At some point in your 20s you’ll most likely have to move. Maybe you’re moving out of your parents’ basement, or just to another apartment, or even maybe you’re looking to buy your first house. Whatever the reason, there’s plenty to think about before you make your move. One of the really important things to get clear is the safety of potential move spots.

One handy thing I happened upon is the state crime reports. The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program was conceived in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet a need for reliable, uniform crime statistics for the nation. If you search for your state’s UCR, you will get a giant list of data to sift through. The plus side is that it’s fairly detailed, with multiple breakdowns of crime and locations. The down side of course is that the data is a little hard to manage. However, if you have certain locations around town in mind, you can just search for those locations. For example, to find the UCR for Pittsburgh, I searched for “Uniform Crime Reporting Pittsburgh”. This netted me Police Bureau - Crime Statistics. I click on my county, then search for specific areas around town. Important items to note are serious crimes such as aggravated assault and homicides. Also important are home invasions, robberies, and property offenses.

Obviously other factors should be considered in a move, but to me safety is definitely up there, fighting for first with “house that doesn’t collapse while I sleep”. Yes the data isn’t organized well, but do your homework and you can find out a lot of information for your move. Think of it this way - it may be a pain in the ass to check now, but would you rather be awakened in the middle of the night because a crazed crackhead broke in to steal your gibblies?