<p>Moreover, Harvard was offered in response to Kicharo, who tried to assert that Harvard had no homeless and is less "exclusive."</p>
<p>Kicharo, I would like to extend an open invitation to explore the underground of American prosperity. We can tour immigrant homes, go to 7-Eleven, visit New Haven's Marriott, and use -- god forbid -- PUBLIC TRANSIT.</p>
<p>^^Haha...Yalies are so funny! Such a sense of humor...:)</p>
<p>Although I don't go to Yale, my boyfriend does, and I've spent a lot of time on the campus... to an outsider, it's easy to see Yale within New Haven and only see ostentation and opulence, but poverty is incidental to any city, and it's foolish not to recognize that Yale doesn't make poor the urban poor of New Haven. In fact, the campus provides jobs, resources, and a wealth of social services to the people of New Haven. My boyfriend is actually part of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society which created a program to bring business education to the disadvantaged students in New Haven High Schools. Countless social outreach organizations exist on the university's budget that provide services of great value to anyone in NH who seeks them...</p>
<p>I don't have time to say much more on the subject, but if you (OP) really feel that Yale doesn't involve itself in community outreach and betterment you're simply uninformed.</p>
<p>Bythecliff2: I had only mentioned Harvard because it was mentioned by the OP Kicharo. My cousins attend Harvard and I love their campus... I certainly wasn't trying to put it down in any way.</p>
<p>Okii Dokii</p>
<p>Lol, extreme poverty my butt. You seem like the one who hasn't ever stepped out of his gated community...</p>
<p>
[quote]
...on my tour I saw two homeless men panhandling outside the main entrance to the library.</p>
<p>It seems like it would be a sad, sad place to go to school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>When I visited Harvard, I saw more than a dozen homeless men and women panhandling outside the gate entrances and high walls. The funny thing was that they were all wearing Harvard t-shirts.</p>
<p>Safety in New Haven</p>
<p>Students crisscross campus heading to course discussion sections, study groups, libraries open until midnight and various places. Yale students and New Haven residents are often found exploring downtown well into the evening hours. Many stores are open until 9:00 PM and many restaurants are open until at least midnight.</p>
<p>Yale University has one of the better safety records in the Ivy League. According to reports filed with the U.S. Department of Education in 2000, the total number of crimes occurring on and around Yale's campus was below the Ivy League average. In fact, Yale University reported the second lowest number of on-campus crimes of any Ivy League school. Overall, crime in the City of New Haven is down by more than 50 percent since 1990.</p>
<p>New Haven is MUCH safer than some of the other top universities. It's changed a lot. I actually felt more unsafe in Cambridge and New York at night than in New Haven at night.</p>
<p>Can we let the thread die now?</p>
<p>New Haven is one ugly place, just visited recently. Some parts are nice, but it is a forsaken city that has little to offer in terms of knowledge or culture. Go to Yale, pretend it is a rural area, and avoid that mound of decay sitting next to it, all it will do is distract and hurt you.</p>
<p>"little to offer in terms of knowledge or culture"?!?!</p>
<p>Umm... New Haven has one of the biggest research universities in the world (Yale), along with three other colleges. And it has a tony award winning theater (the Rep), is a regular tour stop for artists and broadway shows (at the Shubert theater), requires that a percentage of downtown construction budgets go to public art (and there's a ****-ton around), hosts a three week arts festival annually, and has more varied and high quality ethnic/specialty restaurants in the downtown area than you'll find anywhere short of a major metropolis. </p>
<p>Seriously?!?! I know the city has had some bad PR, but you're just talking out of your @$$.</p>
<p>One of the most dangerous cities in the US too, forgot to mention. They just don't touch Yale students because they know that since Yale is the biggest employer in New Haven, that Yale would get some sweet revenge on them if they dare confronted Yale.</p>
<p>My above post was a little exaggerated/overgeneralized - I just came back and had a bad encounter there, so I was a bit angry about it. It still isn't a good city, but it's better than some places I suppose. I wouldn't want to live there personally, I'd rather stay in Yale. After walking/driving around in New Haven for a while after looking @ yale, having a GPS stolen, car broken into, parking tickets injustly laid on us (we asked the Yale admissions office and they said the city liked to give tickets to visitors for no reason, beacuse the visitors wouldnt drive all the way back to new haven to challenge them in court. Yale said the city was doing it illegally but they were trying to force the city to fix the problem), etc. Bad impression o_O</p>
<p>I realize this is only one particular list, but New Haven isn't even on it: 2006</a> Metro Area Violent Crime Rates</p>
<p>And a 2005 article on crime in Baltimore in a JHU newsletter says:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Cities such as New Haven, New York, Boston and Philadelphia -- all among the populous college towns in the nation -- have remained off the list of the 30 most dangerous cities in America.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>^^ Be careful about posting false information after a brief visit. Your theory of criminals avoiding yale students for fear of institutional retribution against the city/individuals is ridiculous, btw. </p>
<p>And i'm guessing you're not a driver, bc cops giving a ticket to an out of state vehicle is hardly a shocker.... not that that reflects upon yale anyway.</p>
<p>NY_Democrat. What are you talking about. The city's giving yo tickets "illegally?" Criminals avoid Yale students because of some vast New Haven conspiracy? This is not an Oliver Stone movie. If you park on Hillhouse Ave (where the admissions office is) and don't feed your meter for long enough, they will ticket you. I live 15 minutes away, and it happened to me on Wednesday. This is not their fault. You are the one breaking parking regulations.</p>
<p>New Haven is far from one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, and your saying so merely reveals your ignorance on the subject:</p>
<p>Study:</a> Detroit most dangerous city - Crime & courts - MSNBC.com No mention of New Haven there.</p>
<p>Most</a> Dangerous Cities 2007 - AOL Money & Finance Not on that list either.</p>
<p>Top</a> 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America - HUMAN EVENTS Nope.</p>
<p>In fact, when I searched google for most dangerous cities in the U.S.+new haven, the only site that came up that wasn't some kind of ignorant, baseless forum post like yours was this one:</p>
<p>100</a> most dangerous cities in the USA America states 10 20 50</p>
<p>Yeah, there's a website I trust. One that has no statistics besides population and a "score". And has porn ads on the side. And even in this weak attempt at accuracy, New Haven comes in 37th, 5 places behind the hometown of Duke, 7 behind Penn, 20 behind Georgetown, 33 behind Johns Hopkins, 34 behind Wash U, and 35 behind Emory. So go make ignorant, inaccurate complaints about the safety at those schools. I've even provided you a source.</p>
<p>As for that pretentious, elitist comment about "knowledge and the arts" or whatever, New Haven has 3 Tony award winning theaters (not just Rep and the Shubert, but the Long Wharf as well), it has the largest collection of British art outside of Britain, it has one of the foremost universities in the world, it hosts the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, it has a particle accelerator (which runs free tours every now and then), it has a museum with a full scale, 3D reproduction of an Apatosaurus using fossils on the same street as that particle accelerator. Just because you live in Suburban Wherever where you've never seen a homeless person doesn't mean that New Haven is suddenly Compton.</p>
<p>NY_Democrat is pulling crap out of his @ss. New Haven is MUCH more safer than some of the other cities with good univs. given what I posted on page two, along with even more proof on this page.</p>
<p>"My above post was a little exaggerated/overgeneralized - I just came back and had a bad encounter there, so I was a bit angry about it."</p>
<p>I totally understand you being sour about the city because of a bad experience... but what I think rubbed people the wrong way was how strongly you attacked it when it was clear you only had a glancing perspective at best. -shrugs- </p>
<p>I had a similar experience with Cambridge the first time I visited Harvard when I was 14... I came back very sour about the city, thinking it was disgusting and shoddy (coming from my suburban background, I was used to everything being pristine). I came back a few years later and I loved it.</p>
<p>The area DIRECTLY around Yale isn't bad, but if you walk one or two blocks off, it kind of looks like a war zone.</p>
<p>This article is from a few years ago when New Haven was the 4th poorest city in the US. Judging from the discussion in this thread so far - it apparently has improved hugely in a short period of time:</p>
<p>The north wind cuts cold and sudden across the historic green of New Haven. It blows through the 'tent city' where the homeless huddle. And it blows round the spires and quadrangles of Yale University, one of America's richest Ivy League colleges.
The contrast is stark: Charlene Johnson, three months pregnant, emerges from her bivouac, worrying about the winter that lies between her and her due date. And all around are Yale's stone walls, elegant colonial churches and smart people walking past boutiques and coffee shops, carrying their course books. </p>
<p>'You know what's underneath you?' challenges Rod Cleary, who was released from prison in Los Angeles after a conviction for gang fighting, found but lost a job in New Haven, and has now been evicted. 'I'll tell ya: bones. This green was a cemetery once; you're sitting on a pauper's grave. And, man, that's what it's going to be again if we ain't careful.' </p>
<p>Charlene fell behind with her rent in June and took a bribe of $200 to move out of her digs, so the landlord could hike up the price. 'It seemed like I had some money for once, and it was summer.' Her son Nikolas was billeted with a friend and Charlene started looking for a place with her boyfriend, Scott, hopefully before the cold set in. Without success - Scott was laid off on Wednesday from a construction firm. 'Not enough work,' he says. 'And once you're out, you're a speck of dirt on the ground, and they walk over you.' </p>
<p>New Haven's tent city was established after the authorities closed down a homeless overflow shelter a few weeks ago. At sundown yesterday it was to be cleared by the police, with Charlene, Scott, Rod and 150 others sent on their way into what promises to be a vicious winter. </p>
<p>New Haven is a metaphor for the America which on Tuesday elects its Senate and House of Representatives. It is the country's fourth poorest city, where the ghetto laps at the walls of a university worth $11 billion (£7bn) in tax-exempt endowments, educating America's next generation of rulers. A sign at the freeway turn-off advertises New Haven as the birthplace of President George Bush. </p>
<p>It is a city with the same infant mortality rate as Malaysia and a terrifying rate of deaths from Aids - one day care centre alone commemorated the loss of 600 clients at a memorial service on Wednesday. But it is located in America' richest state, Connecticut, which has, proportionally, more millionaires than any other. </p>
<p>This is the super-rich New York hinterland for those too wealthy even to feel the pinch on Wall Street. It is called the 'Zebra Coast', laid out in strips of black/white, black/white; poor/rich, poor/rich. And in New Haven the polarity is underpinned by the history of Yale University's engagement in the slave trade - currently being excavated by some of its own students. </p>
<p>'New Haven,' says the Rev David Lee of Varick Church in the city's northwestern ghetto, 'is a microcosm of America. It's the vicious cycle between rich and poor and the system of exploitation. The wealth is in your face all the time, something you can never aspire to. It's like being a kid in a candy store, being told you can look but you can't never have a lollipop.' </p>
<p>The mall downtown, on the 'wrong' side of the green, is a ghost mall; just a few 'hoodrats' hanging around Cross Flava records and security guards to keep them in order. 'Folks who commute to work,' says the boy behind the counter, 'they spend where they live. And the people who live here don't have anything to spend.' </p>
<p>Statistics released last month by the government census bureau show that for the first time in 10 years the number of people caught in the poverty trap has suddenly increased. Unemployment is up from 4.2 per cent in 2000 to 5.7 per cent last year. While the middle class shrinks, the numbers living below the official poverty line of $18,104 a year for a family of four has shot up to 33 million - from 11.3 to 11.7 per cent. That's the first increase since 1992. </p>
<p>While President Bush's windfall tax breaks to the super-rich breezed through Congress (with Democratic help), the proposed rise in the minimum wage is frozen. </p>
<p>The proportion of children without health cover has increased from 63.8 per cent to 67.1 per cent. The poverty rate for children in the US is worse than in 19 'rich' countries, according to a study by the University of Michigan. </p>
<p>Income statistics showed the first significant decline in average income among blacks in two decades; the white average also fell, and only Hispanics maintained their level. </p>
<p>Statisticians are struck by differences between this dive and the usual downward turns that accompany recessions. 'The poor are trailing further behind than in the past,' says Robert Greenstein of the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. 'The increase in poverty is likely to be larger in 2002.' </p>
<p>Such is the power of money in Connecticut and its neighbours that the North-East was the only region in the country in which the mean income did not decline. But the price was paid here where Elm Street, after skirting the mock-Oxbridge walls and towers of Yale, twists abruptly into New Haven's own nightmare. </p>
<p>Students have been given special maps, and advice not to venture past the CITGO gas station, where the ghetto begins. Houses are boarded up and gas stations take cash only - payable up front - and have bullet-proof glass and bars at the pay point. Sandwich and gift card stores also deal in Western Union money transfers, like the one Carl Robbins is sending back to his family in Kingston, Jamaica - $150 out of the $650 he grossed this week as a hospital janitor. </p>
<p>At the gas station on Dixwell Avenue, Everton Mayne gets his money back on a pack of Newport cigarettes because he has found the same pack down the road four cents cheaper. 'You got to think about these things,' he cautions. </p>
<p>Monica Osborn works in the operating rooms at Yale and New Haven Hospital, and in 11 years has increased her wage from $8 to $13 an hour (Connecticut calculates that $17 is the 'liveable wage'). Recently her son suffered concussion and, although she works at a hospital, health insurance comes extra and she was caught out. Her employer docked the cost of treatment from her wages, leaving her to manage for two months on $300 for a family of four. 'I can feel it getting worse,' she says. 'Trying to feed the kids, we all have two, maybe three, jobs. I do hair braiding to get by.' </p>
<p>Wages at the university are a little better, says Mark Wilson, who for years worked on the ancillary workforce before becoming an officer of the hotel and catering workers' union that fought to close what it calls the 'casual pipeline' whereby the university would lay off employees the day before it was obliged to take them on staff. </p>
<p>'I don't actually wipe their butts,' says Wesley Smith, earning $11 an hour loading a trolley full of students' dirty laundry, 'but I got to get clean what they wipe off.' </p>
<p>Yale is exempt from paying city taxes, except on commercial property it owns. But a consortium of community groups asked the university to donate a single day's interest on its invested endowment - that's $5.2 million - to the city's public schools. So far, no response. </p>
<p>'We just wanted some kind of partnership,' says the Rev David Lee, who - as a graduate of Yale Divinity School - this year harvested enough signatures to seek election to the university board. He was seen off by the architect Maya Li, in what was regarded as a brazen snub to what Lee's church calls 'the host community'. </p>
<p>Dixwell Avenue is where Lee tries 'to put a bit of hope back in people's eyes that's just been taken away'. He says: 'I can feel it, just over the past year; people is sinking back down. It's hard to keep people off drugs. It's hard to tell people not to go to crime, when they made that extra effort to straighten out, then got beaten back down again. I had a man in my congregation come to me on Sunday saying his daughter who is 13 was considering suicide.' </p>
<p>There is now a brutally simple barometer of poverty in modern America: HIV. </p>
<p>At the Immanuel Baptist Church on Chapel Street, a few blocks from fancy restaurants where the young elite go for dinner, there was a service with a difference on Wednesday. The Aids Interfaith Network was commemorating the lives of 600 of its clients who have died of the disease since it was established 15 years ago. </p>
<p>Some of the congregation were living with HIV, a couple in wheelchairs; others were those who work with and for them. The network was set up by a group of churches to fill the abyss between a dire need and the malfunctioning of America' commercial healthcare system. </p>
<p>Project director Joyce Poole says: 'Aids has become the disease of the poor - 80 to 90 per cent of our clients are living below the poverty level; 15 per cent are homeless; most have not worked in years. Half are dually diagnosed with HIV and hepatitis C. If you can't support yourself, you do it by other means, and those means are often criminal. Most of our clients have had at least one encounter with the Department of Corrections.' </p>
<p>Yet Connecticut's Aids prevention budget has just been cut by 30 per cent - due, says America's richest state, to the economic downturn. 'This is a discourse,' says Poole, 'about poverty.' And as America prepares to go to the polls, the gap between rich and poor is widening by the day. </p>
<p>Hard times</p>
<p>· One in 11 families, one in nine Americans, and one in six children are officially poor.</p>
<p>· The most affluent fifth of the population received half of all household income last year. The poorest fifth got 3.5 per cent.</p>
<p>· The official poverty line is an income of $18,104 pa (£11,570) for a family of four. A single parent of two working full-time for a minimum wage would make $10,712 (£6,846).</p>
<p>· 40 per cent of homeless men are veterans.</p>
<p>· Up to a fifth of America's food, worth $31bn, goes to waste each year, with 130lb of food per person ending up in landfills.</p>
<p>For all you people who think that NYC is so much more dangerous than New Haven. From today's NY Times:</p>
<p>Despite an uptick in the homicide rate, New York City's overall crime rate fell by 8 percent during the first six months of the year, compared with the same period last year, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the F.B.I. </p>
<p>The drop showed New York City slightly behind the national decrease of about 10 percent in the overall crime rate. Both New York City and the nation showed an 8 percent drop in violent crimes -- homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults. </p>
<p>The city showed a sharper drop in crime than the average for the seven other cities with populations of more than 1 million people. The rate for violent crimes and for crimes over all for all eight big cities, including New York, fell by 6 percent. </p>
<p>Within the metropolitan region, however, New York City's smaller neighbors tended to show steeper drops in crime than New York City did, an analysis of the F.B.I.'s figures showed. </p>
<p>The 11 cities in the New York region with populations over 100,000, taken as a whole, showed a 15 percent drop in the violent crime rate, compared with New York City's 8 percent drop. </p>
<p>During the first sixth months of last year, New York City was the sixth-least-violent city in the region. This year it was seventh, after Hartford, which saw a 23 percent drop in violent crimes during the first six months of this year. </p>
<p>Alfred Blumstein, a professor of urban systems and operations research at Carnegie Mellon University, said that the steeper decreases in the cities surrounding New York could be a sign that New York City is reaching the point of diminishing returns in its remarkably successful battle against crime. </p>
<p>''Given that New York City was one of the first places where the decline started, and where it has been particularly steep,'' Professor Blumstein said, ''it has got to, at some point, level off.'' </p>
<p>Homicides in New York City jumped 14 percent during the first half of this year, to 341 from 299. In the 11 cities outside New York for which the F.B.I. released statistics, homicides also increased, about 12 percent, to 100 from 89. </p>
<p>The 11 cities in the region for which statistics were available were Albany and Yonkers; Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth and Paterson, N.J.; and Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and Waterbury, Conn. </p>
<p>Of those cities, New Haven had the highest overall crime rate and Newark the highest violent crime rate. Stamford had the lowest violent crime rate, while Yonkers had the lowest crime rate over all. </p>
<p>New York City had the third lowest overall crime rate in the region, after Yonkers and Stamford.</p>