Money Magazine and CNN have an annual feature on best places to live (No. 2 nationally this year is Ft. Collins, Colorado, our place of birth and raising). In the local breakdown, i.e. San Gabriel Valley, Walnut gets the No. 1 nod out of 25 cities. Anchoring the lower three are Altadena, Whittier, and Covina, with Altadena cited as worst in crime (and yes, we know the Crime Log is quite skimpy).
bruce linsenmayer said…
Based on personal crime alone, Altadena was the worst place to live in the entire San Gabriel Valley – and the rating did not even include property crime data. Wow!
Say, what are personal crimes anyway?
Well it’s murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
What has the Sheriff to say about this?
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 at 08:43 AM
Snow said…
Always difficult to know what to make of crime statistics from a secondary source like Money Magazine. Are they counting arrests or convictions? The two are very different. Did the stats adjust for age differences among communities, since some age groups are more arrest-prone than others? Likewise for ethnicity, some some ethnic groups are more arrest-prone than others (although like age, actual crime and arrests for some ethnic groups don’t always track very well). Likewise for income – Altadena provides cheaper housing for people who work in nearby more expensive communities, and with lower incomes you find higher arrest rates. So, the scope of interpretation of “crime rates” (whatever they are) in any location is much broader than just “Altadena has a lot more crime than other San Gabriel towns”. It might be true; it’s just that it cannot be concluded from these statistics.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 at 10:58 AM