<p>I am currently a high school junior and i am thinking of Columbia and Penn. I heard that Columbia is not that safe compare to other schools b/c the neighbourhoods in the back. Besides, it's NYC. Is that true? If so, to what degree? is it really that bad?</p>
<p>I am in California, and I can go to UC Irvine with a lot chance. Irvine is ranked the 3rd safest place in the nation. So...compare to UCI, how would you describe Columbia? (safety)</p>
<p>on the second page of this forum.</p>
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Besides, it's NYC. Is that true?
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<p>No, not in the least bit.</p>
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I heard that Columbia is not that safe compare to other schools b/c the neighbourhoods in the back.
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<p>You care about your life too much.</p>
<p>of couse I care about my life...who doesn't?</p>
<p>Anyway, just want to make sure of it. I am in LA, people here usually have a prejudice in NYC, especially after 911. My teacher told me that there are so many gangs on the streets of NYC and you have a high chance of getting your text books stolen.</p>
<p>^^^ your "teacher" probably shouldn't teach... :p j/k (kind of...)</p>
<p>Your teacher should come and visit NYC. It's as safe as LA, I bet, if not safer. </p>
<p><em>secretly hopes that this whole you're-gonna-die-if-you-go-to-columbia scare persists so that application #s drop and i can maybe possibly get in? =]</em></p>
<p>I can understand the stigma New York might still carry after 9/11 regarding terrorism. I don't buy into it, but I understand it.</p>
<p>But please understand that the post-9/11 fears of New York have nothing to do with day-to-day street crime--the two are totally unrelated, and crime in New actually been dropping substantially for over a decade. Gangs? Sorry for the tone, but when was the last time your teacher was in New York? The gang presence in New York is almost non-existent these days. LA's gang problem is still quite a bit bigger than New York's. Being a city of over 8 million people New York is obviously not Sunshine Magic Land, but most crime has been remarkably under control for a while now.</p>
<p>Sheesh, I hope the rest of the country doesn't think we devolved into some dark vigilante gangland after September 11th... o_O</p>
<p>i think the best way to answer this question is to look to hollywood...</p>
<p>recent movies about LA street crime:
Training Day</p>
<p>recent movies about NY street crime:
none</p>
<p>Why are we talking about LA? The kid is asking you to compare UCI to Columbia. He's not going to spend 4 years Watts or Inglewood.</p>
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recent movies about NY street crime:
none
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<p>Cloverfield?</p>
<p>The poster is from LA. We're trying to compare NY with a place he/she is more familiar with.</p>
<p>LA is much more dangerous than nyc go read any recent set of crime statistics. columbia by NYC standards is now in a safe neighborhood. columbia is also safer than penn, the penn kids i've met still talk of west philly like this shady place where they try as hard as possible to minimize time in. harlem interms of crime is on a different planet to where it used to be. if the stigma affects you're decision, you have made an uninformed decision.</p>
<p>yeah, that much is certainly true - Columbia is in a much safer neighborhood of NYC than Penn is in Philly.</p>
<p>Harlem doesn't start getting tough until more than a mile away from the columbia campus area. 20 blocks is a long way. Trust me, I'd know.</p>
<p>Wasn't there a thread on this forum when the NYPD released a comparison of property and violent crime rates for major cities in the US, and per-capita, NYC ranked like 154th right next to, like, Scottsdale? It was something ridiculous like that.</p>
<p>If this were 1978 rather than 2008 this would be a fair question. Right now it's a ludicrous one. I walk around in a suit, carrying my laptop bag, at 3:30 in the morning in harlem proper (not even the columbia neighborhood, up on the hill), and nobody so much as says anything to me except the girl on the corner calling me "sir", and maybe asking for some change. Done this for almost 2 years now.</p>
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yeah, that much is certainly true - Columbia is in a much safer neighborhood of NYC than Penn is in Philly.
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that is far from the truth, my friend...</p>
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that is far from the truth, my friend...
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<p>nope.</p>
<p>You know what? Screw it, I'll go get numbers for you. </p>
<p>The manhattan NYPD precinct where most of columbia exists is the 26th precinct, which also includes Morningside Park, Riverside Park, St Nicholas park, and CUNY (goes up to 140th st, WAY out of the columbia neighborhood). So it includes a lot of much rougher areas than Columbia. Crime stats:
<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs026pct.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs026pct.pdf</a></p>
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2001 2007
Murder 1 2
Rape 9 8
Robbery 220 206
Fel. Assault 132 90
Burglary 124 71
Gr. Larceny 326 339
G.L.A. 133 54
Want more details, like # of people in that precinct? Call Officer Harper at 212-678-1301.
Penn is in Philly's 18th police district, which pretty much [just includes UPenn](http://www.ppdonline.org/images/ops/maps/12-18-77.gif). It has "about 80,000 people" in it. It's bordered by Market st on the north, Baltimore and 49th st on the south, and Cobbs Creek on the west. I called the 18th district and the guy told me that qualitatively, west of 49th street it's more drug crime, east of 49th it's more robbery/burglary type crime.
However, I was only able to get statistics for the [UPenn area itself](http://ucr.psp.state.pa.us/ibi_apps/WFServlet). Here are the stats for **UPenn alone**.
2006 2007
Murder 2 3
Rape 5 7
Robbery 87 73
Assault 59 58
Burglary 81 65
Larceny 717 780
G.T.A. 15 9
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<p>So, twice as much Larceny, but a little less Assault and Burglary and a third as much Robbery. on the UPenn campus alone. Compared to a sizable chunk of NYC that includes some bad parts of harlem and three parks.</p>
<p>My conclusion is that unless you like leaving your car around in harlem, you are much safer on Columbia's campus.</p>
<p>And Skraylor, those stats are self-reported by the university and seem a little bogus to me. "includes off-campus"... yeah, right. maybe the streets that border the campus. maybe.</p>
<p>guys no doubt about it, i've been to penn, i have tons of friends from there, my brother's a penn grad, it's an awesome school, and west philly has it's culture, but today, not 10 years ago, it is more dangerous than the columbia area. Penn too is not really in a very unsafe neighborhood. absolutely nothing crime related happens on or near columbia's campus, i haven't felt unsafe any time of night anywhere on or around campus that's 110st - 122 st morningside to riverside. and i have a high sense of self-preservation.</p>
<p>I prefer my hard numbers to your well-crafted qualitative description.</p>
<p>Sincerely,
SEAS Student
:)</p>
<p>Columbia has the advantage of a more effective police force, a physical campus that is roughly 1/8th the size of Penn's (36 vs almost 300 acres), and best of all, it's walled off.</p>
<p>"Columbia has the advantage of a more effective police force, a physical campus that is roughly 1/8th the size of Penn's (36 vs almost 300 acres), and best of all, it's walled off."</p>
<p>physically on columbia's campus nothing at all happens, it's too small for anything to happen, we were all talking about around campus.</p>
<p>"I prefer my hard numbers to your well-crafted qualitative description.</p>
<p>Sincerely,
SEAS Student"</p>
<p>i think it's important to talk qualitatively once in a while, though i usually love wallowing in the numbers. truth is i'm too lazy to pull them up.</p>
<p>sincerely,
also a seas student :p</p>