't hang around with the bad elements, you won't fall victim. Naive college students who grew up in the suburban bubble tend to be the target of most crime, which is why the cherished East Side actually has quite a bit of crime, though it's mostly muggings and robbery. I also knew a student who worked for me who had his 1st floor apartment robbed. They had an air conditioner in the window, but nothing jamming the window down on it. It made it easy for the criminals to push open the window, drop the AC inside, and hop in. What made it even better for the criminals is the people he lived with, upon discovering that they had been robbed, called him and the landlord and asked what to do rather than immediately calling the police. In one of the places I lived, one of the guys in another unit in my house had his car windows smashed in. His car was the least accessible from the street, they skipped over 4 other cars that were in our little parking lot to get to his. It was pretty obvious someone knew him (or it could've been meant for another guy who lived in another unit who always parked his car in that spot and the guy who was the victim was just parked in the wrong place at the wrong time).
So there's my experience with crime here. And realistically, that's the kind of crime we see. It's petty and opportunistic, and for the most part, it's avoidable with some common sense. So have no fear, Providence is safe. People who don't like cities, people who haven't been to Providence in a long time, and people who live outside of Providence and prefer to remember how it was 15-20 years ago will tell you it's like downtown Baghdad. As someone who has called Providence his home for the past 7+ years, I will tell you that it's safe. And if you're just visiting, you're likely not even going to hit the bad areas, which means you have even less to worry about (unless your visiting people who live in the Chad Brown or Hartford projects or you wanna hang out at that bar down the street from me).
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