[jyl]

Hmmm. Now my wife has thrown "crime" into the mix.

Her friend from an OR beach town drove her to the neighborhood today ( they were measuring commute times) and said you must'nt live here, the bad area of Portland is too close, you have to be on the west side of the river to be safe.

So I went to the City's website and pulled down the crime stats for the 4,600 person, 430 acre neighborhood. In the past 12 months: 0 homicides, 0 sexual assaults, 2 assaults, 3 street robberies. 11 vehicle thefts. The most common crime is burglary at the rate of 0.8 per 100 persons per year, probably about 2 per 100 houses per year.

I compared this crime rate to our old Berkeley Hills neighborhood, which hasn't had a homicide or sexual assault in over a decade - it is effectively a zero-crime area (unless you are a vehicle or an unoccupied dwelling).

The crime rate per 100 persons is the same in these two neighborhoods.

Indeed, the crime rate in a west-of-river neighborhood we also like is actually higher (though still very low).

Being of analytical mind, I consider the issue resolved. Yet my wife continues to mumble fearfully - "honey, maybe we should live in the suburbs after all" . . .

Oh well. If we end up in some white-bread minivan subdivision, I'm going to make her a Stepford wife.