Periodically – “or whenever news breaks” – we update readers on crimes that affect the neighborhood.
Periodically, neighbors complain about reading crime news.
Periodically, somebody says we have, comparatively, a lot of crime in Maple Leaf.
We don’t think so, and have spoken to it repeatedly, most directly a couple of years ago.
Now a couple of outside reports back up that belief.
This month Walk Score Seattle crunched the numbers of crimes committed per capita here in t
wo categories – violent crime and crimes against property (burglaries, stolen or prowled cars and the like).
Their citywide maps are posted at right. Take a look. Violent crime is on top; maps show crime per 1,000 residents.
To play with the originals, go to the “safety” section of the Walk Score site.
The most common crime victims in Maple Leaf – and Seattle in general – are cars. Most are “prowled” – broken into. A lot are stolen (particularly around the Northgate Transit Center). But we’re nowhere near the top.
A few weeks ago the National Insurance Crime Bureau published statistics on sto
len cars. It basically said they are up, nationally, after eight years of declines.
Interestingly, of the top 10 cities for stolen cars nationwide, eight are in California. (The leader, per capita, is Modesto.)
The other two were in Washington – Yakima and Spokane. The Seattle metro area is number 17 on the list, after places like Detroit and Oklahoma City.
Surprised to see downtown so high on the per capita rates. I figured the high density would “swamp out” crime reporting down there. Although, there are a large number of vulnerable people in that area (e.g. vagrants).
This crime map doesn’t show that Maple Leaf doesn’t have lots of crime. It shows that Capitol Hill, the CD and certain other areas have even more crime. It’s a typical Seattle government tactic to tell you how well you are served when you are in fact not well served.
Tim, I doubt the Mall is worried. They have their eyes on a larger customer base coming in via light rail, meaning more revenue for retailers and inevitably increasing their rents. Northgate should have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes when they look at the light rail, as should all of us homeowners.
Rob is confused, light rail brings property values up. Transients stick close to services and places to buy their booze, there is no reason to think they will invade Maple Leaf, I find that bordering on ridiculous.
Seattle has needed faster and more efficient mass transit for decades. I’ve been looking forward for light rail in our neighborhood for a decade and plan on using it for commuting alot. I only wish there was an actual stop in Maple Leaf, I was hoping for a stop around 80th or 90th.
Ditto what Holly said. I did some research (looking Portland, Denver, and Minneapolis light rail lines) and found the exact same conclusions, a 5-10% bump spread out over the time of construction to completion. Rob does have a point about crime but as it was noted earlier its usually confined to a small area around the station. If I were the Northgate Mall I’d be a little worried. I do support the ML council’s idea of placing a police substation at the transit terminal. I hope to go the meeting and support that idea on July 30th.
If you do any research at all, you’ll see that over the course of 10 years, property value will go up 5-10% if it has easy access to light rail.
Whatever Rob
Rob, I’ll buy your house. I’m willing to live with these transients.
There will be lots, and lots of crime if we bring in light rail.Not to mention all the homeless transients everywhere. What an absolutely stupid idea. Let’s just all volunteer to lower our property values.Dumb asses!