X,

 

Thanks for finally adding some true logic to the conversation.

I could see the Cleveland vs. Columbus argument coming from a mile away. Anyways, just for the sake of getting the statistics right (i'm very picky about those kinds of things), I will post the corect metro area populations for Columbus, and Cleveland.

 

Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe Metro Area

 

Population

1,920,601

 

 

Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Metro Area

 

Population

2,942,303

 

Bingo.  Thank you.

In many ways, comparing Cleveland to Columbus is like comparing apples to oranges.  Cleveland's boundaries are such that it includes the poorest areas and excludes the wealthier areas of the region.  Columbus' boundaries include a lot more of the wealthier areas.  Overall, I would assume that Columbus is a safer place. However, the gap would not be as large if you did a true comparison.

I think we should start one big versus thread so this stuff doesn't keep coming up in every single thread- Cincinnati Versus Cleveland versus Columbus :-)

^Oy!  Absolutely not.

 

We may all disagree on this and disagree on that, but there is no need to actually start a thread with the intent of "well, my city has Trader Joe's 14 miles from downtown!"

 

In many ways, comparing Cleveland to Columbus is like comparing apples to oranges.  Cleveland's boundaries are such that it includes the poorest areas and excludes the wealthier areas of the region.  Columbus' boundaries include a lot more of the wealthier areas.  Overall, I would assume that Columbus is a safer place. However, the gap would not be as large if you did a true comparison.

 

Certainly, and there is definately a correlation with poorer areas and crime.  But I generally don't think it has to do with "size" if not how the city developed.  Cincinnati city is the same size as Cleveland yet Hyde Park, Pleasant Ridge, East Walnut Hills, Mt. Adams, and other "richer" areas are within the city limits and size has nothing to do with that. 

 

But again, I totally agree that it is apples to oranges, as Columbus' wealthier areas are within city limits (though I'd also argue that Columbus city is near the bottom overall for "richest" areas/neighborhoods in Metro Columbus) versus Cleveland city.  Though the question would be, if Cleveland's, oh I don't know, Detroit-Superior, Tremont, and Ohio City were very wealthy neighborhoods, would the "Columbus' size" arguement even be thought of? 

I'd just add that the whole statistic is a false proxy for what folks are really interested in.  For the most part, people want to know what the likelyhood of them or their loved ones getting raped, robbed or killed is, and the homocide rate, while a flashy measure that's pretty easily understood (er...maybe this thread is evidence that it's not that clear) really says nothing about how dangerous a city is.  In Cincinnati, most of the murders are drug related, and the explosion in our murder rate is due, in large part, to the riots and the subsequent police slowdown that handed the streets over to the worst elements.  That means if you're looking to cheat your dealer or your supplier, Cincinnati may be more dangerous for you...but if not, measures like robberies and such are probably a much better indicator...at least it seems that way to me...

I think I see where you are coming from with this, ColDay.  But I think that in answer to you question I would say that it isn't so much Columbus' size as much as it is the relative portion of the population of the whole metro that is included within the boundary.  Essentially a municipality is a sample of the larger metro population- which is not just a larger number of people, but is like a large organism in which parts are differentiated- a heart, a brain, bones, etc, (downtowns, ghettos, industrial zones, etc.)  It probably therefore won't be a representative sample, or grounds for an adequate comparison.  It would be like if we were going to perform an experiment "who smells worse- Coldayman or X" and then performed the experiment by sniffing your freshly brushed teeth and then my armpits.  Well, who smells worse?

I'd just add that the whole statistic is a false proxy for what folks are really interested in.  For the most part, people want to know what the likelyhood of them or their loved ones getting raped, robbed or killed is, and the homocide rate, while a flashy measure that's pretty easily understood (er...maybe this thread is evidence that it's not that clear) really says nothing about how dangerous a city is.  I

 

i'm normally not a stickler for syntax spelling, but this typo is just too funny. Is mayday going to come and try to stab me with a knife?

all,

 

I think the main problem with the discussion:

 

a) The original assertion that Columbus numbers are skewed because they annexed rural farm land back in the 1960s,

b) made up metro-population numbers,

c) the typical banter that occurs when "statistics" are posted, and we all like to spin, dissect, interpret, airbrush in a million different ways just to make ourselves seem happy and smarter than the rest of the forum and continue the further degration of Ohio's cities.

 

group hug at the Columbus meet.

Awww!!!

 

You are such a peacemaker, pope! 

 

NOW CUT YOUR GOD DAMN HAIR IN YOUR AVATAR!!!

"Is mayday going to come and try to stab me with a knife?"  I believe it would be the other way 'round...regicide is killing the king, so homocide would be killing the gay folk, I guess...indeed, that's quite the typo...

^whoops i  never was the best at word roots

Drunk, are you?

^Yoda, are you?

" Is mayday going to come and try to stab me with a knife?"

 

You know me better than that - I'd scratch out your eyes and throw them in the punch bowl  :-D

From today's PD, looking at specific cleveland neighborhood stats:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/news/images/02map27.gif

No rate = not reported. as it would appear by this map?

It seems to be saying that the eastern side of downtown, all the way up to about E40th has no crime, I am a bit skeptical of that.

What is a "violent crime" if it doesn't not include assaults, homocides or rapes?  An assault is generally the use of force or the threat of force to commit a crime.

What is a "violent crime" if it doesn't not include assaults, homocides or rapes?  An assault is generally the use of force or the threat of force to commit a crime.

 

huh? the graphic says what violent crimes are.....

^c'mon Pope.  You are assuming that I read the entire graphic.  I think that's a lot to ask.  :-o

No rate = not reported. as it would appear by this map?

It seems to be saying that the eastern side of downtown, all the way up to about E40th has no crime, I am a bit skeptical of that.

 

No, it isn't saying that at all. It is saying that the crime to population ratio is irrelevent because there is essentially no population.  What is something divided by 0?

 

I would also argue that the crime rate in the rest of Downtown, Midtown, and UC is incredibly skewed because of how many workers and visitors those neighborhoods get.

does anyone know the response times of other large cities?  8 minutes for a priority one call on average seems like a long time.  is there much of a deterrant when you can commit your crime and be long gone by either 8, 16 or 51 minutes?

Another story on woio last night about how no police were on patrol in all of downtown.  This is at least the 2d time this has happened since August due to combos of equipment failure, vacation and sick leaves.  craziness.

 

Does anyone know when the city is going to put the citistat information on the web?  i know they are using it internally to map/track/respond to crime trends, but originally i think they were going to make it publicly available (maybe not real time) like Baltimore.

 

Hi folks, I'm new here. I'm also a brand spanking new resident of Downtown, Cleveland. So far I love it. Unfortunately though I've already witnessed a few "disturbances" and have become keenly interested in tracking crime events around my area (E12 & Euclid).

 

So far I haven't found anything for Cleveland along the lines of Chicago's ICAM database which provides up-to-date access to Police Incident Reports on a daily basis (see http://12.17.79.6/ and http://www.chicagocrime.org). Furthermore, this graphic from the Plain Dealer, although a couple years old, doesn't bode well for gathering such information -- http://www.cleveland.com/publicrecords/wide/index.ssf?police_incident_report.html

 

Does anyone know if this information is available??

 

 

I could see the Cleveland vs. Columbus thing coming from a mile away. Anyways, just for the sake of getting the statistics right (i'm very picky about those kinds of things), I will post the corect metro area populations for Columbus, and Cleveland.

 

Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe Metro Area

 

Population

1,920,601

 

 

Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Metro Area

 

Population

2,942,303

 

that weirdo stat is bugging me. the cities linked above to cleveland are 25 miles away as the crow flies and contigous and those linked to columbus are 50 miles away and seperated by open farmland. i dont care, but if you are gonna include a freakin 50 mile radius for your metro stat then be fair and throw a longer rope out there for cleveland too. sheesh.

 

  Hello Jax and welcome!  I wish I could help you out a little more and send you the right direction, but I too seem to have a hard time finding up to date stats  Sometimes I wonder if Cleveland doesn't spend more time burying the info than getting it out there!  I think it is about time that Cleveland council stops getting its yearly 6% raise and focus on getting more police on the streets!  We need the gang and drug task force back to full strength, we need the helecopters back in the air, and now, with the emergence of new urban neighborhoods and increasing population dowtown, it would be nice to to foot patrol officers on the streets.  Presence is deterence!  Most of the cops you see at the clubs downtown, are hired by the clubs to protect the inside of the clubs.  I want to see downtown foot patrol...either walking, on horseback, or on bicycles...or...all three!  I would love to see the petty thugs, destruction of property, fights, aggressive panhandlers, and homeless crapping on the sidewalks...STOPPED before it gets out of hand.  Just a thought.

You can get police records, but you have to pay a visit to the crime records window on the 3rd floor of the Justice Center (Ontario Street entrance). I go down there each week to pick up brevity reports for Sun Newspapers from the first and second districts, but they know when we're coming so the reports are printed up ahead of time.

 

The police department's public information officer (Lt. Stacho) and his sergeant also do this each week for the councilmembers and the community development corporations. I suspect other media also get the brevity reports -- but the information in them is very lean and inconsistent as to what the police choose to include.

 

Sorry I can't offer a more positive appraisal of the situation. But I'm glad you've moved downtown and I welcome you here to this forum!

 

I've had to witness some disturbances in my own neighborhood here in Lakewood, including car break ins, a few fights on the street, etc. Plus, kids tend to noisily roam the neighborhood well after 1 a.m., especially in the summer. I am not shy about 911.

I could see the Cleveland vs. Columbus thing coming from a mile away. Anyways, just for the sake of getting the statistics right (i'm very picky about those kinds of things), I will post the corect metro area populations for Columbus, and Cleveland.

 

Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe Metro Area

 

Population

1,920,601

 

 

Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Metro Area

 

Population

2,942,303

 

that weirdo stat is bugging me. the cities linked above to cleveland are 25 miles away as the crow flies and contigous and those linked to columbus are 50 miles away and seperated by open farmland. i dont care, but if you are gonna include a freakin 50 mile radius for your metro stat then be fair and throw a longer rope out there for cleveland too. sheesh.

 

 

Hahaha, exactly.. that's an awful MSA if u ask me..

^the census actually has a process for determining whether or not to include an area in a MSA, using commuting patterns and other figures (really someone into census figures should be answering this question).

 

My point is, census MSAs aren't just some guy in a room, looking at a map and saying, i think columbus should be "this" big.

Hello Jax and welcome to Cleveland! I have been tracking a lot of things in the city of Cleveland for some time.. mainly through customized maps using special map software. I can provide you with maps pinpointing the location of every convicted sex offender in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lorain, and Medina Counties. I have also been working on a public housing/CMHA map. I have a few maps showing stuff such as every homicides in the last 6 months in Cleveland; Minor offenses, rapes, major crimes, and so forth in district 2. I tend to follow the stuff in district 2 more than anywhere else (that area would be the near west side of Cleveland: Clark-Fulton-Denison-Lorain-W25-Storer-W65 to be specific. As for downtown, I'd like to say that where you live is extremely safe and although nowhere in this world is 100% safe, this is about as close as it gets when in the city of Cleveland. I can't say I know about too much crime or police incidents happening near E12 and Euclid beyond a few brushups at your local sports bars on E9-Huron-Prospect in the Gateway District. The only other thing I can think of is the one apartment complex on E14 and Payne, I forget the name of the building, but it has vagrants normally standing around outside and is one of the "trouble" spots in downtown. I guess you could also say the nearby Greyhound Station has its troublemakers hanging around it at night. Otherwise, I believe the Theatre District is very safe, day or night. Once Euclid is re-finished, it will get even better!

 

KJP, Would you be interested in trading data/maps? I am very interested in the info. you that you have been obtaining. I think we have similar hobbies here.. let's share info! :)

My point is, census MSAs aren't just some guy in a room, looking at a map and saying, i think columbus should be "this" big.

Yeah, the guy's actually on a beach in Mexico.

 

(really someone into census figures should be answering this question)

I'm your nerd.  MSAs work like this.  There is a central county or counties (I won't bother looking up how that's defined because it's obvious enough which counties those are).  Other counties are then included in the MSA if a) at least 25% of their resident workforce works in the central county, or b) at least 25% of the employment in the county is made up of workers residing in the central county.  Then there are the Combined Statistical Areas, which are combinations of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas based on some standard or other.

 

Anyway, those numbers given are the CSA things which IMO aren't great for measuring population.  2004 MSA estimates are:

Cleveland 2,137,073 (Akron 702,078)

Columbus 1,693,906

thank you garçon de porc

So far I love it. Unfortunately though I've already witnessed a few "disturbances" and have become keenly interested in tracking crime events around my area (E12 & Euclid).

 

The area around E.12 and Euclid is interesting.  Although it is not 'bad' and generally anything around the theater district is ok, there are some rougher areas/times of day and maybe are the disturbances you reference. 

 

1) For starters, never park your car on E.12 between Chester and Euclid.  Although highly active during the day, it seems that there are 3 or 4 break ins a week, this sometimes works its way onto euclid as well, but usually not.  this stretch of E12 is dead at night and after 11:30p or so, there is a steady stream of people that seem to walk back toward E13, homeless shelter/who knows where.  there is also some minor drug activity that goes on in the alley behind the statler. 

 

2) E13 surface parking lot b/w Chester and Euclid.  This area is a hotbed for drug activity, especially back in the rear corner by the Chesterfield tennis court.  by day, an innocent surface lot.  by night, a whole other story.  pull in some night in your car and point your headlights towards the back where the emergency diesel generator and hvac unit is located and you'll likely see people scatter like roaches. 

 

3) corner of E12 and Chester.  I have run into some agressive people here - not panhandlers, not homeless, but agressive in seeking money and not afraid to yell or follow you if you're not interested in participating. 

 

have you experienced anything else in particular?

My point is, census MSAs aren't just some guy in a room, looking at a map and saying, i think columbus should be "this" big.

Yeah, the guy's actually on a beach in Mexico.

 

(really someone into census figures should be answering this question)

I'm your nerd.  MSAs work like this.  There is a central county or counties (I won't bother looking up how that's defined because it's obvious enough which counties those are).  Other counties are then included in the MSA if a) at least 25% of their resident workforce works in the central county, or b) at least 25% of the employment in the county is made up of workers residing in the central county.  Then there are the Combined Statistical Areas, which are combinations of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas based on some standard or other.

 

Anyway, those numbers given are the CSA things which IMO aren't great for measuring population.  2004 MSA estimates are:

Cleveland 2,137,073 (Akron 702,078)

Columbus 1,693,906

 

 

wait a sec, that still does not explain the 25mile and 50 mile away discrepency. thats nuts. how far out can people live? if there is no logical limit then, for example, why not include boston and dc in nycs metro? there are plenty who fly the shuttles back and forth everyday for work. bah. any fair stat like that should be "x" miles from a central point like broad&high and/or public square and that is that. pigboy help or i am leaning toward the guy on the beach in mexico.....

 

Try rereading the post, more slowly if need be.

KJP, Would you be interested in trading data/maps? I am very interested in the info. you that you have been obtaining. I think we have similar hobbies here.. let's share info! :) 

 

I wish it were a hobby, otherwise I might actually enjoy writing the Second District blotter. But after I'm done with the brevity reports, I'd be happy to give them to you. I hang on to them until Friday -- the day after the paper comes out just in case I get any calls from people complaining about anything I've written. Then I can refer to the reports to see if it was my screw-up or not!

have you experienced anything else in particular?

 

Thanks for the info urbanlife. The disturbances I mentioned certainly aren't run-for-the-hills-we're-all-gonna-die sort of things, but it's slightly more than I expected in the first 2  months of residency. So really, my interest has just been piqued to see what sort of police information is available, rather than a panicked call to arms. With that disclaimer in mind --

 

The things I've witnessed include two mob brawls of kids right outside the Statler. Now to be fair, it was during the day, and they really were just kids (I'm guessing 15 or 16 years old). However, before you laugh toooo hard let me re-emphasize it truly was an all out vicious brawl of 15 - 20 kids which spilled out onto Euclid, stopping traffic. While I wouldn't necessarily be scared out of my whits if this happened to occur while I was walking into my building, it would freak the bejezus out of my girlfriend. The other disturbance was a woman's blood curdling scream late at night. Now of course this might've been just some drunk people wandering around, which I expected and don't mind that much really when it happens, but it really had an edge to it that made my skin crawl a bit.

 

Thanks KJP and bizbiz for your info as well. It seems like the CPD is rather restrictive in releasing their incident reports wholesale. I'm sort of conflicted on this -- in some ways I can understand. It seems like in cases of domestic abuse, rape, etc there certainly is an element of the victim's privacy to consider. On the other hand, one really has to consider the benefits of an informed populus as to the extent of problems. I guess I'll just try getting some reports on my own and see what sort of resistance there really is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wait a sec, that still does not explain the 25mile and 50 mile away discrepency. thats nuts. how far out can people live? if there is no logical limit then, for example, why not include boston and dc in nycs metro? there are plenty who fly the shuttles back and forth everyday for work. bah. any fair stat like that should be "x" miles from a central point like broad&high and/or public square and that is that. pigboy help or i am leaning toward the guy on the beach in mexico.....

 

 

once again i'll defer to piggy, but if an area is torn between two metros, the city that has the larger draw wins the county/area.

 

So in your scenario: more people commute from NYC to NYC than people commute from NYC to DC; thus NYC is considered in NYC's metro, not DCs

wait a sec, that still does not explain the 25mile and 50 mile away discrepency. thats nuts. how far out can people live? if there is no logical limit then, for example, why not include boston and dc in nycs metro? there are plenty who fly the shuttles back and forth everyday for work. bah. any fair stat like that should be "x" miles from a central point like broad&high and/or public square and that is that. pigboy help or i am leaning toward the guy on the beach in mexico.....

 

 

once again i'll defer to piggy, but if an area is torn between two metros, the city that has the larger draw wins the county/area.

 

So in your scenario: more people commute from NYC to NYC than people commute from NYC to DC; thus NYC is considered in NYC's metro, not DCs

And I in turn defer to this PDF: http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/00-32997.pdf.  (I didn't actually read most of it because there are all these words!)

 

The DC and Boston to New York scenario should be explained by the definition I already gave, though- 25% of a county's workforce has to commute to the central county to be included in the MSA.  I'd bet huge fortunes that nowhere near a quarter of Boston's or DC's workforce commutes to NYC.

 

Anyway, getting a little off-topic... again.

Does anyone know how I can get statistics for a particular street?  (Clinton Avenue)

You would have to find all of the census blocks adjoining the street and add them up.  You would also be getting the houses that front on the next streets over, though, because census blocks are defined by the centerlines of the streets, not by frontages.

In San Francisco and Seattle many of the worst neighborhoods are the suburbs.

What if this was planned all along? Since black people were moving in the cities en masse decades ago, there was no where to kick them out to. So in order to get them out the suburbs were setup for whites to have a safe haven until the time was right to move back in and push all the blacks far away outside into those same distant suburbs. Leaving the cities for white people to take over. What do think of that theory?

The 27 or so neighborhoods of Cleveland are all neighbored by relatively nice areas. You have Mt. Pleasant and Buckeye-Shaker bordering with Cleveland Hts. and Shaker Hts. You have The Stockyards right next to Brooklyn. Cudell is next to Lakewood. And so forth.. You cross a main intersection and you not only leave the city of Cleveland, but you also leave a primarily vicious neighborhood. I can't stress how much things change between the south and north sides of Denison. You have some of the scariest street scenes here, and then just south it goes from industrial quickly into a very safe living community. The same thing goes for the west and east sides of S. Moreland Blvd. On the Cleveland side is a haven for boarded up drug houses. Just across the street Shaker Hts. begins and suddenly you have mansions from $500,000 on up.. So I guess you can say Cleveland does have some crime problems in *SOME* of its neighborhoods. But most of the time, cross the street and its not a problem anymore. It's a common thing with some big cities but not definately not all of them.

If you think Cleveland has a "cross the street" problem, then you really need to visit Memphis.  Memphis has two nice blocks, two horrible blocks, etc.  Its strange.  I was lucky enough to be able to string 4 blocks together in my old Memphis neighborhood.

Similarly enough in Cleveland would be Tremont.

Similarly enough in Cleveland would be Tremont.

 

I think Memphis would hold its own against Cleveland.

What if this was planned all along? Since black people were moving in the cities en masse decades ago, there was no where to kick them out to. So in order to get them out the suburbs were setup for whites to have a safe haven until the time was right to move back in and push all the blacks far away outside into those same distant suburbs. Leaving the cities for white people to take over. What do think of that theory?

 

Planned by whom?

What if this was planned all along? Since black people were moving in the cities en masse decades ago, there was no where to kick them out to. So in order to get them out the suburbs were setup for whites to have a safe haven until the time was right to move back in and push all the blacks far away outside into those same distant suburbs. Leaving the cities for white people to take over. What do think of that theory?

 

It think its more than a little far-fetched.

That's why I didn't respond to it.

Is Cudell really scary?