America's Safest and Most Dangerous Cities in 2005

Just thought this was interesting enough to document. This year Simi Valley isn't among the top ten overall in the US, which is something those folk are very proud to point out. For 2005 it's something like 22. Must be because my brown ass was there for five months this year. Notice there are no California cities in the Most Dangerous. Nice to see. Detroit is number two... Okay so Simi made number four here. What's way more interesting to me though is that Sunnyvale is number 5!! I lived there for a while when I was but a tyke (I said Tyke!) Everyone there and in surrounding areas knew it was not a very nice area. Interesting what Silicon Valley has done with those cities. Only one California city, Richmond. It's right next door to Oakland... Ok now I'm scratching my head! San Jose is the safest city over 500,000?!?! C'mon, I went to college there. We had mean homeless people begging for change all around the campus. You damn sure did not take a night class without having someone to walk with! This is the city I was in when the 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake happened in 1989. (For those NoCal novices, that was the "San Francisco" earthquake when the Bay Bridge fell.) Anyway, it took me two hours to drive 2 1/2 miles to the freeway onramp. People were looting the old stores that had collapsed around us. Not a great place to be at all. Again, the semiconductor industry has turned this city around. Very strange for me to see. New York City is number five!!! Very cool! I love me some NYC! Detroit is THE most dangerous of these cities! Oh well, I still want to visit Motown...