Los Angeles is becoming one of safest big cities in the nation! (San Francisco: real estate, crime rate)

[jabe]

Could you believe this?

LA is finally among the safest big cities in the nation. Up there with NYC.

Who could've foreseen this 20 years ago?

To give you a comparsion of how safe LA has become here is it's violent crime rate for different periods during the last 25 years or so...

2012 - 481.1
2010 - 566.5
2005 - 820.6
2000 - 1,359.8
1995 - 2,034.4
1990 - 2,404.6
1985 - 1,658.0

And it's murder homicide rate...

2012 - 7.8
2010 - 7.7
2005 - 12.6
2000 - 14.9
1995 - 24.5
1990 - 28.2
1985 - 24.4

[Cheektowaga_Chester]

That is pretty amazing.

Some people have speculated that the removal of lead from gasoline plays a big part. When other factors such as police technique and the economy were factored in, the crime rate drops with the elimination of lead.

Research Links Lead Exposure, Criminal Activity

Why Has the Crime Decline in Los Angeles Slowed Down? | Mother Jones

"There may also be a medical reason for the decline in crime. For decades, doctors have known that children with lots of lead in their blood are much more likely to be aggressive, violent and delinquent. In 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency required oil companies to stop putting lead in gasoline. At the same time, lead in paint was banned for any new home (though old buildings still have lead paint, which children can absorb).
Tests have shown that the amount of lead in Americans' blood fell by four-fifths between 1975 and 1991. A 2007 study by the economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes contended that the reduction in gasoline lead produced more than half of the decline in violent crime during the 1990s in the U.S. and might bring about greater declines in the future. Another economist, Rick Nevin, has made the same argument for other nations."


from


Why Crime Keeps Falling - WSJ.com

[kttam186290]

REALITY CHECK:

Crime in the City of Los Angeles fell because the city took its most problematic areas (Watts, Compton, South-Central) and used a powerful combination of gentrification, housing authority debacles and Latino immigrants to ethnically "purge" the problematic people living in those places out of the city and relocate them to places like Moreno Valley, Rialto, San Bernardino, Victorville, Lancaster, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Not coincidentally, crime in all those places has gone up dramatically in the last decade.

There's nothing "mysterious" about it, to be honest.

The same thing is currently going on in Northern California with regard to gentrification in San Francisco and Oakland and crime being pushed out to places like Antioch, Vallejo, Fairfield, Tracy, Stockton and Sacramento.

[Cheektowaga_Chester]

Originally Posted by kttam186290

REALITY CHECK:

Crime in the City of Los Angeles fell because the city took its most problematic areas (Watts, Compton, South-Central) and used a powerful combination of gentrification, housing authority debacles and Latino immigrants to ethnically "purge" the problematic people living in those places out of the city and relocate them to places like Moreno Valley, Rialto, San Bernardino, Victorville, Lancaster, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Not coincidentally, crime in all those places has gone up dramatically in the last decade.

There's nothing "mysterious" about it, to be honest.

The same thing is currently going on in Northern California with regard to gentrification in San Francisco and Oakland and crime being pushed out to places like Antioch, Vallejo, Fairfield, Tracy, Stockton and Sacramento.

Why did those people choose (of their own free will) to relocate to Moreno Valley and Lancaster?

Or, did it happen just like this in 1942 in Los Angeles?

[GatsbyGatz]

San Berdoo has become the new South Central LA.

And don't let the stats fool you into thinking that it's fine to leave all your doors unlocked in LA and that it's fine to let your kids skip on down the street alone in South LA. Numerically, LA still has a lot of crime, but the ratio of crime is drowned out by the large population.

If you were to divide LA into several separate cities, South LA and parts of SFV would have very troubling crime rates. But because we just glob all that territory together into one crime ratio, we're blinded by a meaningless number and deluded into believing that we're safe.

This as opposed to cities like Tokyo, where, despite having a much higher population than LA, has significantly less crime numerically and proportionally. Just because LA has a lower ratio of crime than before doesn't mean that it doesn't have crime problems, because it still has a long ways to go until it can be as safe as Tokyo.

It's somewhat sad that we Americans are cheering LA's crime numbers when other countries like Japan, Germany, or the Netherlands would be shocked if their cities had the amount of crime LA had. It goes to show how we've gotten so used to danger and crime being the norm.

[The Illusive Man]

Originally Posted by GatsbyGatz

San Berdoo has become the new South Central LA.

And don't let the stats fool you into thinking that it's fine to leave all your doors unlocked in LA and that it's fine to let your kids skip on down the street alone in South LA. Numerically, LA still has a lot of crime, but the ratio of crime is drowned out by the large population. This as opposed to cities like Tokyo, where, despite having a much higher population than LA, has significantly less crime numerically and proportionally. Just because LA has a lower ratio of crime than before doesn't mean that it doesn't have crime problems, because it still has a long ways to go until it can be as safe as Tokyo.

It's somewhat sad that we Americans are cheering LA's crime numbers when other countries like Japan, Germany, or the Netherlands would be shocked if their cities had the amount of crime LA had. It goes to show how we've gotten so used to danger and crime being the norm.

Regardless, the crime rates have fallen. You have to start somewhere and LA has made considerable steps to improve, so relax a little. The great thing is that crime is falling dramatically every year.

Geez, even something positive for LA gets bashed on here. LA is extremely safe these days, I haven't had any issues with anything crime related since I was a kid in the 90's. People need to give LA its due.

Nothing but naysayers.

[Mezter]

This is great!

[The Illusive Man]

Either way. Great job LA! This city just keeps improving every year and I couldn't be any happier and prouder of this great city.

[kttam186290]

Originally Posted by Cheektowaga_Chester

Why did those people choose (of their own free will) to relocate to Moreno Valley and Lancaster?

They didn't "choose" to. They were moved when the City of LA Housing Authority had a, shall we say convenient crisis that called for "re-organization", and shifted a big portion of their load onto the Los Angeles County Housing Authority in Lancaster/Palmdale and the Riverside and San Bernardino County housing authorities in the Inland Empire and Victorville.

Couple that with the housing crisis, the surge in the Latino immigrant populations in traditionally-black communities and the strong, well-orchestrated push by real estate interests to gentrify the Downtown/USC corridor and you have the makings of a large displacement of people on your hands!

The city became safe at the expense of the far-flung suburbs and exurbs.

If you think this was all a "coincidence", I've got beachfront property to sell you in Wyoming!

[GatsbyGatz]

We really need to review crime rates neighborhood by neighborhood with cities like LA because the crime rates from one neighborhood to another vary drastically. Thus, the overall crime rate we get from LA is pretty much useless to us because it shadows the fact that there is still a lot of crime in concentrated pockets of LA.

It's statements like "LA is safe now" that bother me. No, all of LA is not safe. Many neighborhoods are becoming safer in recent years, yes, but several neighborhoods have alarming crime rates. I'll reiterate what I posted earlier: if you divide LA into several cities, that blanket "safe" crime rate will reveal itself to be several cities, half of a good, safe crime rate, half with bad crime rates. The enormous land area that is encompassed by LA's borders renders such a reliance on a single crime rate futile and stupid.