Blacksburg and Virginia Tech have been in the news quite a bit lately, and while the media reported on the real sense of community and helping hands they saw extended after last Monday’s tragedy, it’s still unfortunate that the attention heaped upon the Town was for such a negative event. Which got me thinking … how safe are we REALLY? It’s not a favorite topic, exposing the seedy underside of the community you live in, but an important part of determining where you and your family should live involves the examination of crime statistics, and after last week’s events I thought it would be good to revisit why I still believe the New River Valley is a safe place to live. Unfortunate tragedies happen everywhere, and Blacksburg happens to now be on that list for eternity. Let’s look at how the communities of Blacksburg, Radford and Montgomery County report their crime statistics, and compare those to the state capital of Richmond. (For the purposes of reporting, Christiansburg is not included as it
wasn’t directly clear where the statistics were on their website.)
It was quickly apparent that every community reports their statistics very differently. For instance, Montgomery County and Blacksburg allow you to search various times of the year as well as the most recent week, while Radford’s updated statistics were only for the month of December 2006. In these three areas you’ll see that the majority of cases reported included larceny, vandalism, and intoxication. I didn’t count up all the individual cases but at first glance I think that’s what you’ll find. Feel free to dig into the various communities a little more by visiting Blacksburg’s police report, Radford’s crime map, and Montgomery County’s monthly crime report (Download mont_co_crime_419.pdf). You can find Richmond’s report here – in five days last week there were several robberies, rapes, shooting assaults and a few homicides.
I’m not putting Richmond or other areas down – crime is an unfortunate event in any society, but the events here at Virginia Tech highlight the need for us to all examine our personal security. For instance as REALTOR’s, when we write an offer to purchase property we insert language into our Contracts encouraging buyers to use the Sex Offender database offered by the Virginia State Police, and do whatever other due diligence they need to to be comfortable with their decision. The efforts to fight crime don’t just lie with our public defenders, but with all of us. Isn’t that what McGruff taught us?
What a great blog site. Extremely informative and positive information about the property surrounding Radford and Blacksburg. I appreciated the rental property cautionary notes.
Am trying to help my college kids who got themselves tangled-up with an aggressive lease agreement. After reviewing the market stats here, maybe its approaching time to look at a house purchase in the area instead of rental.
What a great blog site. Extremely informative and positive information about the property surrounding Radford and Blacksburg. I appreciated the rental property cautionary notes.
Am trying to help my college kids who got themselves tangled-up with an aggressive lease agreement. After reviewing the market stats here, maybe its approaching time to look at a house purchase in the area instead of rental.