Norfolk more dangerous than New York City (Cleveland: best cities, crime rate)

[citydweller]

http://pilotonline.com/news/local/cr...bdc4a3874.html

Another article about shootings in Norfolk.

[Poquoson7]

Originally Posted by Lockdev

Has nothing to do with the economic conditions and everything to do with a certain subculture of Norfolk.

Hampton Roads likes to sidestep that one a lot and not tell it like it is. It's like the parent that defends their bad kid after they've done something wrong... "Oh, Johnny is just like that."

Let's not blame the people committing violent acts. No, instead let's blame the economy instead for pulling triggers and robbing people.

Lets blame the PARENTS for not raising their children with any idea at all how to be responsible human beings. To give birth to a child and not nurture and guide it should be illegal.

[NorthernGator]

I'm getting ready to move to VB (hopefully) and I called the police to see where they got the most calls and they said they didn't know but to google. Wondering if they aren't allowed to say/imply.


I went to this neighborhood scout website and was surprised to see that VB was listed as safer than Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton and some others. The site has a map with different color zones depending on what neighborhoods/areas of the state/city etc are higher crime. Sometimes it can be misleading because for small towns a town might be safe but more crimes reported because there were so few in the town as a whole. There seem to definitely be certain neighborhoods/ parts of all the cities that are safer than others as far as crime. Although Chesapeake had worse stats they seemed confined to a small section of the city, where Norfolk and VB were more mixed.


They also list "safest cities" and other things. I have to set a priority list, sometimes safer is often very expensive, or very rural so less crime by default. Depends on what your situation is, I guess.

[Spazkat9696]

Originally Posted by NorthernGator

I'm getting ready to move to VB (hopefully) and I called the police to see where they got the most calls and they said they didn't know but to google. Wondering if they aren't allowed to say/imply.


I went to this neighborhood scout website and was surprised to see that VB was listed as safer than Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton and some others. The site has a map with different color zones depending on what neighborhoods/areas of the state/city etc are higher crime. Sometimes it can be misleading because for small towns a town might be safe but more crimes reported because there were so few in the town as a whole. There seem to definitely be certain neighborhoods/ parts of all the cities that are safer than others as far as crime. Although Chesapeake had worse stats they seemed confined to a small section of the city, where Norfolk and VB were more mixed.


They also list "safest cities" and other things. I have to set a priority list, sometimes safer is often very expensive, or very rural so less crime by default. Depends on what your situation is, I guess.

Virginia Beach is technically one of the safest cities in the country. Norfolk, P-town, Newport News, and Hampton are all more dangerous than safe.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by LM117

I saw this article on WAVY this morning and thought some of you might be interested. Thoughts?

Stats: Norfolk more dangerous than New York City | WAVY-TV

I'll take Norfolk over NYC on crime any day. Although I wouldn't mind living in NYC.

If Norfolk had 19 homicides last year, and NYC had 89, which way are you going to go? Worse yet, Chicago at 175, and that is a smaller city than NYC. And all of these numbers are much, much, lower than they were 20 and 30 years ago. The average person doesn't see the "per 100,000", they see the total number. If any city in Hampton Roads were to ever have 89 murders over a 12 month period you would see communities picking up and moving en masse. Entire neighborhoods for sale. And the banks and corporations would come in, and what they couldn't rent out, they would tear it down and build apartments and condominiums. Or maybe the high rise housing projects would come back.

Take into consideration how much worse bad neighborhoods are in NYC compared to similar neighborhoods in Norfolk. In NYC, you might have 19 homicides in the same neighborhood. Norfolk isn't approaching that level of violence at all.

Norfolk is dangerous, for what its worth, but it is nothing on some other cities. I've lived in Norfolk for a few years, never felt uneasy. I lived in far worse in Dayton, OH when we'd have 19 homicides, or more, over the summer and that is a smaller city than Norfolk. Look at that city per 100,000, they had 28 in 2013. Back when things were really bad, they had 42 per 100,000, 14 years ago. The city proper is 140,000, so do the math you have 39 for the entire city in 2013. So I'll take Norfolk's odds, because that is 20 less homicides, in a larger city.

Yes statistically Norfolk is a worse city than larger cities, but Norfolk is still a lot safer than similarly sized cities, or smaller cities, that no one ever talks about. If you want an interesting statistic, look at US states by homicide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._homicide_rate

It is a different reflection of what is going on. My home state, is like, right there underneath Virginia, and then West Virginia is only slightly better than Ohio! But then look deeper into the numbers; every state reported higher rates back in 1996, with the rates getting better each time these statistics were reported. Virginia was number 34 then, now it is number 27. And West Virginia was a lot better back then too. And Ohio was number 24 back in 1996, so with it down to number 26 now, that's great news for the state.

That's the real story. You have people moving from states with economic issues to states like Virginia, are they bringing an increase in crime along with them? That would be the most obvious conclusion I can infer from the data. Maybe I should be worried, because it is just a matter of time someone else from Ohio moves here and commits crime. Could be the same individual I never had any problems with back in Ohio, only time will tell.

In all seriousness though, New York state and Virginia have always been close. Virginia seems to be drifting further away, and not in a good way. It could be because of the Northern transplants, or it could be anything. I wouldn't think too hard about it. For anyone saying that Virginia doesn't have problems they're not looking at the situation in its entirety. Clearly, it does. But again, Virginia has a lot of cities. So why is it, that a small minority of these cities, some of them larger than the safer cities, some not, bring down the entire state to where it is trending higher on homicide than other states that used to be more dangerous? The cities that are doing well are doing extremely well. Virginia Beach in particular, is a dream, safer than cities a tenth of it's size in other states considering how large that city is. Are they doing well because the element is all concentrated in the same few cities, and if that is the case, what are those cities going to do about it?

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by Pyroninja42

Notice how they didn't include cities like Memphis or Baltimore?

You catch on quick.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by Lockdev

Has nothing to do with the economic conditions and everything to do with a certain subculture of Norfolk.

Hampton Roads likes to sidestep that one a lot and not tell it like it is. It's like the parent that defends their bad kid after they've done something wrong... "Oh, Johnny is just like that."

Let's not blame the people committing violent acts. No, instead let's blame the economy instead for pulling triggers and robbing people.

Yes Norfolk has a ghetto/rachet/drug aspect to it. But so do a lot of cities. The thing about it is, we hear about Virginia Beach/Chesapeake/Suffolk being so safe. Is it because all of the thugs that would be a menace in those cities live in Norfolk/Portsmouth/Hampton/Newport News? Is it because of Northern transplants moving to these cities? Or is this all an oversimplification and the issue is more complex than anyone is willing to talk about?

[Spazkat9696]

Originally Posted by goofy328

Yes Norfolk has a ghetto/rachet/drug aspect to it. But so do a lot of cities. The thing about it is, we hear about Virginia Beach/Chesapeake/Suffolk being so safe. Is it because all of the thugs that would be a menace in those cities live in Norfolk/Portsmouth/Hampton/Newport News? Is it because of Northern transplants moving to these cities? Or is this all an oversimplification and the issue is more complex than anyone is willing to talk about?

A lot of it comes down to cost of living and the economy.

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by Spazkat9696

A lot of it comes down to cost of living and the economy.

Right. I could see if there were plenty of great paying jobs around here and the educational requirements to get those jobs were really low. But it isn't the fifties anymore. One needs a bachelors just to make a living wage.

The only alternatives are working two jobs, working a lot of overtime, assuming that one can get it or living way, way, below one's means to get a degree, in hopes of getting another $5 to $10 an hour.

It just doesn't make a lot of sense to go on about how dangerous Norfolk is when the jobs are few, the rent is far higher than it should be, because of investors and transients running up the prices and the cost of actually owning a home are out of the ball park. What can we do about it, other than stay out of Norfolk? The city is very uneven. When one does find a decent neighborhood, it is across the street from a slum.

If it has been this way for this long, it will most likely never change. Take the light rail thing. If it did go throughout Hampton Roads, it would go through some really bad neighborhoods. For one because those bad neighborhoods border the good neighborhoods. For another, because it is easier to acquire land and force people out of those bad neighborhoods; eminent domain, along other things. There aren't a lot of home owners in those neighborhoods. Just as the original expressways and highways were built, no different with rail. This dream, of light rail taking us from Virginia Beach to Norfolk, Chesapeake to Suffolk, etc without it going through any bad neighborhoods and without any riff raff getting on board is a fantasy.

Everyone just thinks that they can remain in their own little isolated part of Hampton Roads, as though this is not a large metropolitan area, and never have to deal with how the other half lives.

[CrltenSpke11]

I didn't see the link, but I think the more dangerous cities would be Sr. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Houston, New Orleans, Miami...