I'll be honest with you.  I'm having serious problems deciding where to live and am fed up with the crime and with the police in this city.  It isn't just me, another Atlanta blogger wrote about the same feeling of fear after being exposed to crime in her post on Atlanta Metblog. It is hard being an independent person in the city and suddenly you get mugged yourself, hear of muggings, miss a mugging at gunpoint by a few minutes or have a prowler on your property.  The fact is, I'm hearing crime reports in most areas I've considered living in...and I partially feel my choice is between neighborhoods I like that might be less safe or locking myself up in a gated condo that might not feel like home.

So, the police have been hanging out at the Inman Park Station at night.  On the surface you might think that is good thing...but honestly, it probably means there has been an increase of crime in the area to warrant a police stakeout.  It makes me more nervous honestly, as with the broken glass on the street.  Or being in the park the other night (ok, so it was after hours), and a policeman kindly asked us to leave because, "This is Atlanta, you might get raped or robbed."  Thanks a lot.  That really makes me feel more confident in the city when the police have such a negative view.  And my thought is...well, instead of shooing people out of the park, can you maybe spend more time preventing and tracking down criminals?  It is rather treating a symptom and not the cause to be trying to remove innocent citizens from high crime areas versus reducing crime to begin with.

The Atlanta Police Department has Crime Mapping tool you can access online. You can select type of crime, date range and area of the city. The central districts are 5, which is downtown/midtown and 6 which is east of downtown, including Virginia Highlands, Candler and Inman Park and East Atlanta.  I also really like this color-coded crime map of the city, though not sure how up to date the data is.  Neighborhood crime watches and message boards are a good resources to check and get involved with. 

Don't get me wrong, intown neighborhoods are great.  I run into familiar faces all the time. I can walk to the coffee shop and parks, but it isn't so fun to feel you have to be on guard, limit where and when you go out and not be sure where to live after the areas you used to be comfortable in no longer feel safe.  What kind of city dynamics are in place that would cause crime?  What are the solutions?