High Crime in Asheville? (job transfer, neighborhood, living in)
Western North CarolinaThe Mountain Region including Asheville
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I'm among the many others considering relocating to Asheville for a job transfer. I've been reading the Asheville Citizen-Times online for a couple of weeks and it seems like the top stories are always crime-related. Does Asheville really have a crime problem, or does this particular paper just happen to give a lot of attention to crime?
I'm among the many others considering relocating to Asheville for a job transfer. I've been reading the Asheville Citizen-Times online for a couple of weeks and it seems like the top stories are always crime-related.
LOL, that's true of *any* news outlet, print or tv.
Good lord, if you want to get a feel for a place, turn off the boob tube, put down the newspaper, and go visit the place.
Now if you'll excuse me, there a homeless meth addict breaking into my car and a prostitute passed out on my front lawn . . . and just so happens I'm wearing the wrong gang colors for my neighborhood, so I'll need to change before I break out my shotgun and take care of business.
(sorry for the sarcasm, we get this nonsense all the time here . . . no, Asheville does not have a lot of crime . . . unless you've never been to a small city of about 70K).
Anyone basing any assumption off of the citizen times should be shot dead on the spot....
Seriously though, the citizen times prides themselves on having mug shots and a crime page for even stealing underwear from walmart...no not sarcasm...If you stay away from the projects, crime is at least average to anywhere else.
I've lived in plenty of low and high crime towns of all sizes but I've never seen a newspaper that posts multiple crime stories front and center like The Citizen-Times does, thus the question. Wasn't sure if it was a reflection of the area or the paper. Even here on the border, crime reports are a few pages in.
Howdy
I've been comparing where I live now and places I would like to live in NC. Here are the side by side comparisons of Asheville I found. Hope this helps. Taken from 2003 stats.
Here is a later side by side from FBI stats 2006. It appears that my city has more rape and aggravated assault problems but Asheville has more theft related problems. I don't know what to make of the murder statistics. I think my city's murders are mainly drug related but I don't know anything about Asheville's murder rate. As with most places in Florida, my city has seen a major growth in the past 8-10 years but I can't say this growth caused much of anything new in terms of crime. Although I'm not a statistician of course but I've personally enjoyed seeing my community grow-although city planners have been logistically stupid in terms of traffic patterns, and what crime I've seen has been from native residents-the notorious nerdowells (sp?) LOL And I don't know if this is the same for Asheville in terms of natives vs new comers causing an increase in crimes. Those that have been living in Asheville for this past decade would know more than I.
Last edited by floridagal1989; 06-27-2010 at 07:13 AM..
Yes on a per capita basis Asheville has more crime than many areas. However, you should also take a look a the crime map on the police dept website and you'll see that most of the crime is in or near certain areas often known as "the projects" or along corridors adjacent to shelters. For such a small city Asheville has a lot of these (5 or 6) as well as a fairly large itinerant homeless/jobless population that make the shelters downtown home. So you learn where the projects are and avoid them. You learn where the shelters are and avoid them. If you see a street near downtown with beer cans and wine bottles laying around you avoid it--and don't park your car there. When I lived in NOVA I didn't go to DC and park my car in Anacostia or or SE either. It just take s a little common sense--
PS--as one of our regulars has said before the Asheville Citizen Times is worth little more than lining the bottom of bird cages. They just report the facts and often get them wrong.
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