Crime Rates

Crime Rates

neighborhood-street photoWhen determining what neighborhood is a good fit for you and your family, several factors likely come into play.  These factors probably include how far the neighborhood is from your place of employment, or the local airport if you travel often, whether the schools are a good fit for your children, whether there are HOAs, how centrally located the neighborhood is to shopping and major freeways.  One item you may not consider right away is the rate of crime in that particular neighborhood.  These statistics aren’t as obvious or as easily discovered as the others, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t as important.

One good resource which also arguably offers the most accurate statistics is the local police department in the city or zip code in which you are searching.  For the City of Phoenix, this Police Department website offers crime maps and stats, as well as neighborhood crime counts.  This information will give you a clear picture of how much, or how little, crime has happened in that particular neighborhood.  For the City of Scottsdale, this website features the same information, specific to the city of Scottsdale.

There are also privately-run and managed websites which also offer and analyze such information.  One such website is Neighborhood Scout, which not only ranks the “safest” neighborhoods based on the numbers of reported crimes, but also groups the types of crimes between property and violent crimes.  Another privately run website which discusses crime statistics is this one, which examines crimes in Scottsdale by year and compares Scottsdale to other cities in Arizona.  These websites should only be used as a general starting point, as their accuracy can’t be verified like the government-run websites.

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