SLC quality of life on the decline? (Salt Lake City, West Valley City: apartment, crime)

[tim_data]

The description sounds like the way LA is now, with more violent homeless per square sidewalk space than anywhere in the U.S. (because they are all outside, due to the weather). You don't want to walk anywhere without your finger on the pepper spray button.

SLC can't be this bad.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by tim_data

The description sounds like the way LA is now, with more violent homeless per square sidewalk space than anywhere in the U.S. (because they are all outside, due to the weather). You don't want to walk anywhere without your finger on the pepper spray button.

SLC can't be this bad.

It's not even in the running.

[manyroads]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

I'd classify pretty much every one of these comments as absolute BS. I've lived in Salt Lake City all my life (I'm nearly 70) and while the city is, of course, changing as it grows, it doesn't even remotely resemble what those comments say it's like. They are totally inaccurate and utter nonsense. I don't know anything about the reputation of Best Places as a reliable source of information, but if I were you, I'd do a whole lot more research before writing off Salt Lake City as the hellhole those quotes imply that it is.

Thousands of hood-rats, people on assisted housing, out-of-control crime, rapes and strings of deadly freeway accidents being the norm, communities full of Muslims... The list goes on. I think that the only thing these posters left out is that it's all the fault of those damned Mormons.

Thanks for your response, Katzpur. I really appreciate hearing from a long time SLC resident like yourself on the current conditions in the area.

Actually, there were comments about the Mormons (as expected) in the reviews, such as how Mormons are very nice to you when you first arrive (and they are trying to get you to join the LDS church), but lose interest in you when they find out you're not going to convert or have no interest in organized religion. Also some people mentioned that it can be difficult to get a job with some companies if you're not Mormon as some places just tend to hire other Mormons. I didn't mention the Mormon comments in my OP because the Mormon influence in SLC has been discussed already in other threads.

[manyroads]

Out of curiosity, I checked the crime statistics for Raleigh (where I currently live) against those of SLC on the Sperling's Best Places website. I'm not posting this to say that Raleigh is better than SLC as I have no particular affinity for Raleigh (I consider myself a transplanted NYer who happens to live in Raleigh).

While Raleigh has more than twice the population of SLC and is also going through heavy growth with many relocating here from the northeast, it's crime figures are markedly lower than those in SLC. I would have thought that if anything, crime rates would be lower in Salt Lake than Raleigh, given the large Mormon population there, good economy and low unemployment rate, as well as the fact that generally speaking crime tends to be higher in areas with warmer climates. The high crime stats for Salt Lake are puzzling to me.

Salt Lake City

Population: 192,672
Violent crime score: 58.1
Property crime score: 86.5

Raleigh, NC

Population: 451,066
Violent crime score: 35.9
Property crime score: 43.6

Scores are measured on a scale of 1 to 100 where 100 indicates highest crime.
US average for violent crime is 31.1
US average for property crime is 38.1

[SWFL_Native]

IMO the crime statistics should be viewed by MSA or CSA rather than SLC proper. The crime statistics within the SLC proper are skewed because the population swells due to commuters to the U and professional workforce. It would not also reflect the average amount of crime faced to everyone living in Salt Lake Valley.

So for example SLC proper had a population of 100k but 500k work there throughout the day. That would me the crime basis is on the 500k workers but measured against 100k population.

Conversely the other areas would have less crime during work hours for the 500k workers but get the benefit of the population stat. Using a larger areas like CSA or MSA would normalize this. Other cities where they are larger in geography would be more representative of crime stats.

For example:
Denver is 155 SQ miles and 693k people
Salt Lake is 110 SQ miles and 193k people

Denver CSA is 525 sq miles and 3.15M people
Salt Lake CSA is 1200 sq miles 2.4M people

So the relative population of Denver is much urbanly dense so comparing crime statistics of the cities alone would not be comparable between Den vs. SLC. You would need to expand to Metro or combined areas.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by manyroads

Out of curiosity, I checked the crime statistics for Raleigh (where I currently live) against those of SLC on the Sperling's Best Places website. I'm not posting this to say that Raleigh is better than SLC as I have no particular affinity for Raleigh (I consider myself a transplanted NYer who happens to live in Raleigh).

While Raleigh has more than twice the population of SLC and is also going through heavy growth with many relocating here from the northeast, it's crime figures are markedly lower than those in SLC. I would have thought that if anything, crime rates would be lower in Salt Lake than Raleigh, given the large Mormon population there, good economy and low unemployment rate, as well as the fact that generally speaking crime tends to be higher in areas with warmer climates. The high crime stats for Salt Lake are puzzling to me.

Salt Lake City

Population: 192,672
Violent crime score: 58.1
Property crime score: 86.5

Raleigh, NC

Population: 451,066
Violent crime score: 35.9
Property crime score: 43.6

Scores are measured on a scale of 1 to 100 where 100 indicates highest crime.
US average for violent crime is 31.1
US average for property crime is 38.1

SWFL_Native has given you an excellent response. I was going to say much the same thing, but he had the numbers to back his explanation up. Interestingly, the population of Salt Lake City proper (192,672) is only about 10,000 people more than it was when I was a teenager in the 1960s. As a much younger person, I often found myself wondering why the population of Salt Lake never seemed to be getting any bigger when the city was obviously much larger than it was when I was a child. Back then, I didn't really understand that all of the growth I was seeing was not within the city limits, but within the metro area. You can be anywhere in the metro area and, if you don't know specifically where the boundaries are, you'd never know whether you were in the city proper or not.

[Lraien]

My two cents to add would be that while there is crime here, it tends to stick with the people who go looking for it. There are some apartment complexes you'd want to stay out of but for the most part, if you don't go looking to find it, it won't find you (other than theft which can be anywhere).

We're currently trying to figure out where we want to buy and there are only three cities in the valley I pretty adamantly refuse to move to. They do happen to probably have a higher concentration of crime, but again, it's not random passerbys being impacted and I wouldn't live in fear living in the area. I choose to avoid them because there is some gang culture in some of the junior highs and I don't think it would be smart to plop my kids in that during the time in life they are most likely to be influenced by friends instead of me. Even with saying that, if my youngest had a personality more like my oldest, I probably wouldn't even worry about that because my oldest was a bookworm type who never would have even noticed "wild kids" at school.

I worked downtown and would use my reserved parking spot all the time on the weekend to see theater productions, tour lights, etc. I never once was nervous walking 8-9 blocks in the dark back to my stall - even with all my kids. We have issues for sure, but we're a state where people's Eagle Scout Projects can still make the 5 o'clock news. If they had salacious headline after salacious headline, you wouldn't see that.

I'm going to vote the site is being overrun by people who hate that everyone is moving here and are trying to taint perception.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by manyroads

Thanks for your response, Katzpur. I really appreciate hearing from a long time SLC resident like yourself on the current conditions in the area.

No problem, and I apologize if I over-reacted to your post. The quotes you posted really did not reflect the situation in Salt Lake City as it really is.

Actually, there were comments about the Mormons (as expected) in the reviews, such as how Mormons are very nice to you when you first arrive (and they are trying to get you to join the LDS church), but lose interest in you when they find out you're not going to convert or have no interest in organized religion.

I really don't think that's the case. Mormons in Salt Lake City are part of a close-knit culture where everyone knows each other, not only in a neighborhood setting, but in a church setting as well. In other words, Mormon congregations are geographically based, so every Mormon in the neighborhood is going to see every other Mormon in the neighborhood at least once a week at church, plus very likely at a number of mid-week activities, too. Unfortunately, when you get a high concentration of any one religious group in any given area, the members of that group can appear to not be very interested in getting to know those on the outside. That's not always the case, though. On my street alone, there are twelve households. Just four of them are made up of Mormons. Of the eight others, there are Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and who knows what else. There are Anglos, Hispanics, Asians and Middle-easterners, and adult heads of families ranging from their 20s into their 90s. Every summer, we get together for a big block barbeque and pot-luck. Almost everyone comes and we all have a great time. Nobody cares where anybody else goes to church or if they go at all.

Also some people mentioned that it can be difficult to get a job with some companies if you're not Mormon as some places just tend to hire other Mormons.

In the case of small, family-owned companies, that may be the case. In the case of medium-sized and large companies, it definitely is not.

[kaytidid]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

In the case of small, family-owned companies, that may be the case. In the case of medium-sized and large companies, it definitely is not.

Most definitely not the case. My DH works for a fairly large LDS owned company and his religion (or lack thereof) has ever been an issue, nor even mentioned.

[kletter1mann]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

I'd classify pretty much every one of these comments as absolute BS. I've lived in Salt Lake City all my life (I'm nearly 70) and while the city is, of course, changing as it grows, it doesn't even remotely resemble what those comments say it's like. They are totally inaccurate and utter nonsense. I don't know anything about the reputation of Best Places as a reliable source of information, but if I were you, I'd do a whole lot more research before writing off Salt Lake City as the hellhole those quotes imply that it is.

Thousands of hood-rats, people on assisted housing, out-of-control crime, rapes and strings of deadly freeway accidents being the norm, communities full of Muslims... The list goes on. I think that the only thing these posters left out is that it's all the fault of those damned Mormons.

They also failed to blame Obama, Hillary's emails and all the *******s moving in from the coasts (though Californians did take a hit).