Every time I look at the statistics I come away with the conclusion it's not too rational to be worried about violent crime happening to you or your family these days.

Wait for the next FBI report to claim that crime is down.

Citywide statistics aren't too impressive when you live near gang bangers and the bullets are coming through your kid's bedroom wall.

Which seems to be happening more frequently in Portlandia than ever before.

Aaron, there are lies, damned lies and statistics, the saying goes.

Try looking around you instead.

Slow death of Portland continues...

When do you think the final nail will go on the Portland coffin here?
...will we be able to stop it?

...and speaking of coffins, when will we wake up one day, shudder to think, that an innocent person will have had a bullet enter their home and be found dead!

Indie — you're telling me my personal anecdotes are better? I'll take more rigorous studies, not less, thanks.

Ah, "anecdotes" -- that's always among the first words out of the mouth of a liar statistician when you call him out on his detachment from obvious reality. "I have numbers -- you only have anecdotes."

Portland has a major gang violence problem, son. And it's getting worse. I really could care less what your statistics (probably overcooked by some City Hall minion) say.

"More rigorous"? Coming from Portland government? Too funny.

I was going off the FBI's stats. My anecdotes aren't any better than that. They also don't differ from that because they're my personal perceptions. I bet they differ from yours. But if you want, I can yam about anecdotes of people I know working in N Portland for decades that used to be afraid to even park their cars outdoors in previous decades. Get called into work for an emergency at 2am? Downright scary. Things have gotten a lot safer.

Sure, last few years certain gang crime appears up, I doubt the statistics say anything different. I didn't dispute that. I just don't think it's worth worrying about. I don't think it's particularly unsafe around here either in absolute terms or compared to similarly-sized cities. Portland and the US as a whole is a pretty safe place, I think. I know I can walk alone in the middle of the night without fear. I'm orders of magnitude more likely to be assaulted by someone having trouble safely driving their car than a bad guy.

Anecdotes suck. If you went by people's perceptions, you'd think we live in an age of unprecedented corruption too. Everything I can find suggests it's the other way around. We just didn't have the Internet 40 or 100 years ago.

Whoops, I should say I'm orders of magnitude more likely to die from a car than from a bad guy, as I was looking at murder and car deaths, not injury accidents and assault.

...I know working in N Portland for decades that used to be afraid to even park their cars outdoors in previous decades. Get called into work for an emergency at 2am? Downright scary. Things have gotten a lot safer...

Safer there, but not in other parts of the city that used to be safe.

'you'd think we live in an age of unprecedented corruption too'

What government agency do you work for?

"....When will we wake up one day, shudder to think, that an innocent person will have had a bullet enter their home and be found dead!" Didn't that happen a few years ago, also in SE, in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood? Perfectly innocent middle-aged guy shot dead through his window in a drive-by? It was a horrifying story. Still is.

Indie: Thought police, public outreach division.