Hey GoLocalPDX, East Portland isn’t so Dangerous After All

Friday, October 24, 2014

Jesse Cornett, Guest MINDSETTER

Photo Credit: Adam Simmons (image cropped)

GoLocalPDX’s article Wednesday attempting to define what constitutes a dangerous neighborhood shows errors in methodology and raises a lot of questions. As a neighborhood activist and longtime East Portland resident, feel several issues need to be addressed.

East Portland vs. Downtown

First, the article manipulates numbers to designate East Portland neighborhoods as unsafe. The article does not adequately weight population. If you do, it is clear that Downtown and the posh Pearl District are exponentially more dangerous than any East Portland neighborhood. Hazelwood, for instance has a rate of 213 calls for police service per 1000 residents over the past five years while downtown has a staggering 722. The Pearl, at 647, isn’t far behind. In raw numbers, Downtown, a smaller neighborhood had more larceny and indeed more rape incidents than Lents, where I reside, yet it received a much high safety ranking than Lents. Based on population, if Lents were its own city, we would be the 25th largest city in Oregon (larger than Sherwood) yet are being compared to neighborhoods that literally have less than 200 residents.

Property Crimes as "Violent" Crimes

Further the article considers property crimes such car breakins and shoplifting as “violent” crimes. A single store located in Eastport Plaza places approximately two calls per day for police service. These are shoplifting calls. That alone would account for more than half of the total calls for Lents. They are not violent offenses and do not equate to us being “dangerous.”

Traffic Accidents

GoLocalPDX also gives heavy consideration to traffic accidents when considering dangerous neighborhoods. Unfortunately they miss the mark there too. Limiting crash data to only high crash intersections ignores the majority of traffic crashes that occur all over Portland. The article includes data on 3468 crashes at 60 intersections across the city. In a city with thousands of intersections and over 50,000 vehicle crashes in the same period, this would be akin to judging the total worth of someone by the quality of their left hand alone. There were 146 traffic fatalities during the measured period, though the article only accounted for 55.

Finally, attributing an intersection to one neighborhood over another when it crosses boundaries also muddies the water. For instance, 82nd and Flavel connects Brentwood Darlington and Lents yet Brentwood Darlington is listed as having no dangerous intersections (while Lents is listed as having seven). To achieve a defensible statistic, those wrecks should be equally apportioned between the neighborhoods.

There is no doubt that traffic safety improvements are needed throughout East Portland. Having as many unsafe intersections as we do is a shame. The facts, however, speak for themselves. We don’t need Lents ranked as more dangerous than three of our adjacent neighborhoods to the West to know that we need our shared infrastructures fixed.

Jesse is the Chair of the Lents Neighborhood Association.

Homepage Photo Credit: Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons (image cropped)

Related Slideshow: Portland’s 35 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods

* Rankings have been adjusted since their original posting to better reflect all neighborhood boundaries that make contact with the city's most dangerous intersections.

Hey GoLocalPDX, East Portland isn’t so Dangerous After All

Related Slideshow: Portland’s 35 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods

#35

Buckman-East

#34

Overlook

#33

King

#32

Buckman-West

#31

Kerns

#30

Hosford-Abernethy

#29

Parkrose Heights

#28

Creston-Kenilworth

#27

Hayden Island

#26

Wilkes

#25

Pleasant Valley

#24

Lloyd

#23

Madison South

#22

Richmond

#21

Arbor Lodge

#20

Parkrose

#19

Northwest

#18

Mt. Scott-Arleta

#17

Brentwood-Darlington

#16

Sellwood-Moreland

#15

Eliot

#14

St. Johns

#13

Portsmouth

#12

Pearl

#11

Kenton

#10

China/Old Town

#9

Downtown

#8

Cully

#7

Foster-Powell

#6

Mill Park

#5

Montavilla

#4

Centennial

#3

Powelhurst-Gilbert

#2

Lents

#1

Hazelwood

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