Velia Amparo Rivas

Look at the neighborhood and not pass judgment on the entire city: Tijuana, Baja California, México

By Patrick Osio 

What can only be assumed that under tremendous pressure from the numerous U.S. cities that were publicly exposed as being from unsafe to very unsafe places to visit due to high incidents of crime, now comes a report that clarifies and distinguishes between a city and high crime neighborhoods within those cities.

Some of these same cities are also home to the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, underscoring the importance of looking at neighborhoods, and not passing judgment on entire cities. For safety, it really is all about your location, not just your city or your zipcode."

Taken from FBI files note was made that cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, Jacksonville, Baltimore, Kansas City, Memphis, Dallas, Richmond, St. Louis, Little Rock, Philadelphia, Tampa, New York, Orlando, Cleveland, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Detroit were highly dangerous when simply taking the crime statistics based on the cities as a whole without consideration to neighborhoods within them where such crimes dominated the crime reports.


On June of 2009, I published an article dealing with the lack of personal security in some of the United States principal cities including those mentioned above (Taking a vacation in a high crime city? No way, June 25, 2009). The article indicated that the entire cities mentioned were not completely unsafe to visit rather that within the cities there were neighborhoods with a high rate of crime and unsafe for visitors. For instance, in some Chicago neighborhoods the odds of being a victim of a crime is 1 in 4, but not all the city represented such danger.

What I lamented in the article was that Tijuana is treated by the U.S. media as one place without consideration to the neighborhoods were there is a high incidence of crime or that there is no distinguishing as to the number of homicides that were exclusively gang member killing of other gang members or those killed by law enforcement encounters, which make up close to 90 percent of all Tijuana homicides and mostly take place in the outlying neighborhoods of the 400 square mile plus of the city's territory.

In my opinion as, a result of an onslaught of complaints from the U.S. cities unfairly cast as unsafe, a new report has been issued by Neighborhood Scouts, a research firm, indicating:

"Surprisingly, many of the neighborhoods they discovered are substantially safer than neighborhoods in the suburbs. Some of these same cities are also home to the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, underscoring the importance of looking at neighborhoods, and not passing judgment on entire cities. For safety, it really is all about your location, not just your city or your zip code."

What a noble idea, don't pass judgment on an entire city because some of its neighborhoods are crime infested and dangerous to both locals and visitors.

So why doesn't U.S. media deal the same when it comes to Tijuana?

It becomes difficult because in far too many cases the U.S. media does not send their reporters to Tijuana, rather use reports from sources other than their own. In some cases, passing the outside report to one of their reporters who then stretch the article for maximum effect to please the editor, and publisher who pushes for more sales.

This leads to overly dramatic and sensationalized reporting. And further, from the more than 14,000 American retirees living in the immediate area, none of them are interviewed or if they have the interviews don't find themselves into the news article as most, if not all expatriates, are perfectly content and feel safe living in and around Tijuana and willing to say so.

And other U.S. media depend on the Mexican media for their information, which they then regurgitate into their own reporting. The local Tijuana Mexican media is likewise remiss in that when reporting gang gun battles among themselves or with law enforcement they too ignore to mention the colonia (neighborhood) in which it takes place. They must assume that since their readership is local, they know where such incidents take place forgetting that their reports also find their way into Mexican national news services and are picked up by international news services. The results have been that Tijuana as a whole has suffered an unjustified amount of negative press.

Not that there is no crime in Tijuana, like in all cities, large and small, there is crime, but the incident of crime not related to drug trafficking is no different in frequency than in other cities of like size. And crimes against American or other foreign tourists are also no different than in other cities, which is very low.

So if reports and the press will clarify that U.S. cities that have been cited as crime infested and dangerous places to visit are not really as dangerous as initial reports would have the public believe, why not do the same for Tijuana?
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Patrick Osio is the co-founder of TransBorder Communications, Editor of HispanicVista.com and has recently launched the Osio Report Electronic Newsletter.
Contact at: POsiojr@aol.com

Saludos and don't forget to visit my website: www.bajaoceanside.com and write me at: velia.in.baja@gmail.com to make an appointment to visit the properties you like best, whether they are in my website or someone else's.  I have access to all the properties and I know we'll find your dream home!

Velia Amparo

Published Friday, November 26, 2010 3:19 AM by Velia Amparo Rivas