<p>You're incredibly mature and informative.
New Haven is not more dangerous than most big cities. It could be safer in areas off campus, but as people have said, these areas don't affect undergraduates. The area directly surrounding Yale is very nice (nicer than my home town), and most students have no reason to go beyond this perimeter. I can tell you for a fact that New Haven's AIDS rate has NO detrimental effect on life at Yale.</p>
<p>counting12001, with all due respect, your statement is entirely idiotic.
[quote]
If you go there plan to stay on campus or buy youself a bullet-proof vest
[/quote]
I'm sorry you hate Yale so much that you feel the need to perpetuate an untrue stereotype (probably informed heavily by racism) about New Haven. New Haven is not a particularly dangerous city and I have never felt at risk during my two years at Yale. I'd appreciate it if you could confine yourself to commenting on things you actually know something about. Your posting history suggests you're a Harvard parent, which I'm sure gives you useful insights for potential Harvard students. It doesn't mean you know anything about Yale, and spreading lies about it only makes Harvard look bad (just as false comments made by Yale trolls on the Harvard boards make Yale look bad).</p>
<p>More recent report on AIDS rates:</p>
<p>Thank you! Now we know that New Haven doesn't even make the top 30 in highest AIDS rates.</p>
<p>Like it ever mattered anyway.</p>
<p>To put this to rest: Chicagoboy has a personal grudge against yale (which he's explained to me) that's obviously influencing him and causing him to make ridiculous arguments about yale. Let's just let this go... its obvious that new haven's AIDS rate has no influence whatsoever on yale's undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>New Haven itself is a pretty boring, dirty city, but the particular area that Yale is in is gorgeous.</p>
<p>I have worked in New Haven (near the Yale campus) for the past 28 years and my husband currently works for Yale Medical School. As other people have said, there are many gorgeous parts of New Haven- the New Haven Green, the Yale Campus, East Rock area, parts of Westville etc. Yale offers a lot to the city and the city has many great restaurants, bars, theaters to offer Yale. But it is like a lot of cities in that even the very nice areas are not far from the bad areas. (The Divinity School on Prospect St is just up the hill from Newhallville which is not such a nice area. The Medical School is in an area bordering the Hill Section-also not a nice area. Yale's Broadway area is close to lower Dixwell Avenue area- again not a nice area. ...) However, as an employee my husband gets e-mail alerts of any notable crimes that have happened on campus just like any Yale student would receive. And he tells me that almost inevitably, the crimes - muggings, etc. involve students walking around very late at night (1AM-5AM) especially if they are alone, or are occurrences such thefts from unlocked cars, stolen laptops, stolen bikes etc. I do not mean to minimize these types of crimes in any way but I think reason dictates that these sorts of things could happen in any urban area if certain common sense precautions are not taken. Doors and windows need to be locked, cars locked, bikes secured, laptops not left unattended, traveling in groups if out late etc. And stay close to campus or downtown area rather than venturing into some of the areas I mentioned before (not meant to be a complete listing of bad and good areas, mind you.) All in all, my husband and I love New Haven!</p>
<p>When I was there New Haven was just opening its newest grocery stores, and I loved the merchandise there.</p>
<p>By "not nice," do you mean run-down neighborhoods or dangerous neigborhoods (or both)?</p>
<p>drbig: in the area immediately surrounding Yale, neither...a little further out in the 'have, the neighborhoods are a little run-down, but really no more dangerous than your average city!</p>
<p>mochamaven: That is what I figured. I went to visit earlier this year on a Saturday and got a tour from a friend alum. We went to see a Yale v. Cornell football game and took a school bus from the Whitney gym. The houses on our way there definitely seemed run down (compared to the area around the college) but I figured that it wasn't going to be any more dangerous than, say, NYC, where I live.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>oh, if you're from NYC, New Haven won't seem dangerous at all...I would guess that the crime rates are similar. I'm from a large East-Midwestern city with really high crime rates, and New Haven isn't any more dangerous than where I grew up, haha.</p>
<p>I love Yale, but also have concerns about safety. I will most likely not be able to visit anytime soon, and still need to be reassured about safety. I'm just a 5'1" girl from Wisconsin, and am not used to being in really urban areas. Any advice? Are there ways to walk through the campus without going through many streets, and is the area as sketchy as University City is known to be at UPenn?</p>
<p>Got2BYale: I'm the father of two girls (11 and 6). Visiting with them for the first time at my 15th reunion, my older daughter just became enamored with the school. She's pretty bright but I'm realistic that no one knows her chances. Regardless, if she (or her sister) ever considered attending, I wouldn't hesitate one second for safety concerns. Take a look at Yale's "Virtual Tour" . The campus, while having city streets going through it, is very concentrated. You have to get a few blocks away before things get sketchy. Yale "feels" safer than UPenn, IMHO (but then that may because I grew familiar with New Haven and didn't know the areas around UPenn b/c I only visited a few times).</p>
<p>Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Yale proper is actually a very upscale environment... as are the surrounding blocks (ie, as far as you'll ever need to go into the city anyway), which have a lot of clubs, restaurants, and stores catered to the students. Yale has plenty of tiny girls (and boys), and we don't seem to have a problem :-)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that traffic safety is 100 times more important than "street" safety. Traffic incidents are by far the leading cause of death among the 14-24 age group. Traffic incidents cause 45,000 deaths per year, plus about 400,000 hospitalizations and 4 million doctor's visits -- and that's just in the United States. About 10-15% of those involve pedestrians. That's about 120 deaths per day, almost all of them preventable through better design. And you thought the Iraq war was bad.</p>
<p>All in all, a typical urban resident (e.g. not a drug dealer etc), even a resident of a supposedly "dangerous" housing project filled with poverty, is approximately 200 times more likely to die or be seriously injured in a traffic incident than in random street crime.</p>
<p>For this reason, it is also worth pointing out that if you attend a suburban or rural school, you are much more likely to die or be injured (because you are more likely to be driving). But that is not to minimize the risk of busy city streets - just in the past few years, students at Harvard, Yale and Penn have been killed and seriously injured by vehicles near the campus, and a student at Columbia was killed a month ago when he ran into the street in an attempt to escape a young boy who was trying to mug him. BE CAREFUL CROSSING THE STREET!</p>
<p>Overall, and if your parents live in a suburb they will probably refuse to admit this, living in a city -- even a poor area of one, like the South Bronx -- is SIGNIFICANTLY safer than living in a suburb or rural area. Unfortunately, our country has been brainwashed by the automobile companies into thinking that suburbs and high speed travel is preferable to quiet, slower-speed city streets (also, in many instances, suburbs are still cheaper than cities because they are massively subsidized by the government, to the tune of trillions of dollars, because that drives up the profit of oil, auto, highway and real estate companies). </p>
<p>Sure, there are accidents in a city, too, but being hit at 20MPH gives you a 95% percent chance of survival, whereas being hit at 30MPH gives you a 55% chance and at 40MPH (typical suburban road speed), a 17% chance. At 50MPH the chance is basically 0%.</p>