<p>I'd just like to quickly point out that the poll is posted online where ANYONE can answer, not just people living in and around New Haven... seeing as how the undergraduate population at yale is just around 5000 ppl or so, I'm guessing that more than a few non-yalies/non-new haven people are answering the poll. </p>
<p>Besides, I've actually lived at Yale for the last three years and can assure you that almost all of my friends here think that new haven is a pretty safe and certainly don't feel "not safe at al"!</p>
<p>Well Sprezz, I guess I didn't say it right. I didn't mean students don't have enough common sense to know that NYC is different from Cambridge, just that I wouldn't want my kids to feel they can't be safe in a city because they weren't permitted to go to college in one. That said, I've always been a little freaked out by the fact that Manhattan is an island, so I guess everyone is afraid of something.</p>
<p>You won't have to think about your safety, new haven and yale are safe (I lived there happily and safely for four awesome years), so as long as you don't do stupid stuff which would get you in trouble no matter where - nyc, cambridge, providence, west philly (maybe not princeton since no one does anything there). If you are that stupid not to have common sense, then your mother shouldn't let you move away from home.</p>
<p>Where have you heard that Yale dorms get burglarized? I would guess they would be burglarized by other students, like in most other colleges. But burglarized by local New Haven people?? I doubt it. So that's really nothing to say about whether New Haven is safe or not. It's mainly about whether you can trust every Yalie or not.</p>
<p>hahah I loved outward bound. I feel so ready for the world. "Going" off the side of a sail boat definitely prepared me for life in more ways than one.</p>
<p>For those who want a candid, inside view of life at Yale - and in New Haven - with important lessons about the dangers and potential violence awaiting you if you stray from the "safe" areas, I suggest this book: "Blue Blood", by Pamela Thomas-Graham, (Simon & Schuster, 302 pp.)</p>
<p>"As powder keg of racial tension and political maneuverings threatens to ignite, Professor Nikki Chase trails a killer, and discovers deadly truths that will reverberate from Yale's gothic towers through New Haven's toughest streets!"</p>
<p>I've read those! Personally, I didn't think that Blue Blood<a href="Yale">/u</a> and Orange Crushed<a href="Princeton">/u</a> were NEARLY as good as her first one, A Darker Shade Of Crimson<a href="Harvard">/u</a>. The only thing I didn't like about it was the underlying racial issues. I don't think the murders in the books are very likely to occur in reality, so it's not very accurate about Yale's safety! They're interesting books, though. :)</p>
<p>Here's a passage I found amusing, and - frankly - chilling:</p>
<p>"Despite my biennial trips to The Game, New Haven was totally foreign to me, and given the town's less than savory reputation, I wasn't keen on getting lost. Never mind that I had grown up in Detroit and seen more than my share of tough urban neighborhoods. Even I was intimidated by the specter of New Haven. Everyone I knew, including native New Yorkers, said it wasn't safe." </p>
<p>I hate to break this to you, ctnjpamom, but "Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction."</p>
<p>And if you read "Blue Blood" you will find numerous indirect references to real New Haven events that many of us recall, including the murders of two undergrads, union strife, and racial tensions boiling over!!</p>
<p>Its scary stuff, ctnjpamom, and people have every right to be afraid - particularly after dark with no "blue light" in sight!</p>
<p>Massachusetts and Harvard are indeed the home of radical liberalism, but Connecticut was, until recently, the most conservative state in New England not named New Hampshire.</p>
<p>The Cambridge city government is indeed pink - but also soft. The only time anybody pays any attention to them is when Harvard needs a building permit and must arrange a neighborhood payoff of some kind to win a majority vote from the Council.</p>
<p>New Haven pols, on the other hand, are more basic in their corruption - uniformly Democratic machine hacks.</p>
<p>Saying that New Haven is not safe is like saying there are Nazis in South America, or however that line goes from "The Boys From Brazil". Anyone who has visited New Haven would notice that it is not like Princeton or Cambridge. There are many colleges in neighborhoods that are not so safe. Johns Hopkins has been having some real issues this year, though I considered the area around the school safer than New Haven (apparently not this year). Uof Chicago is in an area where you do have to be careful, though we lived in Hyde Park for years and would often take a stroll to the Co-op Bookstore or the Medici or other restaraunt in the evening. CMU is in Oakland, and the projects are within walking distance, the same for Pitt, they're right outside of their athletic facility in fact. Again lots of students walking around in the evenings, but you do have to be aware. USC is not in ritziest area of LA, Penn is not in Main Line Philly, the list goes on. But one of the most shocking murders that occurred in the last few years at a college was the double murder of the professors at Dartmouth, one of the safest colleges in the country! You always need to take precautions whereever you live.</p>