Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Due to two extraordinarily awful winters in a row up here in New England (I live in Maine) - a total of 17 FEET of snow in two years, the threat of (and 160 actual) roof collapses here including a close call with my own house (despite several expensive roof shovelings - I am a single middle aged female and can't do it myself - my roof still accumulated at one point 8 inches of heavy ice, and mind you, good luck getting anyone out in under 6 weeks to deal with it), let's see ... two sets of water infiltrations from ice dams both years, again, despite frequent roof shovelings, and the accompanying massive spikes in homeowner's insurance rates, the overall misery of being indoors for what, 5 months? due to the cold, having fallen in my own driveway due to ice twice despite salting and sanding, the insanely high cost of heating oil and the need to keep my house between 58 and 63 degrees all winter as a result - in other words, freezing cold, for months at a time - you survive on space heaters, etc etc, combined with the overall stupidly high cost of living here including property tax spikes ... I have decided I am done with the area, and with winter, for good. Kaput!
I have been visiting Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale for ten years and love the former especially. I did a solo week in early May this year visiting Delray Beach, West Palm, and Sarasota to investigate possibly moving to those areas. I love South Beach, but it's cheaper in these other cities, and I figure my chances of employment would be better if the need to speak Spanish wasn't so prevalent. (I'm white as can be and speak English only.) Also the crime is less when you head north, it seems.
It doesn't seem that employment will be an issue in my field. Last year I inquired about employment through an agency and was very well received, with one employer hopping up and down wanting to hire me right away. I had to turn it down as I still have a house up north with a mortgage, and just wasn't ready to bolt yet. But when another atrocious winter ensued, even worse than last year, somehow, I figured I'm freaking ready.
Still, what has puzzled, frustrated and alarmed me is the crime rates in Florida. Sarasota has the same population as Portland, Maine - each city proper has around 60,000 people and when you add the surrounding towns, it balloons up to maybe 150 or 200k. Portland has negligible crime - certainly, just about zero violent crime, while Sarasota - again, a city of about the same size - has a crime rate that appears to be about 50 times worse.
Whenever I check the local news reports for any of the Florida cities I'm potentially interested in, including Miami and the others mentioned, as well as things like the crime mapper websites and the like, I'm just always floored by the volume of crime. Again, compared with cities elsewhere of comparable size. And I can't but wonder ... WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON? WHY IS THIS? I know crime spikes when the weather grows warm up north, and seeing as it's always warm in Florida, I guess that makes sense, but that can't be the only answer. The crime rate in Hawaii, even Honolulu, is not this bad - much lower than the national average. Check out these stats:
Sarasota: "The city violent crime rate for Sarasota in 2012 was higher than the national violent crime rate average by 107.06%, and the city property crime rate in Sarasota was higher than the national property crime rate average by 91.37%."
WBP: in 2012, 107.19% higher than the national violent crime rate, and 82.25% higher than the rate nationally for property crimes.
Delray: Violent crime was 90.39% higher than the national average, and 66.69% higher than the national average for property crimes.
Check these stats out vs NEW YORK CITY:
"The city violent crime rate for New York in 2012 was higher than the national violent crime rate average by 65.24%, and the city property crime rate in New York was lower than the national property crime rate average by 39.77%."
So according to crime stats, NYC is has much less violent crime than little Sarasota, Florida!
Again, WHAT GIVES? WHY IS THIS? Can anyone enlighten me?
Mind you, when visiting the 3 cities mentioned (Delray, WBP, Sarasota) last month, I made it my mission to strike up conversations with as many locals as I could every day - women and men, all ages and apparent incomes, and was pleased and blown away by how friendly and accommodating people were. I explained I was visiting the area thinking of moving here, and asked them what they thought of their city, what were the good and bad things, how did crime impact them (if at all) or anyone they knew, did they feel safe, what were their overall feelings about living here, good and bad, etc. These were people working in shops, people out walking their dogs, people walking in condo complexes - not expensive ones as I'm barely middle class - that I was checking out, business people sitting on a park bench (WPB) on their lunch breaks, etc. A fairly good cross section of people, I felt. And almost without exception, everyone, including the 4 or 5 women I spoke with in Sarasota, (one of whom was a local, others of whom had moved to the area 8, and 15 years previous) had only very positive things to say, and said crime had not been an issue for them or anyone they knew. Other than taking the normal precautions as we do even here in Maine (locking your car and house doors, not flashing money in public, being aware of your surroundings especially at night, etc.) they had only good things to say.
I had the same experience in Delray and WPB. I think I talked to approximately 35 or 40 people over a 7 day period, and I would say 95% of them had only very good things to say.
So ... are the crime stats artificially bloated for some reason I haven't been able to figure, such as the swelling of the population during winter? But do snow birds - many of them retirees, I'm assuming, actually commit these violent crimes? That seems highly unlikely.
I don't really understand how they come up with these statistics either. I lived in Delray (moved out 9 years ago) and found that most of the crime was in very specific areas that you probably wouldn't be living in and the situations would have nothing to do with you. I always had the impression that the criminals/victims knew each other and a lot of the crimes were revenge motivated.
Same goes for any of the cities you mentioned. It still does sound really high though!
I was thinking of moving to the Mt Dora area and was shocked at some of the crime statistics for those areas. What?!?
People move there from Palm Beach and Broward counties to be safer. When visiting Mt Dora I feel like I'm in some safety bubble fantasy world. The residents I've spoken to there said they've never had problems either.
It will be interesting to hear what others have to say.
Hello Marguerite, Boca Raton has a lower crime rate than Delray Beach and West Palm Beach. According to the website , Boca rates at 83 and Delray Beach at 77. Again, the crime rate in BR is lower than in most of Florida.
I've lived here in Boca since 1985. Aside from occasionally disreputable people who show up after hurricanes and don't do the work, I haven't heard about too much crime. I live in East Boca.
If you want a less suburban setting, more like South Beach, maybe concentrate on Fort Lauderdale, a very nice place to be and a beautiful beach. FLL has very distinct and separate neighborhoods, as Miami has. If you research, perhaps using City Data's FLL discussion group, you might find what you are looking for.
I love the look of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth, the little stucco houses are charming. But there really is a lot of crime there, gangs and drugs and drive by shootings. Not in all neighborhoods of course. I looked in Delray Beach before buying a house in Boca Raton because in Delray Beach at the time (1990s) there was too sharp a demarcation between black and white neighborhoods. I wanted to live in a community that was more blended and comfortable with multiculturalism. The people in Boca who don't like the multicultural mix in S Fl. live in gated communities.
Just my impressions. Others here think Boca Raton is snooty, but I live in a neighborhood that is middle class, self-respecting, and safe. I don't expect much more than that from my neighbors, but they have been pretty good after a storm as well.
ETA: Boca did use to be the white collar crime of the USA--I am talking about property crime and gang violence, etc.
My section of Lake Worth has very little crime. The other parts aren't so lucky. A lot of what is reported as Lake Worth is actually outside the city limits. Some areas have Lake worth mailing addresses for whatever reason.. So much of the crime in places like Lake Worth, WPalm and Delray has to do with specific neighborhoods.
The safe neighborhoods in these places aren't that cheap, though.
The Top Six gang was run out of Lake Worth a few years ago. They were really bad, but PBSO and other organizations like the Guardian Angels helped get rid of them.
Yes, Delray in the 90s was still oddly quite racist, demarcated or whatever you want to call it in terms of blacks and whites living in separate neighborhoods. Good old Delray. Not sure how much that has changed.
Crime rate statistics are over-stated in cities where there's a large tourist population relative to the size of the permanent residents.
Crime rates should be computed by dividing total # of crimes by the total number of persons in the city. The FBI only uses the permanent population to represent the total number of persons in the city, and they leave out the tourist population.
If the crime rate was computed correctly, by dividing the total # of crimes by the permanent + tourist population, then the crime statistics would be much lower in many of Florida's tourist cities.
Same thing happens in Myrtle Beach. The area only has about 40,000 residents, but it attracts over 100,000 tourists on a given day. As a result the crime rate is higher than reality because they're dividing total crimes by 40,000 instead of by 140,000, and the consequence is it becomes ranked as more dangerous than Newark NJ or Baltimore MD which is nonsense.
Crime rate statistics are over-stated in cities where there's a large tourist population relative to the size of the permanent residents.
Crime rates should be computed by dividing total # of crimes by the total number of persons in the city. The FBI only uses the permanent population to represent the total number of persons in the city, and they leave out the tourist population.
If the crime rate was computed correctly, by dividing the total # of crimes by the permanent + tourist population, then the crime statistics would be much lower in many of Florida's tourist cities.
Same thing happens in Myrtle Beach. The area only has about 40,000 residents, but it attracts over 100,000 tourists on a given day. As a result the crime rate is higher than reality because they're dividing total crimes by 40,000 instead of by 140,000, and the consequence is it becomes ranked as more dangerous than Newark NJ or Baltimore MD which is nonsense.
Why on earth would you include tourist population when they have nothing to do with the violent crime occurring? All that would do is hide the obvious problem that there are areas of SE FL which have incredibly high, disproportionate amounts of crime.
We have some serious problems with crime in SE FL because there are pockets of complete human trash in some areas which push the crime rate up to ridiculous amounts. Riviera Beach is one such example of a crime infested area which tends to spill over to surrounding areas at times. When you move away from that area crime is more of a non issue but the sheer amount of crime going on there and in other hot spots pushes up the numbers for the area to ridiculous amounts.
Why on earth would you include tourist population when they have nothing to do with the violent crime occurring? All that would do is hide the obvious problem that there are areas of SE FL which have incredibly high, disproportionate amounts of crime.
We have some serious problems with crime in SE FL because there are pockets of complete human trash in some areas which push the crime rate up to ridiculous amounts. Riviera Beach is one such example of a crime infested area which tends to spill over to surrounding areas at times. When you move away from that area crime is more of a non issue but the sheer amount of crime going on there and in other hot spots pushes up the numbers for the area to ridiculous amounts.
The reason why you divide by the permanent plus tourist population is it more accurately reflects the odds that you as an individual would be the victim of a crime. Even though the tourists don't commit the crimes, they are often the victims of them. That said, your second point is very well valid, namely the crime statistics lump areas together. So if you're not living in one of the crime hot-spots, crime is not an issue even though the FBI statistics (which lump the two areas together) say otherwise.
The crime stats probably have more to do with parts of these cities that have high poverty rates. There are parts of Delray, and probably Sarasota that have these areas. You are right, the people living in most parts of Boca or Delray don't have the same issues with crime. I am staying in an apartment in Central Boca and people here leave their bikes and scooters out in the driveways and nothing gets taken. Kids play outside and ride around the complex with seemingly no worries. So I do think it is relative to where you lives. If you look closely at the maps, you will probably see the same streets or neighborhoods affected.
One thing Boca police do say (according to their website) is prevalent is identity theft. They urge people to take extra precautions with their mail, such as mail your own letters, don't leave them out for collection.
Fl. is a cesspool of crime. Personally I can't wait to leave
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
