Western Expresso

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

Winnipeg's less safe because it's a ghost town at night -- it's not a ghost town at night because it's less safe.

That's not really true anymore during the warm season. There are people in the exchange well into the evening.

[DirtWednesday]

Lived and/or worked downtown for close to 20 years. I've never seen more people downtown and at night. It's amazing! I bought a house in West K 10 years ago and still a part of me kind of wants to go back downtown. Why? Because it is walkable.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

The big difference between here and other cities is not that we have more panhandlers and homeless, it's that we have less... *anyone else.*

There's lots of sketchy people in downtown Toronto that I wouldn't want to share a dark alley with, but there's also lots of regular folks walking around.

Winnipeg's less safe because it's a ghost town at night -- it's not a ghost town at night because it's less safe.

Sketchy places exist in every Canadian city. Vancouver, by far, has the most aggressive panhandlers. You are approached at every street corner once you get into the Robson- Granville area. I was mugged in Toronto years ago and it didn't change my perception of the city. The last three times I've been in Ottawa there has been a shooting around Byward Market. Point is- it happens everywhere. I worked downtown for years and the image and liveliness of DT Winnipeg has definitely improved. 20 years ago when I was at U of W, I was chased more than once to my car leaving University and I just don't see that type of behaviour now.

[Urban recluse]

Things are starting to improve, but there is a lot to fix, namely the amount of office and retail space on the market downtown, and the many surface lots, crumbling infrastructure, etc.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by Jammon

Sketchy places exist in every Canadian city. Vancouver, by far, has the most aggressive panhandlers. You are approached at every street corner once you get into the Robson- Granville area. I was mugged in Toronto years ago and it didn't change my perception of the city. The last three times I've been in Ottawa there has been a shooting around Byward Market. Point is- it happens everywhere. I worked downtown for years and the image and liveliness of DT Winnipeg has definitely improved. 20 years ago when I was at U of W, I was chased more than once to my car leaving University and I just don't see that type of behaviour now.

Both Vancouver and TO are not battling to reclaim their downtowns though; Winnipeg is!

[Finessing]

A different perspective than most in this thread, based on data not anecdotes:

Despite high overall violent crime rates compared to other Canadian cities, crime in Winnipeg is very concentrated. For example, 80 of 234 neighbourhoods had not one robbery in 2012,[9] and 32 others only had one robbery. But there were 25 neighbourhoods (about 10% of neighbourhoods) that had higher robbery rates than the highest robbery rate in Toronto (Bay Street Corridor; 640 per 100,000 residents),[10][11] such as Lord Selkirk Park with a rate of 4,395.6,[12] or South Portage at 4,139.8. The two highest rankings are South Point Douglas (11,304.3) and Logan-C.P.R. (6,333.3) but both have lower populations under 1,000 residents. Lord Selkirk Park and South Portage compare to some of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the United States of America,[13] however no ranking is 100% certain as Canada and the USA have different classifications for crimes, (robbery is one though that both countries use the same), and there is also no recorded assault rates for Winnipeg neighbourhoods.

The 20 neighborhoods in Winnipeg with the highest robbery rates, all have boundaries in which connect to each other;[5][9][14] South Point Douglas, Logan - C.P.R., Lord Selkirk Park, South Portage, Portage - Ellice, Dufferin Industrial, Spence, Central Park, St. John's Park, William Whyte, West Alexander, North Point Douglas, Centennial, Colony, China Town, Dufferin, Daniel Mcintyre, St. John's, Portage & Main and West Broadway; which in 2006 had a cumulative population of 54,255.[15] In 2012, with 918 robberies (1692.9 per 100,000 people),[5] this geographical cluster is where crime the majority of violent crime happens in Winnipeg - 918 of the 1,812 (50.7%) robberies in the city, occurred in this area, where only 8.7% of the cities total population lives.[9][15] From 2009 to 2013, 95 of the 145 (65.5%) homicides in Winnipeg occurred in this smaller portion of the city,[16] creating an average homicide rate of 35.0 per 100,000 residents, peaking at 57.1 in 2011. If we subtract these areas from the city, the homicide rate average in Winnipeg is substantially lower at 1.8 per 100,000 people, and the robbery rate in the city is over 1,000% lower at 156.7.

To put these numbers into perspective, this area of the city has crime rates higher than some of the most notorious places in the United States, which have similar and comparable populations (50,000 to 99,999). For example, Compton, CA (98,057) has a population almost double the size of this area, but this area had more than double the amount of robberies Compton had (428) in 2012, creating a robbery rate almost 4 times higher than Compton's (436.5).[17] The 2012 homicide rate in Compton (21.4) was also lower than the average homicide rate in this area of Winnipeg through the years 2008-2012. Wilmington, DE (72,088) reported 474 robberies in 2012, creating a rate of 657.5 per 100,000, meaning the robbery rate of this area of Winnipeg is more than 2.5 times higher. The homicide rates are very similar, Wilmington recorded a homicide rate of 36.1 per 100,000 people, which is slightly higher than this area of Winnipeg's average (35.0). The very notorious Camden, NJ had a homicide rate much higher than this area of Winnipeg's, more than doubled (86.3), but the number of robberies in Camden was 755 creating a rate of 972.1 in the year of 2012, meaning the robbery rate of this area of Winnipeg's is almost 2 times higher.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law,_gover...g#The_concentration_of_crime_in_Winnipeg

Who would have thought that downtown Winnipeg is more dangerous than Compton?

[Cyro]

Discussions on crime, safety and perceptions of our City moved here to off topic discussions from SkyCity thread. Continue here.

[Finessing]

Originally Posted by Cyro

Discussions on crime, safety and perceptions of our City moved here to off topic discussions from SkyCity thread. Continue here.

Nice, I'm now participating in multiple threads now!

[Cyro]

^ Yes, I was going to mention it as well.

[DirtWednesday]

Originally Posted by Finessing

A different perspective than most in this thread, based on data not anecdotes:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law,_gover...g#The_concentration_of_crime_in_Winnipeg

Who would have thought that downtown Winnipeg is more dangerous than Compton?

My how things have changed in 5 years. Point Douglas-Lord Selkirk is one of the shittiest areas of anywhere for the foreseeable future as well as Logan-CPR. West Broadway has had a complete about face though so perhaps the North End has a shot. I think everywhere else will have a healthy turn around simply based on population stats as those areas (downtown mainly) continue to grow.

These per capita stats don't do a great job of telling the whole story. Belize for example is apparently one of the most dangerous murderous places on Earth until you see the country's population is under half a million. A couple gang murders in the bad parts of Belize City change the whole country's reputation despite the rest of the country being very safe and friendly (recent rural and outlier Canadian murder notwithstanding).

I'll look over my shoulder just as often in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Paris as I do in Winnipeg. I like to live. I understand the world is dangerous. Stats are not an indication of your safety.

[windypeg]

Originally Posted by Finessing

A different perspective than most in this thread, based on data not anecdotes:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law,_gover...g#The_concentration_of_crime_in_Winnipeg

Who would have thought that downtown Winnipeg is more dangerous than Compton?

This really depends how we're defining "downtown". This data talks about a very broad area that includes the west end, north end, centennial, point douglas, and other areas that most people wouldn't consider part of the downtown proper. I think most people would agree that walking around HSC alone at night doesn't feel particularly safe, but in relative terms the exchange or SHED seems fine. If you zoom in on the mapped data from last year, only 2 homicides in 2016 happened in the "real" downtown, out of 25 total. The rest are scattered throughout the west end, north end etc as expected.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2669539/timeline-homicides-in-winnipeg-in-2016/

Not to mention that data on wikipedia is over a decade old now. Lots of people have moved downtown since then, plus an NHL team and a national museum.

[Finessing]

Originally Posted by DirtWednesday

My how things have changed in 5 years. Point Douglas-Lord Selkirk is one of the shittiest areas of anywhere for the foreseeable future as well as Logan-CPR. West Broadway has had a complete about face though so perhaps the North End has a shot. I think everywhere else will have a healthy turn around simply based on population stats as those areas (downtown mainly) continue to grow.

These per capita stats don't do a great job of telling the whole story. Belize for example is apparently one of the most dangerous murderous places on Earth until you see the country's population is under half a million. A couple gang murders in the bad parts of Belize City change the whole country's reputation despite the rest of the country being very safe and friendly (recent rural and outlier Canadian murder notwithstanding).

I'll look over my shoulder just as often in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Paris as I do in Winnipeg. I like to live. I understand the world is dangerous. Stats are not an indication of your safety.

Uhhh ok? So the amount of crime committed in an area is not related to safety in the area?

That's an interesting hypothesis.

[windypeg]

Originally Posted by Finessing

Uhhh ok? So the amount of crime committed in an area is not related to safety in the area?

That's an interesting hypothesis.

DirtWednesday does have a bit of a point though. When it comes to crime we have this obsession with geography and which areas are more "dangerous" than others. In reality your chances of being a victim depend a lot more on other factors than on where you are. The vast majority of violent crimes happen to people with risk factors like addictions, poverty, mental health problems, involvement in the drug or — trade, etc. And those people tend to live in the same areas so the incidents are geographically concentrated. But a low-risk person living in that area is still lower-risk.

If I'm a drug-addicted — worker and I move from Winnipeg to Toronto, I'm moving somewhere statistically "safer" but my lifestyle is still dangerous. And vice versa, if I'm a healthy middle class person who moves from TO to Peg, my risks don't actually change very much. So there may be more crime in one place than another but that crime is mostly confined to the high-risk population and has less affect on the rest of us. As someone else mentioned most violent crime involves people who know each other personally, so if you're not involved with violent people you're probably OK, even if there are lots of those people in certain parts of Winnipeg.

[Finessing]

Originally Posted by windypeg

DirtWednesday does have a bit of a point though. When it comes to crime we have this obsession with geography and which areas are more "dangerous" than others. In reality your chances of being a victim depend a lot more on other factors than on where you are. The vast majority of violent crimes happen to people with risk factors like addictions, poverty, mental health problems, involvement in the drug or — trade, etc. And those people tend to live in the same areas so the incidents are geographically concentrated. But a low-risk person living in that area is still lower-risk.

If I'm a drug-addicted — worker and I move from Winnipeg to Toronto, I'm moving somewhere statistically "safer" but my lifestyle is still dangerous. And vice versa, if I'm a healthy middle class person who moves from TO to Peg, my risks don't actually change very much. So there may be more crime in one place than another but that crime is mostly confined to the high-risk population and has less affect on the rest of us. As someone else mentioned most violent crime involves people who know each other personally, so if you're not involved with violent people you're probably OK, even if there are lots of those people in certain parts of Winnipeg.

Of course any individual's chance of being a victim of crime is low (particularly if you live a low-risk lifestyle), even in higher-risk areas. The point is that it is undoubtedly more dangerous in certain neighbourhoods than others and we can use statistics to ascertain those differences.

I'm not afraid to walk around in Winnipeg. That said, I wouldn't blame a woman for not wanting to walk around late at night alone in certain areas. The same holds true for certain parts of Toronto (although these areas are increasingly being pushed outside of downtown due to gentrification), but as another poster said, there's simply more people around in Toronto which increases safety for lone females.

[windypeg]

Originally Posted by Finessing

Of course any individual's chance of being a victim of crime is low (particularly if you live a low-risk lifestyle), even in higher-risk areas. The point is that it is undoubtedly more dangerous in certain neighbourhoods than others and we can use statistics to ascertain those differences.

I'm not afraid to walk around in Winnipeg. That said, I wouldn't blame a woman for not wanting to walk around late at night alone in certain areas. The same holds true for certain parts of Toronto (although these areas are increasingly being pushed outside of downtown due to gentrification), but as another poster said, there's simply more people around in Toronto which increases safety for lone females.

But I do think the difference tends to get dramatically overstated. People think that if one neighbourhood has twice as many murders, then they are twice as likely to get murdered if they go there, when in reality there are dozens of other factors that play a more important role than just where you are in a city. In reality there's probably a relatively small number of high-risk people in that neighbourhood who are 4 or 5 times more likely that the rest of us to be victimized and that distorts the statistics.

When someone talks about a neighbourhood as "safe" or "dangerous" it's always understood that they're referring to crime, but for most people, things like falls and traffic accidents actually pose a greater statistical threat to their safety.

[1ajs]

was just up in lynn lake for first time in 12 yrs my heart sunk so much decay sigh

[1ajs]

interesting
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/grandrapidstramway.shtml

Grand Rapids Tramway western canadas first rail line

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

was just up in lynn lake for first time in 12 yrs my heart sunk so much decay sigh

Sad, Manitoba's north has taken a lot hits in recent years and things don't look like they will improve anytime soon.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Sad, Manitoba's north has taken a lot hits in recent years and things don't look like they will improve anytime soon.

resource economy mixed with bad laws in the 70's

[BigG]

http://globalnews.ca/news/3486405/history-10-dollar-bill-canada-150/

Saw this article on the 10 dollar bill, complete with images of its evolution throughout the years and to what it is now in commemoration of Canada's 150th Birthday. BTW, it confirms the rumour that I heard way back that you can see Satan's face in the Queen's hair. Interesting tidbits.