Uptown Crime: All About Your Neighborhood Policing Plan

The Minneapolis Police Department compiles annual neighborhood policing plans for all of the city’s neighborhoods; these community-based plans allow the department and neighborhood to zero in on the specific issues faced by each individual neighborhood. These plans lay out specific goals, and evaluate the successes and failures of the previous year’s plans. 2009 plans are not yet available for Uptown’s neighborhoods, but the 2008 plans are compelling reading. Once the 2009 report is out I’ll spend a little more time investigating how things went in 2008. You can read the details for yourself on the city’s website, but to save you some reading I've listed the main goals/targets for each Uptown neighborhood. How do you think the neighborhoods stacked up in the end?

LHENA (the Wedge)

• Robbery suppression: Among other items, two new beat cops attempted to decrease the number of robberies in the neighborhood.
• Reducing residential burglaries: According to the report, there were 165 burglaries in the Wedge in 2007. The majority (approximately two-thirds!) did not require force, suggesting a lot of local residents leave their garages and homes unlocked. The department dedicated some of their time and resources in educating residents in the basics of common sense.
• Reducing theft from motor vehicles: As with burglaries, much of the prevention tactics focused on education. In case you missed the police department’s messages, I’ll repeat it here: please do not leave your purse, laptop, wallet, or valuables in your car.
  Other highlights: The MPD was also planning on working to expand the block club program, and to expand the concept of e-block clubs and the use of technology as an outreach tool. There was also discussion of the creation of a citizen block patrol.

CARAG

• Burglary prevention: The Department had the ambitious goal of eliminating all non-forced-entry burglaries. Education was an important element in this plan, as was an increase of nighttime patrols.
• Reducing drug trafficking: The 2008 goal was to reduce local drug sales by five percent.
• Increased curfew and truancy enforcement: Exactly what it sounds like: get kids off the streets and in bed or at school.
• Other highlights: Community involvement and engagement continues to be the common thread between all of these plans. In CARAG that means involvement with neighborhood meetings, encouraging block clubs, the continuation of a citizen “stroll patrol,” a group formed following the 2006 murder of Michael Zebuhr.

EAST ISLES
Interestingly, although perhaps understandably, despite the very low rate of violent crime in East Isles (nearly all crime is property-related), the report notes that residents are focused on the scarier stuff.

• Reducing residential burglaries: As with other local neighborhoods, two-thirds of residential burglaries did not involve forced entry. Lock your doors, people!
• Reducing theft from cars: Also like other area neighborhoods, East Isles gets a lot of people, residents and otherwise, who leave their valuables in their car.
• Other highlights: Continued block club expansion, the use of technology for communication with the community, and the creation of a citizen block patrol were all discussed.

ECCO

• Reducing theft from vehicles and car theft: The police intended to address the car theft (both from and of) through increased patrols and education.
• Reducing burglaries: While 2007 crime mostly went down, burglaries actually went up. The 2008 plan attempted to address this problem through increased and targeted patrols as well as increased enforcement of curfew and truancy laws.
• Other highlights: The Police Department expected to continue to strengthen and expand community relations, as well as to increasingly use technology to enhance communication.

Overall, Uptown is a pretty safe place. There is crime, of course, and residents and visitors alike need to take the standard basic precautions, but overall Uptown seems to be in pretty good shape. I might complain at times about the neighborhood organizations, but they have taken on a strong role in working hand-in-hand with the police to help keep the area’s streets safe and crime at bay. Given that crime – or even the perception of crime – can really impact a neighborhood in negative way (let alone the people it directly touches), it’s essential that community members and the police continue to come together to address crime of all types, from the broken car window to the more serious and scary crimes like robbery or assault.

And please, please, remember to lock your garage, your house, and your car.

The Traffic Issue in Uptown's Own Backyard (or Garage)

One of the complaints we all frequently hear about Uptown is that there’s too much traffic. I agree that the cars speeding through Lake or other major thoroughfares are a source of frustration. There are also many people driving to Uptown, and I do wish that more of those people would consider taking the bus, biking, or, when possible, walking. That said, too much of the traffic focus tends to be on the problem of “outsiders,” whether it’s the people coming to Uptown to shop or dine, those who drive to their Uptown jobs, or the people who are driving through Uptown on their way from and to places elsewhere. These groups of people are admittedly a major component of any traffic “problem,” but we can’t forget the group of people most likely to be on Uptown streets on a daily basis: Uptown residents themselves.

The 2000 census sheds some interesting light on Uptown residents’ commuting patterns (“Uptown” in this case defined as CARAG, ECCO, LHENA, and East Isles, with the numbers based on “workers 16 years and over). Some highlights:

• 52 percent of Uptown residents drove to work alone, a five percent increase over 1990.
• Six percent of Uptowners carpooled to work, the same percentage as in 1990.
• A mere 17 percent took public transportation to work, a decrease from 22 percent in 1990.
• Four percent walked to work in 2000; five percent walked to work in 1990.
• Two percent of workers took “other means” (I’m assuming this means bicycles, plus perhaps the occasional skateboard or set of roller blades thrown in for good measure) versus less than one percent in 1990.
• Two percent of Uptowners worked at home in 1990, three percent worked at home in 2000.

There were, of course, statistical differences between neighborhoods. The percentage of local workers commuting alone by car (in 2000) broken down by neighborhood are:

• 58 percent in the Wedge
• 61 percent in CARAG
• 64 percent in East Isles
• 72 percent in ECCO

I realize that not everyone can bike, walk, or take the bus to work. Still, these numbers leave a lot of room for improvement. The majority of those people - and we're talking thousands of Uptown residents - are driving to and from work five days a week, many of them in the same general morning and evening timeframe. Instead of focusing our energies on parking permits and battling new developments we can and should identify the most efficient ways to get people out of their cars and onto the sidewalks, onto bikes, or on the bus (and at some point, I hope, LRT). Some worthwhile potential goals:

• Cut down number of cars per household. Not every adult member of every family needs a car, and some households can live without any car.
• Decrease the use of each car. If even a relatively small number of current residents switched to, say, biking to work one day a week in the summer it would have an impact. So, too, would be if some current drivers switched to taking the bus to work one or two days a week instead of driving. And once at home, if more residents walked to local stores for their errands (including grocery store runs) we’d decrease local traffic even further.
• Provide support for residents to get by without owning a car. Uptown has a car share service (HOURCAR); with time and increased usage we could expand the locations, making it an even more convenient option for those who don’t want a car yet still want to have access to one from time to time. And, of course, an Uptown LRT alignment, good (and affordable) bus service, and a bike- and pedestrian-friendly environment are also essential.

Traffic and parking are always going to be issues facing Uptown; it’s part and parcel with urban living. An equally important element of urban neighborhood life should be the ready availability – and embrace – of a car-free lifestyle. By all means continue to address through traffic and parking, but don’t forget the simple fact that in many cases the traffic problem is not just “them” – it is “us.”