Mitch,

How many people were shot at these redneck bars you so expertly DJ'd at?

Your attempts at equating typical barfights and shootings is not amongst your best work.

You CAN see the difference between these things, right?

Also, there is no equivalence between whatever music "rednecks" like and hard-core rap. NONE.

There's an Eagle's (one of those "service-type" clubs) bar around here and it's got a lot of the type you mention. I wouldn't go in there for nothing...mostly full of bar-hags, habitual drunks, sleazes of both sexes. But those people are the way they are for different reasons than the music they listen to and you can't say that about many rap fans.

As an aside, we were in a pub in Ireland jam-packed with teens & 20-somethings and were treated with politeness and respect (for our advanced ages I spose!) by all we squeezed by. At the Eagle's, we would have heard very foul language, maybe some butt-grabs, vomit, etc. so I can picture the people you're talking about and it's not pretty. Scum is scum. And black thugs are scum and their music validates their thuggishness.

I have to say the most dangerous bar I ever went to was the infamous Moby Dick's. One point for JB. Although, the 2nd roughest was in the northern suburbs, so maybe only a half point for JB.

I have to say, I didn't think the Quest was very scary when I saw the Barenaked Ladies there.

Having been stabbed and shot at, JB, I can attest that there is not nearly as much difference as you would presume.

I used to hang out at the most violent bar in Minneapolis, Moby Dick's, when Block E was REALLY Block E. Never had to defend myself. The last time I had to do so, however, was at the Bennigan's at 494 and 35W (is it still there?) when I went there with a group of friends, two of whom are black. As we left, and were walking to our cars, a bunch of drunks called one of the women in our party "n****r lover", which received the appropriate response, at which time one of the drunks jumped out of their vehicle brandishing a tire iron, followed by three other drunks. Unluckily for the lead drunk, one in our party had expertise in these matters, and somewhat quickly dropped tire-iron boy, at which point the rest of the drunks who had engaged us lost their enthusiasm. All in prestigous West Bloomington.

Minneapolis is more dangerous because the intoxicated are more concentrated, as the people are generally, not because the suburbs have a better class of drug users.

Colleen, I don't think violent thugs are made that way by thuggish rap music, I think their thuggishness predisposes them to liking such music. Most thugs are on their evil track well prior to becoming adolescents. A well socialized five year old is not very likely going to shooting someone at age 18.

"How many people were shot at these redneck bars you so expertly DJ'd at?"

At "Shooters" in North Saint Paul, winter of 1989; guy walks into bar, shoots a guy who'd been banging his "girlfriend" where he stood next to the booth. Victim survived, barely.

At "Jams", winter of 2002: three guys beat a guy to death over a squabble over a *bowling ball*. A mistaken squabble, the police later determine.

At the "mermaid", there were several rapes in the parking lot.

"Your attempts at equating typical barfights and shootings is not amongst your best work."

And your attempt to portray drunken moronism as an urban phenomenon beggars the imagination.

Unless the shooting at Quest was specifically related to gangs and/or drug dealing (neither of which are exclusively urban, btw - gangs and drugs have moved out into small rural towns, for f*ck's sake), then it was nothing more than a bar fight with a gun. A drunk aggressive B-boy with a gun can't kill or maim you any deader or maimed-er than a yawping, tobacco-chawing, Budweiser-addled redneck with a broken bottle.

"You CAN see the difference between these things, right?"

That one fight uses a gun and one doesn't? Duh.

You CAN see that drunken moronism is neither a racial characteristic nor an exclusively urban phenomenon, can't you?

Please say yes...

"At "Shooters" in North Saint Paul, winter of 1989; guy walks into bar, shoots a guy who'd been banging his "girlfriend" where he stood next to the booth. Victim survived, barely.

So the guy got *shot* at *Shooters*! I love those "guy walked into a bar" jokes!

Just so we are clear Mitch...

You are saying that there is no difference in the behavior of people at clubs in MPLS and the behavior of people at clubs in the uncool suburbs?

Do I understand you?

Yew-all ever get to Duluth and have a taste for cheap hooch and a truck-load of troubles, mosey on up to the Kozy Bar, corner of 1st Street and Lake Avenue. Home to serious pro drinkers and possibly the most active of Duluth's fighting bars.

Let's not forget the nightly brawls during the Holidazzle parade, or the daily eruption of small-arms fire at the Marshall Fields Cinderella exhibit on the top floor. My family went to the latter, and my daughter will never get over the sign of Santa, shotgunned by an elf with whom he had a "beef" earlier in the day. Why, right now, sitting downtown by a window, I can see the flames that consume a block a day. It's hell, I tell you. Hell.

It'd be interesting to do a risk assessment between living and working in downtown Minneapolis, as I did for several years, and driving around the suburbs, as most people do.

Look, I've got nothing against the suburbs; lived in 'em, worked in 'em, and enjoyed it. It really gets tiresome, however, hearing people striving desperately to prove that either city or suburb living is "better" than the other, or even more tiresomely, that a preference of one over the other carries with it some sort of moral quality.

They're different, and that's fine.

"You are saying that there is no difference in the behavior of people at clubs in MPLS and the behavior of people at clubs in the uncool suburbs?"

Are you saying that all other things being equal a black, urban drunk moron is in some substantive way different than a white, redneck, suburban drunk moron?

"Do I understand you?"

Would it make any difference?

James,

Your risk of being robbed in downtown MPLS are relatively high. Your risk of being robbed in downtown Excelsior are next to zero.

I hope you are reading Rambix as he details the crime reports on a daily basis. A few weeks back he noted a 35 year old guy who met some friends in the warehouse district for a drink and was murdered. And it's not like those stories are rare.

We're not talking about which flavor of ice cream people prefer here folks. It's simple common sense and that would tell you to stay out of a place loaded with scumbag criminals and a culture of letting them get away with it intent on stealing your stuff and hurting you.

The suburbs just don't have the same type of scumbags.

"It really gets tiresome, however, hearing people striving desperately to prove that either city or suburb living is "better" than the other, or even more tiresomely, that a preference of one over the other carries with it some sort of moral quality. "

I agree. Suburbs in general bore me - I live in the city for a reason - but people who try to ascribe moral worth to one's zip code are pretty intolerable. I've written about it:

http://www.shotinthedark.info/archives/004742.html

Are there things I'd change about city life? Sure, starting with the government. Is living in the city and enjoying the parts about it that I enjoy a sign of some incipient political or moral pathology, as JB seems to be inferring? Hightly doubtful (hah!), and the same for those who live out in the 'burbs.

I grew up in a *real* small town, among *real* truck stop waitresses and diesel mechanics and the kind of rednecks who got that way by punching cattle all day; if I wanted to live in a small town, I'd live in the real thing, not a mass-produced imitation.

"We're not talking about which flavor of ice cream people prefer here folks. It's simple common sense and that would tell you to stay out of a place loaded with scumbag criminals and a culture of letting them get away with it intent on stealing your stuff and hurting you."

Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am the baddest motherf*cker in the valley.

"The suburbs just don't have the same type of scumbags."

Different skin color. Different concentration. Same pathologies.

Exactly.

Never said there wasn't a greater risk in downtown Mpls. But it's not Times Square c. 1977, and any attempt to make it seem like a squallid zone of constant violence will appear rather overwrought to anyone with substantial first-hand experience.

Cities have risks. Cities have benefits. I like working downtown, and always have. Am I obliged now to conclude with a fatuous tirade against the suburbs, or can I just leave it at that?

I can? good.

I think the key is that you leave downtown before dark James. But, the crime is hitting the better parts of MPLS too, so you're not necessarily safe.

I guess I've a bone to pick with conservatives who continue to feed the beast that is MPLS by contributing to the status quo of high taxes, crime and whacked-out liberalism.

A comparison between the incidents in downtown Mpls, an area that has some 200,000 people in it a day, to downtown Excelsior is pretty weak. Anecdotally, I've lived downtown for almost 8 years and worked there for most of that time and never had an incident.

To the extent you have Mpls police arresting people numerous times (see the Downtown 33) and the perps being out the next day, it is the judicial system that is soft and must share much of the blame. After all Minneapolis doesn't control the entire county or elect all of the judges, attorneys, etc.

That said, the whole concept of city v. suburb makes little logical sense in modern America since the two do not exist independent of each other socially, economically or even politically, as much as people on each side would like them to. Its like asking someone, "Which of your legs would you prefer to get rid of?"

Harvey's in Forest Lake, long since gone, was the worst bar I've ever been in. When I walked in the door every guy in the place sized me up for a fight. Each of the three barmaids was heavily pregnant and each had a black eye. In the back there was one pool table with the pocket liners ripped out. To get a cue you had to give the bar tender a $20 deposit. To get the cue ball you had to leave your DL.
I didn't stay long.

A per capita analysis, or even raw incident report of violence, particularly gun violence, in DT Mpls compared to other geographical areas is entirely valid. And a good place to begin understanding the disproportionate occurance of some pathologies in the city vs. the suburbs. To pretend these conditions are evenly distributed is what is weak.

The cities are more violent, more dangerous. More so when your hone your area of analsyis to specfic zip codes and times of day.

Some people are willing to live with higher risk, some aren't. I bet that poor SOB bludgeoned to death on Broadway a few weeks ago wishes he could choose again on where to spend a night out on the town.

Again, JB, I'd like to see an analysis done on who has the higher risk of hospitilization: the suburban resident who drives an average of forty miles per day, or the resident of downtown Minneapolis who drives forty miles a month, which is about how much I drove when I lived there. People's perceptions of risk are entirely out of whack.

If I could do one thing to improve city life, I would incarcerate first time violent offenders of any kind for a minimum of 25 years without parole. Guess what? That has to be done on the state level; the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater could be elected Mayor of Minneapolis and that wouldn't change.

Yeah, Saint Paul, and some of those unwilling to live with the risk of downtown Minneapolis are perfectly willing to risk being overweight and sedentary, and the inability to achieve and maintain a high metabolic rate is the single best predictor of death there is. As stated above, people's risk perceptions don't comport with reality, or they simply discount risks which they don't wish to give up.

Will - the status of your expanding weight and laziness is up to you. Getting shot or assaulted or robbed or your car stolen, is really at someone else's discretion. Big difference there. But If you feel at risk because you can't control your own desires, then you're right, you're in as much danger in the suburbs as the city.

I would like to see the analysis about commuting dangers vs. violence in the city as well. Of course, the pathology of the city goes beyond hospitalization. I'd need to include varying rates of robbery, vandalism, car theft, etc. on people commuting to work vs. living in the city. Get on that!

What's the matter, JB? Black guy stole your lunch money in junior high?

Your comment to me, Will Allen, is a very good point. I would have to agree.

BUT, I listen to a Mennonite oriented radio station from southern Manitoba-a very rural area. The obits DAILY are a recitation of 80, 90, 100+ yr olds. They have all lived where you have to drive everywhere to get anywhere. They ate large amounts of "bad foods" (pork, lard, butter, bread...). Now compare them to elderly people afraid to come out of their apartments in downtown Winnipeg. They might (emphasis on might) live as long as their rural and suburban peers, but they live in fear. They don't come out on the streets anymore because the crime rate is rocketing. JB is right...there is a difference...a BIG difference.

BTW, the bars people are talking about on this thread sound like hell. Really. I grew up in a wild west town-no exaggeration (leadville, CO). There were stabbings every weekend (and some weekdays) in certain parts of the town and our population was only 9-10,000. You knew where to stay away from at certain times of day or night...or occasion....such as a Mexican wedding dance. We watched as someone got stabbed in the ditch in front of our house...bright afternoon in the middle of a residential area (we had ditches that would run deep and fast with snow-melt-runoff from the high country-our town was at 10,000 ft.). We were the only "gringo" kids on the block and we were constant companions with the Hispanic kids who were our neighbors all up and down the block-we thought the world of them. But I'll tell you...this sort of stuff didn't go on in the nicer (newer...whiter) neghborhoods. It had to do with ethnicity.

JB: I guess I've a bone to pick with conservatives who continue to feed the beast that is MPLS by contributing to the status quo of high taxes, crime and whacked-out liberalism.

CD: So it's about wanting to control other peoples lives, then?

Please tell me you're not married to someone.

Well, Saint Paul, by any objective analysis of the population, it isn't a matter of people feeling thay can't control their desires, it is a decision to engage in behavior which is far, far, far, riskier than choosing to live in downtown Minneapolis. As a pure matter of risk analysis, dead is dead, no matter what vehicle the Grim Reaper chooses, be it a thug with a gun, or a cardiac blow-out while shoveling the suburban driveway.

Yes, there are risks or bad aspects to living in a dense urban setting, risks and bad aspects that could be mitigated with better public policies. Like all other risks, however, the individual must weigh them against the pleasure or benefits they derive from said risks. The problem I have with so many who deride urban living is that they seem to have an agenda to exaggerate those risks or bad aspects, just as there are those who feel some need to depict suburban life in the worst possible terms. It is all very stupid.

Geez you guys are scared of lots of stuff.

Ooga-booga! Made ya flinch!

Hey AC, do those airplane engines sound like they're getting kinda close?

Posted by Lileks at December 6, 2005 02:27 PM
Posted by Lileks at December 6, 2005 03:46 PM

I love it when the great join us "down here". I'm hoping some of the sheen of literacy will rub off.

Signed,
A true admirer.

Aside from all the actual Minneapolis violent crime reports posted exhaustively on my blog, I can tell you, for what it's worth, that the feeling (hope that doesn't sound too liberal) in downtown Minneapolis is noticeably different today than it was even 10-15 years ago. It helps to have the perspective of time for comparison. Any larger city will, of course, have its problems, but the historical problems in Minneapolis used to be confined to annoyances. These days, it's all about violence. JB is right - there's a higher concentration of anti-social types in the city. If papers like the Red Star didn't spend so much time suppressing the facts, people might feel differently.

I have to agree with Will. It seems that some people want to portray the city in the most negative light.

Between 1994 and 2003 violent crimes in Mpls have generally trended down with a uptick in 2003. This seems to dispute Rambix claims that it is much worse now than in the past.

www.co.hennepin.mn.us/vgn/images/portal/ cit_100003616/24/58/1127627292003CrimeFactSheet.pdf

Part II crime rate per 100,000:
Mpls 9,520
Minnetrista 5,757
Osseo 7,612
Edina 2,017

Also note that per capita crime rates (crimes per 100,000 people) tend to skew negatively to urban areas due to the influx of people visiting the city for work, entertainment etc. For example only about 30,000 people live downtown but about 200,000 people visit downtown on a given day. As opposed to a city like Minitrista where the population is more or less constant. Similarly look at Osseo with the second highest per capita Part II crime rate in Hennepin Co. It is a town of about 2,000 people but has a high school that adds about 1,700 extra people per day. Consequently it has a higher per capita crime rate because the denominator used to calculate the statistic doesn't reflect the actual activity level occuring.

This is a sentence I never expected to read:
"I listen to a Mennonite oriented radio station from southern Manitoba-a very rural area."
Very cool, Colleen, very cool.

The most dangerous bar in the late 80's was any place Keith Mallard, Scott Studwell, Tim Newton and the rest of the Vikings when they came to visit. I'll never forget Mallard banging chicks in the parking lot and threatening the bartenders to "make it strong!"

So again we have the relativists coming out of the woodwork to tell us that the city isn't worse, just different.

I would like to see how they define crime in Minnestrista versus MPLS. If you read the local papers in Minnestrista and see the crime reports, you'll see that people call the cops about every little thing.

People know better in MPLS. They only call when it's serious, like rape, murder, car-jackings. How many of those three things happened in Minnetrista last year?

Zero.

How many in MPLS?

Off hand I'd guess, 90 murders, 300 rapes, a few hundred car jackings.

Yeah, it's the same thing...

No JB, the city isn't different, just better.

"JB is right - there's a higher concentration of anti-social types in the city. If papers like the Red Star didn't spend so much time suppressing the facts, people might feel differently."

Rambix is right to the extent that the system *does* warehouse the poor in some parts of the inner city, and the poor (and the subsidy of them) draws the vermin that prey on them.

And crime being intensely market-drive, criminals will go where the market - i.e., people with money - draws them, which is downtown.

I spent PLENTY of time in both downtowns, though, at all times of the day and night (rarely after 2AM, of course), and while I tend to steer clear of places that I know are going to be dicey (hip-hop joints, biker bars), problems are still incredibly rare.

To go back to a discussion from earlier; I saw a study a couple of years ago that showed that if you lumped violent crime and traffic accidents together, kids in the 'burbs were three times as likely to be killed than kids in the inner city; a combination of more miles driven, more high-speed arterial roads and more time in cars drives up the mortality. From what I remember about driving in Edina, I'm surprised it's not more like eight times...

So we are now comparing traffic accidents to acts of violent crime as if they are somehow the same thing? Accidents happen because they are accidents. Violent crime only happens when there is a large number of the pathological underclass and a system that doesn't hold them responsible for their behavior.

Apples and oranges.

I guess the bottom line is that some people are more willing to be victims than others.

Makes you wonder how much they value themselves, but hey, what do I care--it's your life. Live it up, go downtown, don't get a concealed carry, roll the dice...

But don't try to tell me crime isn't any worse in the city because it's BS.

Sorry the link didn't work before:

http://www.co.hennepin.mn.us/vgn/images/portal/cit_100003616/24/58/1127627292003CrimeFactSheet.pdf

Minnetrista had 5 violent crimes not none.

"Violent crime only happens when there is a large number of the pathological underclass and a system that doesn't hold them responsible for their behavior."

It is disingenuous to argue that the suburbs are somehow separate from the system. It is simply not true. The fact that we have built a system that consists of highways, nearly mandatory auto ownership, zoning that makes multi-family rental properties difficult to develop in the suburbs, etc. results in a geographically and econmically stratified metro area. The suburbs are as much a part of that system and responsible for it as the city is.

Makes you wonder how much they value themselves, but hey, what do I care--it's your life. Live it up, drive everywhere, roll the dice...

"So we are now comparing traffic accidents to acts of violent crime as if they are somehow the same thing?"

No, and you really need to learn to read more carefully (did the nuns teach you to argue completely by strawman and non-sequitur, JB?)

The comparison was overall mortality from both causes. Comparing the *statistics* for both causes of death - traffic accidents and violent crime - a child in the suburbs is more likely to be die before majority than a child in the city. Or so says the study. Now, if you want to argue about the terms, methods or conclusions of the study, go ahead - but don't be howling "apples and oranges", when in fact the study *specifically* was looking at children in relation to *both* apples and oranges.

"Accidents happen because they are accidents."

True, and irrelevant; see above.

"Violent crime only happens when there is a large number of the pathological underclass and a system that doesn't hold them responsible for their behavior."

Ah. So the kid in Woodbury who killed his parents last month was part of a violent underclass? The guy who kidnapped and murdered the girl in Inver Grove Bites about ten years ago - that didn't really happen? I mean, the point in my original post (remember that?) was in direct reference to the violence and stupidity of some of the drunk redneck morons I had to deal with; they were every bit as stupid and depraved as the wanna-be gangstas that'd cause trouble of their own at one bar or another.

If your point is that there is a higher concentration of scum in the city - duly noted! If your point is that I'm an irresponsible parent for raising kids here - you're wrong, and your "advice" is rejected with prejudice; you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, and can only respond with strawmen and logical fallacy. If it's that the city is a dangerous cesspool - I believe I (and James) have shown that that's as ill-advised a statement as "the suburbs are full of dumb, self-absorbed hicks".

Mitch, I guess all I can say is good luck with your life in the city.

If you don't want to listen to the truth, I don't know what else to say.

I need to learn that whole "declar my uninformed, illogical opinion 'the truth' and move on" bit.

JB, you are rarely interested in the truth. You are mainly interested in ranting, since you find it offensive that are people who have preferences that differ from yours.

Mitch, all prejudicial rejection of debate aside, a hypothetical question:

If a guy with options to move elsewhere chooses to raise his kids in a neighborhood where there is robbery, assaults, murders, and where his own house gets spackled with drive-by buckshoot, and where he's forced to stay up all night cradling his kids and easing their very real fears about living in their own neighborhood (and we only know about this because he's written about it over and over) and yet he refuses to move, because he likes experiemental theater and access to Ethipian restuarants and he thinks the suburbs are soul crushing and monotonous - can we call him irresponsible?

Yeah, Will, that's it. Your rapist's wit nails it again!

In fact I saw a guy eating a baloney sandwich the other day with mustard. I went over to him and let him know that I don't like mustard on baloney sandwiches and could he stop eating it.

He didn't. So I throttled him with a blackjack I keep on hand for just such occasions.

Mustard!

Saint,

This bit here...:

"If a guy with options to move elsewhere chooses to raise his kids in a neighborhood where there is robbery, assaults, murders, and where his own house gets spackled with drive-by buckshoot,..."

etc, etc, is the very definition of the strawman logical fallacy. You take a few isolated incidents from a 12 year history at the same address, a place where I've raised or am raising three kids, and make them (apparently) the *only* factors in your discussion (along with the "experimental theater" bit, which for some reason seems to set you and JB a'chanting).

You home in on one episode of violence (the drive-by - and it was three .22 slugs, not "buckshot"), and an episode where a girl was murdered down on University (which can and does happen anywhere) and selectively ignore all of the many, many things I've written about that I love about my neighborhood and city.

Which might make for a fun "gotcha", but doesn't make for great debate.

Bring the whole story to the table, I say!

If a guy with options to move elsewhere chooses to raise his kids in a neighborhood that requires driving for all of lifes basic needs, after his wife has been killed in a car accident and where he's forced to stay up all night cradling his kids and easing their very real fears about driving yet he refuses to move can we call him irresponsible?

Mitch enlightened: "You home in on one episode of violence (the drive-by - and it was three .22 slugs, not "buckshot")"

Dude, *tell* me you returned fire.

Doubtless, you have yet to establish that living in a dense urban area is any more risky that living elsewhere. You have specifically concentrated on one form of risk, and neglected to address others, in an effort to put forth a pseudo-rational basis for your preference. You rant when others do not choose to share your narrow focus.

St. Paul somehow still adheres to the notion that people killed in car accidents are less dead than people killed via criminal violence. Whatever.

Technically, anyplace you live has 100 percent mortality if you wait long enough.

Not a logical fallacy or straw man at all.

I know the Midway neighborhood very well. Crime is not an isolated occurrance there.

And you've written extensively, on many, many occasions, about various episodes that have occured in your own life. A drive-by shooting, chasing gang bangers down the street, chasing theives (plural) out of your alley, a murder a few blocks away spooking your kids. How far apart do these multiple personal experiences have to happen during a 12 year span to be considered "isolated". Even one or two of them happening in a lifetime would be remarkable in the lives of most people. Except maybe for those living in the Midway or the other garden spots of the TC. Like it or not, it doesn't go down like that in the suburbs. Which is why they're booming. Trust the wisdom of markets.

The City vs. Burbs slappy fight ends here!

One could go about fisking Mitch's reasons for living in the city: (Example - Covenants are bad. Well, when some moonbat moves in next door, paints his house hot pink and erects a six foot penis statue on his front lawn, causing your property value to fall by 20%, let's talk about covenants again.);

Or one could fisk JB's simplistic arguments: (County/Western music is one of the few things that can be observed to violate the laws of physics in that it simultaneously sucks and blows).

Or one could conclusively win this necessarily subjective argument with two sentences, and put the matter to rest for good:

"I like where I live. So piss off."

"I know the Midway neighborhood very well. Crime is not an isolated occurrance there. "

Ah. Well, I'll yield to the accumulated wisdom of the tourist from Crocus Hill!

"And you've written extensively, on many, many occasions, about various episodes that have occured in your own life. A drive-by shooting, chasing gang bangers down the street,"

...both related to the same episode, by the way.

" chasing theives (plural) out of your alley"

True. You have a problem with the good guys exerting their authority? I mean, that's how a good neighborhood is done, right?

"a murder a few blocks away spooking your kids."

Yep. And let's not forget murders 15, 80, 230 and 2000 miles away: that kid in Inver Grove whose father killed her in '93, Jacob Wetterling, Jeana North and that kid in Florida whose kidnapping was caught on camera - not in time to save her, of course. All of those spooked my kids (whichever ones were under my roof at the time), as they did I suspect to kids all over the country. Fear isn't a neighborhood thing for kids these days. Are my kids in any worse a situation than they'd be elsewhere? I'll be the judge of that, thanks.

" How far apart do these multiple personal experiences have to happen during a 12 year span to be considered "isolated". Even one or two of them happening in a lifetime would be remarkable in the lives of most people."

Enh.

"Like it or not, it doesn't go down like that in the suburbs. Which is why they're booming. Trust the wisdom of markets. "

I do. You should see the appraisal on my place.

Trust the wisdom of markets, indeed.

""I like where I live. So piss off."

Well put.

I like my neighborhood. So do the kids. My neighbors watch out for each other, putting a scum-proof cordon around my block.

Plenty of room for everyone.

"My neighbors watch out for each other, putting a scum-proof cordon around my block."

Would that we could do the same to City Hall, naturally.

Yes. What a great line to end this all on:

Because I like it.

JB: Mitch, why are you eating butter brickle ice cream?

Mitch: Because I like it.

JB: (lowers head) Dang, I was all set to tell him how gross butter brickle was!

I don't live in Crocus Hill, it's a good 6 blocks away. But your use of the Chicken Hawk defense is noted once again. (Attention lefties - he's vulnerable to this one.)

You've used the violence in your neighborhood to establish all sorts of credentials for yourself (depending on the post). It wasn't clear from your writing that they were mostly from the same incident! It's good to know for future reference.

Your kids are equally afraid of murders that occur 2,000 miles away vs. a few blocks away? Is this a geography problem or some relativist theory you're teaching them? I know, don't blame you, they go to the city schools.

What is the appraisal on your place? Earlier you stated you live in the City because it's cheaper than the suburbs, for comparble square footage. What does this say about market wisdom?

Yep, St. Paul, and the spot in downtown Minneapolis where I had a landlord begging me 20 years ago to sign a lease now sports condos which sell for more than $400/sq.ft.. What is the market telling us?

Will - irrational exuberance?

St. Paul bleated: "I don't live in Crocus Hill, it's a good 6 blocks away. But your use of the Chicken Hawk defense is noted once again. (Attention lefties - he's vulnerable to this one.)"

Not to get into fine rhetorical distinctions here, but it seemed like Mitch clotheslined you with the You Don't Know Dick About What You're Talking About, Dumbass defense.

In other words, Saint, the the wisdom of markets are to be paid attention to. Except when they aren't. Or something.

Angry Clown - I've lived in the Midway. I've patronized businesses in the Midway. And even if I didn't, that woud not preclude me from knowing about the Midway or being able to comment on it. However, from the nature of your arguments (dumbass?) I can see why you're a big fan of prior restraint of speech. It is so much easier that way.

Will - your claims of some condo in a formerly squalid neighborhood in Minneapolis going for $400 per square feet proves no more about the wisdom of markets than Mitch's claims of skyrocketing assessments on his property.

More broadly speaking, what is the relationship between high crime and property values, as defined by the market?

Saint, it ain't "my claim". It is a documentable fact, as five minutes spent on a realtor's website will establish. Do crime rates affect property values? Absolutely, and the fact that condos in downtown Minneapolis sell for over $400/sq.ft. establishes that crime in downtown Minneapolis is not so bad as to inhibit skyrocketing real estate values. Heck, you were the one who raised the issue of market wisdom.

Now, if you wish to go back to asserting that dense urban living carries with it a higher risk of injury/death than suburban living, and thus question the responsibility of those parents who choose to raise their families in dense urban settings, go right ahead. Please supply some verifiable evidence, however, lest others reasonably conclude that you don't know what you are talking about.

Will - I belive your citation of an unattributed real estate value is by definition, your *claim*. And I'm not interested in running down your claims on real estate sites. Do your own homework before making claims on web sites.

And, before you changed the subject to your mystery condo, we were talking about real estate values in Mitch's neighborhood. Is it $400/sq. ft there? If not, why not? Hypothesis - its at least partially relatd to incidence of crime being higher than in mystery condo neighborhood.

Certain elements of this thread remind me of this exchange on "The Simpsons":

Nelson: If you're so smart what's a million times a million?

Lisa: A million.

Nelson: So?

Well, gosh, Paul, this took two minutes minutes at edinarealty.com, which gives data about all manner of "mystery" condos.

750 2nd St. South listed for $567/sq.ft.
290 Market Street listed for $420/sq.ft.

There were others, of course, including ones that had been driven down in value so much by crime that they could be had for a little over $300/sq.ft.

Is it normally your practice to label an assertion by others a "mystery", until they cite the data specifically? If so, I guess I might ask for you to produce the "mystery" data pertaining to risk of injury/death (unless, of course, you really do maintain that being killed in an accident renders one less dead than being killed by crime) for children in the Midway neighborhood, as compared to children in the suburbs, which leads to you to question the responsibility of a parent who does raise his children in Midway. Cite, please? You wouldn't be simply discounting those risks which you find acceptable, would you?

Also, Paul, I would not be so quick to assert that crime in the Midway neighborhood is higher than in the "mystery" condo neighborhoods, from which I pulled the "mystery" addresses above. I don't know, but it certainly would not surprise me to find out otherwise, given the "mystery" neighborhoods' proximity to downtown.

Wow...this thread got long...and funny. One thing I gleaned from it all was that ND's fatality rate should be WAY high due to all the driving they have to do...not much violent crime, but that driving...it's a killer!

Doesn't sound very boring to live in Mitch's neighborhood....

And, do you suppose the condos going for $400/sq ft might be great when you can afford the security and nice parking garages, etc. that go along with that address? It's not like the people that live there have to walk home or take the bus from their job at K-Mart at 2 am or anything, is it? I'm sure that some do walk from the bars nearby, but really, for the most part they are as unaffected by the crime in downtown as people living in gated communities.

Having lived in those neighborhoods, Colleen, I can assure you that many of those folks do walk home every day. In fact, being able to walk to work is a major attraction for many of them. Also, there really is evidence which indicates that driving poses a greater risk of injury or death than does living in all but the absolute worst (think of the old Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago) urban neighborhoods. I haven't cited it though, so no doubt it is a "mystery".

Gosh Will, sorry I didn't jump up and run all your facts down for you. And no, I'm not bothering to take the time to verify their accuracay either.

BTW - neither of those addresses are in Mitch's neighborhood, which is the point we were arguing, before being forced to address the many other rhetorical fires you set in a debate.

Point being, higher crime equals lower property values. You can buy your way out of it in the city too, no doubt. The relative price of that is cheaper in the suburbs (thanks to greater supply).

Off to dinner now. If the comment threat hits 100 over night, I'm buying Will a dog.

Gosh, Paul, I didn't realize that this statement of yours...

"The cities are more violent, more dangerous."

...pertained only to Mitch's neighborhood. Maybe because I didn't realize that the term "Mitch's neighborhood" was synonymous with the word "cities". Thanks for the english primer.

Now, I am perfectly willing to concede thqt cities are more violent. What I am not willing to concede, however, particularly for children (especially since you are interested in who is being a responsible parent, based upon the neighborhoods in which they choose to raise kids), is that cities are more dangerous. I've asked more than once now for a cite for evidence which indicates that raising children in Mitch's neighborhood exposes said children to a greater risk of injury or death, as compared to the suburbs, and you've yet to supply any such evidence. Thus it is not unreasonable to conclude that you just made it up.

Now, I don't pretend to have the definitive answer, either, but then again I'm not the one posing hypotheticals about the levels of irresponsibility in parents' making the decision to live in location x, as opposed to location y.
A short google search did produce this excerpt from the Washington Monthly, which is worth considering....

"On a statistical basis, what's most likely to get you killed in the next year: (A) living in Israel during the Intifada; (B) living in crime-ridden, inner-city Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh; or (C) living in the bucolic outer suburbs of those cities? The answer is overwhelmingly C. A recent study by University of Virginia professor William H. Lucy found that Americans' migration into sprawling outer suburbs is actually a huge cause of premature death. In the suburbs, you're less likely to be killed by a stranger--unless you count strangers driving cars. Residents of inner-city Houston, for example, face about a 1.5 in 10,000 chance of being killed in the coming year by either a murderous stranger or in an automobile accident. But in the Houston suburb of Montgomery County, residents are 50 percent more likely to die from one of those two causes because the incidence of automobile accidents is so much higher."

Now, I don't agree with the editors or writers in the Washington Monthly much, but that doesn't mean I willing to dismiss everything they print as outright lies, either. Prof. Lucy, if he were
to be drawing his conclusions dishonestly, certainly wouldn't be the first academic to do so, either.

The point I'm making is that your beliefs about the relative dangers of living in cities as opposed to suburbs are intuitive, and while intuition can be a powerful tool, it is by no means definitive. Hence, my requests for some evidence to support your claims of relative danger, and hypotheticals pertaining to parental irresponsibility.

Finally, I didn't realize that I asked you to run down facts for me. I supplied facts for you, which you, for some unknown reason, decided to call a "mystery".

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