Would you consider the surrounding area of UPenn to be dangerous as it is near the notorious West Philly (Fresh Prince somewhat). Jokes aside, is it safe to live off campus
Try this: site:talk.collegeconfidential.com upenn safe
anything past 45th isnt really safe.
Nah I’d say 48th. I lived on 48th and Pine and the building/surrounding buildings were full of college students. Once you got to 50th was when the sketchiness came out.
The Penn Patrol zone is through 43rd Street…
It is safe to live off campus. My D lives off campus and has no concerns about it. As others have said, you don’t want to wander too far west at 3 am, but there is no reason to anyway.
Most of the crime impacting students is very minor. A kid grabbing a purse, computer or iPhone and running with it. Even then the Penn police are everywhere, and so are the cameras.
My D will live off campus next year, at 40th St. and Pine. She is even parking her car on the street - tons of Penn students.
The fact that current students are not concerned should say a lot.
Additionally, you can ask Penn police to escort you home, if you need to travel off campus at night, or are nervous. It is a free service.
I’ve never felt safer in an urban environment than I did on Penn’s campus and around it. Penn and the other universities in West Philly have invested billions into the area and the transformation from the 90s has been astounding. It is a perfectly safe place to live, work, study, play, etc.
If you’re being realistic about it, there is a substantial difference between daytime and nighttime safety. During the day, the whole vicinity of Penn is generally safe, I’d say out to 52nd & Market (north and west of that it starts getting a little sketchy). At night, it depended heavily on the block. The Market Street corridor was a bit sketchy west of 40th Street, though from the 100 to the 400 block of N. 40th St. were all fine. As you go south, the safe areas push west… at Chestnut, it was just fine out to 42nd. At Walnut, it was safe out to 44th. Locust - 45th, Spruce/Pine - 48th, Baltimore - 52nd; I am unfamiliar with Woodland so can’t talk about that too much, but I presume it’s pretty safe since U of the Sciences is in the area.
The difference at night between the 5000 block of Market and the 5000 block of Spruce is astounding, and the difference between the 5000 block of Spruce and of Baltimore is equally astounding. You’d think you were in different cities.
In terms of more general things, when as you go northeast of campus, you step into Drexel’s campus and surrounding area. If you go straight north, you slowly exit the university areas and get into trouble. If you go west along Walnut, it gets comparatively less safe as you go; if you go southwest along Baltimore, it gets less safe as you go, but it takes far longer to get to that point. To the direct south is the Penn medical complex, followed by the Schuylkill, so there’s nothing really there. To the east is Center City (if you walk east on Walnut Street, you’ll eventually wind up at Rittenhouse Square, which is one of the safest areas of the city). Campus and the areas with high numbers of students surrounding Penn/Drexel/USciences are all exceptionally safe, with multiple layers of security that give you a sense of security without seeming overbearing.
I have nothing but respect for the Penn Police, whose directive is explicitly to keep students safe. Unlike rural college towns, where a not-insignificant portion of their revenue comes from fines to students for underage drinking, Penn Police has no such incentive. If they see you intoxicated in public, their first concern is to ensure that you arrive home safely and will take you to the hospital - no questions asked - if they suspect you are in trouble. The PALCB has brought enforcement officers to campus during the big drinking weekends, but, for the most part, parties only get broken up when something dangerous is happening, and it is pretty rare for people to get cited for underage drinking.
There are plenty of things I didn’t like about Penn (and plenty more that I loved); security was one that I always admired, respected, and appreciated.