Neighborhoods to avoid (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Brooklyn Park: section 8, rentals, buying a house)

[Ed Burke]

To Icy, all I know is what my friends tell me or from my own direct experienced. If your direct experiences are positive, good for you. It is entirely possible that people who live in bad neighborhoods never encounter bad people or have bad experiences. For instance, Kenwood is supposed to be an upscale neighborhood. Despite all the mansions and chauffered cars, their local newsletter tells of horrible breakins. So bad things happen in good neighborhoods. And good things happen in bad neighborhoods.

[Chelito23]

Geeze it sounds like we have some realtors on this board trying to airbrush reality. Anytime someone says anything negative about the Uptown some people can't handle it. Deal with it, every city has areas with higher crime and are not areas you would recommend out of towners to move to. If you want to live amongst a higher crime rate that is your business, but please do not portray Uptown as some Mayberry type place with run of the mill crime.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Anybody who is looking to move into uptown, please ignore the banter in this topic and check out crime data and statistics. That will give you an unbiased idea of if the area is safe or not.

[xz2y]

Is there a website that gives crime stats for each Minneapolis neighborhood, not just the city as a whole? If so, please post it. Also, is there a place to find out where the boundaries/streets are for each neighbood (for example kenwood, powderhorn, etc)?

Originally Posted by Slig

Anybody who is looking to move into uptown, please ignore the banter in this topic and check out crime data and statistics. That will give you an unbiased idea of if the area is safe or not.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Here is a site that has comprehensive crime data by precinct:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/poli...stics/codefor/

Here is a site that breaks down crime, poverty and alot of other useful stats by Minneapolis neighborhood. (The data is from the 2000 census so it won't be 100% relevant):

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/city...ng/census2000/

Here is a map breaking down the city of Minneapolis into communities and neighborhoods. It clearly defines the boundaries by streets and uses color coding to seperate each neighborhood:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/abou...ghborhoods.pdf

This is a scaled down version of the neighborhood map. It's less useful but doesn't take as long to load:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mpls.png


P.S. Ignore the "url" in brackets before and after the web addresses. I haven't figured out how to post links on this forum yet.

[nick is rulz]

I literally shiver everytime I walk the streets of dangerous, dangerous Uptown. The vast majority of people I know reside within 15 blocks of me (also within uptown) and not one of them has ever mentioned them or an associate being a victim of crime whether serious or petty.


Some of you need to add another four or five deadbolts on your doors, you arent paranoid enough

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Chelito23

Geeze it sounds like we have some realtors on this board trying to airbrush reality. Anytime someone says anything negative about the Uptown some people can't handle it. Deal with it, every city has areas with higher crime and are not areas you would recommend out of towners to move to. If you want to live amongst a higher crime rate that is your business, but please do not portray Uptown as some Mayberry type place with run of the mill crime.

When I was growing up in the Twin Cities in the 70's and 80's, the area around Lake St and Hennepin Ave was not the best place to be, but it really improved a lot with the building of that little mall (Calhoun Square?) and the whole area was really cleaned up in the 90's. I don't know what it's like today, though, but I know folks who live not too far south of Lake on Bryant who think their area is fine (not much crime).

[sonoronos]

The decision depends on where you will work also.

With respect to GRIDLOCK, I-494 west of MOA slows to a crawl westbound at 5:00pm mon-sat. I-35W slows to a crawl headed northbound at 5:00pm mon-sat. I-494 east of St. Paul/Sunfish Lake slows to a crawl eastbound at 5:00pm mon-sat. Reverse the directions when looking at traveling at around 7:30am mon-sat.

I-55, I-35E and Highway 77 are relatively traffic free morning and evening.

Consider those traffic patterns before plunking down in an apartment or house somewhere.

If you have middle school or older kids, consider District 196 (Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan) housing.

As stated above, don't trust people who downplay the crime statistics of troubled areas. Previous poster who stated the "avoid anything above I-55" rule is fairly accurate. It's almost disturbing just how different two neighborhoods can be when separated by a simple 4-lane road.

Regarding Uptown - uptown is a "cleanup/recent investment" area catering to younger folks. It's a nice place to party, but IMHO not the nicest place to live.

By the way, crime and safety statistics can vary wildly - even within the same city. This localization of crime is so specific that a certain block of houses could be crime-free while an adjacent block is a pit of crime. This effect increases with population density and therefore advice for the clueless new resident is to "play it safe" and live somewhere with more uniform crime statistics (read: South Suburbs.)

Learn about the city then find a new place to live AFTER you've settled in a "safer" place. Don't trust the advice of realtors and anonymous internetters who may have "hidden agendas".

Avoid housing underneath heavy air traffic. Some places look great until the first jetliner screams overhead. The result can be defeaning and can really mess up your quality of living and therefore your enjoyment of life.

Finally: No matter where you live - YOU ARE NOT SAFE. Take precautions, maintain situational awareness, control your personal information, do not invite attention to yourself, have good social contacts, even if you've managed to secure housing in booth #25 at the Excel Energy Center!!

[monti]

Originally Posted by Jim Stokes

In reply to Stig or Slig, whatever your alias, you must live a sheltered life. You should read the local papers and watch TV. There was a horrible murder in the Uptown area not too long ago of a foreign student. Several black confronted him. He couldn't speak the language. So they killed him. The area is RAMPANT with crime. Gosh it's there in the news! I'll have to conclude that you are a flamer for whatever reason I don't know.

Here ARE the facts.
* Uptown is a haven for those who seek to or are already high on drugs and alcohol. Cops are continually arresting them for drunkeness, drugs and lewd behavior.
* Beatings and sex-related crimes are committed in broad daylight as well as under cover of darkness.

Why you would want to lie and cover all this up, I don't know. Perhaps you merely seek to flame people.

In any event, I do wish Uptown were more of a secure place. I will tell you that all the crime does not deter me from being a frequent vistor in Uptown. I seek the solitude of the Walker Library, which by the Grace of God has been spared. And I walk the streets. I am a big guy and look quite menacing, which was the way God made me. I've worked in manual labor for many years and as of late have come to enjoy the music, writing and adventurous life. I can handle myself very well in a fight. That seems to keep the druggies and killers away from me.

Also I find that the Uptown McDonald's is a wonderful gathering place for the dispossessed of the area and the world. It's one of my favorite places to go for coffee and two breakfast burritos most weekday mornings.

In addition, I have used Uptown streets as locales for my independent movies. That along with nearby Lake of the Isles are great shooting locales for movies.

Thus I say: Shoot movies and not people. {That is a joke}

In conclusion, Uptown is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!

To Life!

Happy New Year!

I wholeheartedly agree with Jim

I've probably only walked the streets of uptown about 4 or 5 times in my life and I've been threatened/pushed by crazy big buff black guys twice and had a knife brandished at me by a skinny black guy once

Uptown is a great place IF and ONLY IF - you are going to a specific place OR if you do want to walk the streets it's a GREAT place to own a gun.

I also have used some locations there for shooting film back in the day -

Minneapolis has some surprisingly good locations if you know what to look for and what you want to achieve in your film stylistically

[nick is rulz]

Originally Posted by monti

I wholeheartedly agree with Jim

I've probably only walked the streets of uptown about 4 or 5 times in my life and I've been threatened/pushed by crazy big buff black guys twice and had a knife brandished at me by a skinny black guy once

Uptown is a great place IF and ONLY IF - you are going to a specific place OR if you do want to walk the streets it's a GREAT place to own a gun.

I also have used some locations there for shooting film back in the day -

Minneapolis has some surprisingly good locations if you know what to look for and what you want to achieve in your film stylistically

lol

seriously what planet are you and this other guy from? Uptown is dangerous? Please, point out to me where these rampant crime sprees take place as I am geniunely fascinated by this new revelation that Minneapolis police precinct crime maps seem to statistically conflict with.