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curbthemeplays t1_iuwu29x wrote

Reply to comment by lifeisbeutiful in New to New haven, recommendations please by ldelizabeth

I have been around JC for decades. Most of the city is pretty nice but the West Side areas are still not amazing. The waterfront and downtown were looking up as early as the late 90’s. It was really bad in the early 90’s but has been steadily improving for 20+ years.

New Haven has had a shorter run of improvement. Crime peaked around 2010. Since then the city has been improving, lots of investment, new apartments, and as I said before, the crime index in 2009 from City Data based on FBI stats was 769, and 2019 it’s 431. That’s not just looking safer, that IS safer.

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lifeisbeutiful t1_iuxblpx wrote

it's no doubt safer as most crime has fallen around the county. But if the west side is the only one that's sketchy now in your experience it shows that the thier neighborhood have gentrified in thr last few decades

outside of small pockets of yale development around WinchesterAve, I really can't think of any neighborhood gentrifing in New Haven. can you? yes they got better but gentrified?

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curbthemeplays t1_iuxc0fx wrote

Downtown gentrified 100%. Ninth Square is another example. Parts of East Rock weren’t nice like they are now. Like Goatville. Parts of Westville too. City Point used to be bad, now it’s quite nice. The area around Science Park was very bad, now it’s improving.

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lifeisbeutiful t1_iuxcpri wrote

I agree that downtown has gentrified ( again, not really as noone was displaced as they added housing to a commercial district) yes, the neighborhoods you mentioned have gotten better and their "safe" boundaries expanded a bit, but the city is made up of far more neighborhoods and they have not gentrified. Back to the dwight neighborhood, it's exactly what would be gentrified but everyone is still advised not to cross dwight st.

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curbthemeplays t1_iuxd4sl wrote

I know someone that lives a couple blocks beyond Dwight and it’s been fine for him. Definitely still room for improvement though.

The biggest problem the city has with progress is the local alderman and general bureaucracy that makes for slow approval on development.

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lifeisbeutiful t1_iuxdvuc wrote

some do live on the other side of dwight and it is fine but that's a very small number.

agreed

alderman are one of our biggest problems, holding this city back approval of projects in this city makes developers run away

other major problems is the union control of the city and massive city giveaways for low income housing. This city has everything it needs to succeed but it's not.

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