Which of these areas is the unsafest: The Iron Triangle, Bay View/Hunter's Point, the Tenderloin, Vallejo, or Oakland? (Nice: crime rates, safe neighborhood)

[Natural510]

Originally Posted by Nineties Flava

Funny, I could have sworn that Vallejo was 3/5 the land area of Oakland. What do I know though, it's not like I've lived in the Bay Area my whole life life or something. You're clearly the expert.

But, it has Marine World!!!!

[Nicegurl]

Hi everyone,

My apologies for not being specific. If I am speaking in general terms about Oakland or Vallejo, it's because I do not know them well enough to name specific areas. I do know that pretty much everything in the hills of Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo are safe. However, I don't know which areas are considered really dangerous or just borderline.

[DocGoldstein]

Are you doing a research project? Why do you want to know about 4 of the most crime infested areas that exist in Northern California?

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Natural510

But, it has Marine World!!!!

Dontcha just love generic posts that offer regurgitated stereotypes and trite generalizations.

[clongirl]

There a several bad areas in Vallejo. The most well known questionable neighborhood is "the Crest". It's north of Marine World...also to the east of Marine World...not nice. Also some areas off of Magazine St, Miller Ave (aka "Millersville" and...South Vallejo. A lot of gang activity and murders/drug raids etc in these parts.

[0'Farrell]

No place rougher than Turk and Taylor st in the Tenderloin.

[Thugocracy]

It depends on what you mean by "unsafest". I would also agree with previous posters that comparing an entire city (Oakland, Vallejo) to small neighborhoods isn't a way to receive any kind of rational or helpful responses.

The thing that makes determining where is the "unsafest" difficult to define is the fact that there is no real objective way of defining what is dangerous. All of the "most dangerous cities" lists that come out rely on methodology that gives an equal weight to robbery and murder, for instance. This is part of the reason why Oakland is so high on those lists even though its homicide rate is far lower than cities like New Orleans and lower than Baltimore, Newark, or Baton Rouge, for instance.

However, to avoid overly complicating this topic I'd say that the Sunnydale projects in San Francisco feel rougher than any of the areas you named, at least to me. Statistically it's a shockingly violent and impoverished area.

The Tenderloin is notorious, and rightfully so. What makes that neighborhood so interesting is the fact that everything happens right out in the open. You can drive around deep East Oakland and feel like you are in any other working class area in California, while in the Tenderloin the drug trade and street violence are not concealed in the least.

As for "Oakland", "Vallejo" (assuming you mean the hoods there and not the city overall) and the Iron Triangle I feel like there are comparable areas in most cities in America. I haven't seen anything particularly "dangerous" about those cities that you can't find in any other inner city. The same would apply to most of Hunters Point with the exception of the West Point, Harbor Rd, and Double Rock projects. Those areas are completely isolated and impoverished, with high rates of violence between warring turfs who live developments that are adjacent to each other.

With all that said, I don't feel like you really need to go trying to buy a home in any of those areas if your sole purpose is hoping that the neighborhood "regentrifies". If you don't have more of an interest in a neighborhood than the hope that the local residents will be forced out due to increasing rents so that you can have an investment that will appreciate you probably won't receive much of a warm welcome in any of those areas, honestly.

[jrb724]

Originally Posted by Nicegurl

Hi all,

For those of you who are familiar with each of these areas, which ones are the most dangerous? I am originally from L.A. and have seen areas down there that have been considered dangerous cleaned up and regentrified due to being in good locations (i.e. nice views, shorter commutes, close proximity to the city and it's attractions, cheaper real estate, etc.). For example, I have heard that West Oakland is the place to buy a home right now because the prices will go up significantly in the next few years as a result of regentrification. Do you think that the same can be said of the other areas that I mentioned above?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Assuming you are talking about the worst/most dangerous areas of Oakland/Vallejo and not the entire cities. Oakland especially has some very safe areas that have always been nice or were gentrified long ago.

Are you asking which is the most dangerous or which is the most likely to gentrify? Those are different questions & can have different answers.

Simple answer is that they can all be fairly dangerous, especially if you are not street savvy. It will take decades for those areas to gentrify if those places are ever gentrified. Gentrification takes a lot of time, money, and political will. As far as West Oakland goes, yes it has positives, but keep in mind industrial zones and housing projects keep residential property values down. Both of those aren't leaving West Oakland (or Bay View/Hunter's Point even with rebuilt "mixed income" projects planned for the future) any time soon.

[bentobox34]

Originally Posted by Nicegurl

Hi everyone,

My apologies for not being specific. If I am speaking in general terms about Oakland or Vallejo, it's because I do not know them well enough to name specific areas. .

Then you shouldn't be asking this question. The questions you should be asking first are: which neighborhoods of Oakland and Vallejo are more/less safe? (A question that's been asked hundreds of times on this forum in the case of Oakland, use the search function. Vallejo not quite as often, but I'm sure it's in there.)

Next, you need to define what you mean by "unsafest." Highest murder rate? Overall violent crime rate? Subjective feeling of creepiness? What?

Finally, you should answer a question that has already been posed to you: Why do you want to know which is the least safe neighborhood out of four geographically dispersed cities?

[Mark Fitsburgh]

I can help you with Oakland as I toured the city again this weekend. The Slums of Oakland are West Oakland, East Oakland and North Oakland. Downtown as well by 12th street. The only area not really crime infested are the Uptown area and some parts near the Lake. Rockridge is OK but it's near some rough area's of North Oakland. Uptown borders the slums of West Oakland. East Oakland is 98% slum. 2% Decent like Maxwell park but even then some white girls got murdered there recently.