Downtown Plaza in Sac- What on earth is happening?? (Sacramento: sex offenders, crimes)

[CityGirl72]

When I worked for Urban Planning, I remember writing up an economic research project for Triangle Park (by the railyards)

It seemed like such an opportunity - But nothing the developers would give us seemed "worthy" and that was almost 8 years ago - nice to see they are "getting it" FINALLY

[NewToCA]

Looks like Westfields is going to be seeking final plan approval the first week in April, and hopefully the construction should begin by November 1st.

[robertpolyglot]

Originally Posted by cityx

No - no graffitti where I'm from in Burlington, Vermont. No gangs, and very little crime.
NYC or Boston on the other hand.....

Been there on a day hop from Montreal. Beautiful New England college town. A little pricey, too, for housing. Wait until winter comes. Plug that car in and practice driving on months of snow and ice. As beautiful as it might seem, most people accustomed to the warmer West eventually come to dislike harsher temperatures. I thought Montreal was the coolest place ever and it is. However, I've only seen it in October when the leaves are changing. They tell me it's a whole different ball game between December 1 and April 1. If you can deal with snow, then you might like Burlington VT.

[misterdammit]

ETA: Sorry, didn't notice I was responding to an old post. Does anyone know if the renovation of the downtown mall ever went through, though? I haven't been there in about a year.

Maybe I'm just completely naive.

I lived in Chico for years before moving to Sac on 7/4/08. During the time I lived in Chico, I visited Arden Fair several times and the downtown Westfield Plaza at least two or three times (shopping in Chico is sucky. Almost non-existant, really). Since I've lived here, I haven't been to the downtown mall but I have been to Arden Fair probably four times, at least (I like to shop, what can I say?). I've been there in both the afternoon and evening (it was getting dark outside). I even went alone once.

I have *never* seen anything at either mall that scared me, and I am basically a total chicken; some would even say I'm slightly paranoid about all things crime-related. Being a small girl from a small town, Sac seems *huge* to me and I'm always on the lookout for people who look "scary," gang bangers, etc. I even went to the downtown mall at night once (not alone, and I hadn't read the warnings at the time!) and still didn't see anything scary. WHERE ARE THE THUGS??? I don't know if I'm just extremely lucky not to have seen them or whether the other people posting here are just more paranoid than I am (which I would find hard to believe).

I have driven past the old Florin mall (being new here, I'd gotten lost in Florin), and agree that parts of Florin are super scary, but I haven't seen these types of people at either of the other malls. Maybe I just haven't tried long enough?? I'm not saying you guys are lying, I'm just wondering if I'm not noticing something that I should be.

[wburg]

Westfield has started putting up signs and pictures of the planned remodel, and some of the stores in the portion to be demolished have had their "going out of business" sales, but work has not yet begun. Eventually, there will be a Target store on the L Street side near 5th Street, a new food court above the Hard Rock Cafe on 7th, and the movie theater will expand, taking up the half-block of trees and landscaping on 4th and J, with a new vehicular drop-off area off of J Street to 4th and K. When will it happen? Who knows?

If anything, Downtown Plaza seems busier to me in recent months. I work downtown and walk through the mall area fairly regularly. People of all kinds are there. There is a certain sort who interprets any fashionably-dressed young people of color as "thugs," and since there are often many fashionably-dressed young people of color, I'm sure how that certain sort describes them. Some of them may actually be thugs, but Downtown Plaza doesn't seem particularly unsafe because of their presence.

The rest of the K Street Mall is kind of a different story, but really, the open-air portion of K Street Mall from 7th to 13th, and the semi-enclosed Westfield mall from 4th to 7th, are two very different spaces.

[zen_klown]

According to the Sacramento Bee's crime mapper tool, there have been 50 reports of gang activity within 1500 ft of 500 Kst (5th and K) between 1/1/2006 and 7/30/2008 by the Sacramento Police Department (and that is just what got reported by the police) I am not sure about validity of dismissing these reports as just discrimination against fashionably dressed minorities.

There really is a gang problem there as well.

Sacramento Bee CrimeMapper

[misterdammit]

What do they count as "gang activity?" Also, what do they count as "reports of gang activity?" Are they counting incidents where people were actually charged with something? Convicted? Or are they counting every call to the cops wen someone just sees some suspicious looking people standing around?

I'd have to know more info before deciding whether that statistic should scare me.

[zen_klown]

I think it means something. If you play around with the crime mapper, some areas have much more gang activity than others. You just don't find a lot of gang activity in Folsom. You needed to have an incident bad enough where someone bothered to involve the police.

In pushing for a gang tax, one of the points the city made was the strength of correlation between areas the Sacramento City Police Department identified high in gang activity and the higher levels of violence in those neighborhoods.

Local Government - Sacramento gang tax seen as not enough to cover safety needs - sacbee.com (http://www.sacbee.com/345/story/1108532.html - broken link)

For quite a while Sacramento has been much more dangerous than both the state and national averages. City leaders tend to attribute that in part to the local gang problem and I think that inference is reasonable. The city of Sacramento probably would have benefited from the gang tax.

Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed

[wburg]

Originally Posted by zen_klown

I think it means something.

So then, what does "gang activity" mean?

[zen_klown]

Originally Posted by wburg

So then, what does "gang activity" mean?

Membership in a gang.