Visit to Durham --> =_=

[Cuse0507]

<p>

Duke itself is safe, which is the point.</p>

<p>Also, let’s put it this way. I work with Durham EMS. I feel like my experiences give me a little more validity, as I’m going to have a better perspective of crime in this city than most people. While Durham has crime, it is no where near as bad as you like to make it out to be. Ask a Duke student if they feel unsafe on campus, and they’ll tell you no. That’s what matters.

</p>

<p>Sure, Duke’s campus is incredibly safe. Duke goes to great lengths to keep its campus safe by having tons of security. Durham does have a reputation for being a high crime city, though. Whether that is deserved or not is another question, but incidents like yesterday’s tend to reinforce the negative perceptions that many people have of Durham. Like in most other cities, the violence in Durham is usually confined to the gang population and people caught up in illegal drugs, etc. This typically doesn’t involve Duke students, but it has given the city a reputation throughout other parts of the state that it will have to work to overcome.</p>

[twomoose]

<p>I’ve listed crime stats from Durham on other posts. The crime rate in Durham is similar to other cities its size. Let’s not exaggerate.</p>

<p>Cuse, maybe you need to live somewhere outside NC for a few years. I’ve lived all over the country, including in the murder capital of the US. I’ll take Durham any day.</p>

[Cuse0507]

<p>

Cuse, maybe you need to live somewhere outside NC for a few years. I’ve lived all over the country, including in the murder capital of the US. I’ll take Durham any day.

</p>

<p>I’ve lived all over the world, including Europe and the Middle East. I’m not lacking in perspective, thanks.</p>

<p>

I’ve listed crime stats from Durham on other posts. The crime rate in Durham is similar to other cities its size. Let’s not exaggerate.

</p>

<p>Don’t just take my word for it:</p>

<p>*With a crime rate of 78 per one thousand residents, Durham has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 13. Within North Carolina, more than 80% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Durham.</p>

<p>Importantly, when you compare Durham to other cities of similar population, the Durham crime rate (violent and property crimes combined) is quite a bit higher than average. Regardless of how Durham does relative to all communities in America of all sizes, when NeighborhoodScout compared it to communities of similar population size, its crime rate per thousand residents stands out as higher than most.</p>

<p>The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.</p>

<p>Now let us turn to take a look at how Durham does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Durham.</p>

<p>For Durham, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included forcible rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout’s analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Durham is one in 118.</p>

<p>Significantly, based on the number of murders reported by the FBI and the number of residents living in the city, NeighborhoodScout’s analysis shows that Durham experiences one of the higher murder rates in the nation when compared with cities and towns for all sizes of population, from the largest to the smallest.</p>

<p>In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Durham is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Durham, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 14, which is a rate of 70 per one thousand population. *</p>

<p>[Durham</a> crime rates and statistics - Neighborhood Scout](<a href=“The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)”>Durham, NC Crime Rates and Statistics - NeighborhoodScout)</p>

[twomoose]

<p>I didn’t mean to insult you - sorry you took it that way.</p>

<p>I guess it’s your stats against mine. I’m not sure what year is referenced in your article, or how reputible “Neighborhood Scout” is. The article you quote seems very biased - it’s not just stats, but a commentary, which seems quite slanted. - uses the word “victim”, and has an agenda. Keep in mind when comparing Durham to other cities in NC, that there are few other cities in NC that are bigger, so of course within NC “80% have lower crime”. We need to compare cities of similar size, not Durham to Kinston.</p>

[twomoose]

<p>Members of my family and I have lived in Durham a cumulative of almost 50 years, with absolutely no problems. None. This includes a house in Trinity Park where the doors were left unlocked at all times.</p>

[Cuse0507]

<p>Twomoose,</p>

<p>No offense taken. Sometimes it can be hard to discern what one’s intentions are over the internet, so i’ll gladly give you the benefit of the doubt.</p>

<p>I’m glad that you and your family have had positive experiences with Durham.</p>

[twomoose]

<p>So, I actually looked for data, and found a ranking of crime in US cities. This was done by a reputable (I spelled it right this time) publication, with uniform methodology. It’s probably about as useful as USNWR, but here goes:</p>

<p><a href=“http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/2009/CityCrime2009_Rank_Rev.pdf[/url]”>http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/2009/CityCrime2009_Rank_Rev.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>These are listed from high-crime to low-crime areas. As you can see, Durham did surprisingly well, coming in at #98. In NC, Fayetville (#54), Charlotte (#70), Winston-Salem (74) and Greensboro (#75 are worse. Of course, the best in NC is Cary (#375) - nothing ever happens in Cary, although I believe they actually had a murder recently. </p>

<p>I have lived in one of the cities in the top 5, so when I say I’m not scared of Durham, I mean it. If Durham has a bad reputation in NC, I wasn’t aware of it when I lived there.</p>

[Ketty]

<p>For those of you who live in big cities right now, please do <em>not</em> cower from coming to Durham- after graduation, you can all find jobs in the big cities. But for a college experience, Durham is pretty nice. :D</p>

<p>I’ve lived in inner-city Chicago for nearly all of my life. I will admit, my first impression of Durham was horror: where are the buildings? The cars? The people??? Everything was just so green and spread out and foreign.</p>

<p>But eventually, you get to really appreciate how rich and dynamic the culture here is. As mentioned by others, the food is incredibly diverse for such a small city. But the people here and their history are also amazing. Basically, it’s your own choice: you can stay in the Duke bubble (which 95% of Duke students do), or you can venture into the community, explore, do some service work, and find yourself surprised by how much heart this place has. </p>

<p>If that still doesn’t placate you, be assured that Franklin Street and Chapel Hill (a much more traditional college town) is only a short bus ride away.</p>

[Belle_Boyd]

<p>A Duke alumna wrote this column last year, well before the New York Times article about Durham food was in their #10 most emailed articles list for several days (I think peaking at #2 for a while).</p>

<p>[How</a> do I love thee, Durham? | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://dukechronicle.com/node/148247]How”>http://dukechronicle.com/node/148247)</p>

<p>An excerpt:
"Culture happens in Durham.</p>

<p>The American Dance Festival, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the World Beer Festival, the Bull Durham Blues Festival, the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, A Taste of Durham, Festival for the Eno. Need I say more?</p>

<p>People connect.</p>

<p>One of the greatest things, if perhaps not the greatest, about Durham is the way people are willing to connect with each other. If you’ve ever sat at the communal tables on the patio of a place like The Federal on Main Street, you can see this first-hand. There are the greasy-haired graduate students with fishnet stockings who will hammer out the wins at Pub Quiz and the local guys in old baseball hats who are Durham born-and-bred. It is possible to soak in discussions about Freud and French fries and Ultimate Frisbee and meet people from Baltimore and Beijing, to alternate between drinking authentically Southern sweet tea and imported Belgian ale. These connections happen symbolically too: I love the way that a meal at the locally owned Watts Grocery might bring together the products of a nearby fourth-generation farmer and deliver them on a plate to a student from Manhattan or a new resident from Omaha.</p>

<p>It’s not that these things don’t necessarily exist in other communities around the country or the globe. There are plenty of wonderful cities that have more accomplished museums, top-billed restaurants, events, athletic teams-you name it. It’s just that in Durham they happen in a way that is disarmingly unpretentious. There are no velvet ropes, no red carpets. It is surprisingly easy to live a full and abundant life, well connected to a greater community of people who are interesting and passionate about something."</p>

<p>Note that she wrote this while living in Cambridge, Mass. ;)</p>