We’ve all heard how similar Long Beach is to Oakland. Are we really? The following facts from the US Census American Community Survey for 2008 are interesting.
- We are an older population. Oakland’s elderly citizenry (over 65) is pegged at 40,635, or 11.1% of the population. Long Beach has 9.4%.
- We have far fewer youth living in Oakland [25.6% vs. 31.8%].
- Long Beach is 50.1% White, 38.1% Hispanic, 15.6% Black, and 16.9% Asian. Oakland is 40.5% White, 31.2% Black, 25.1% Hispanic, and 16.4% Asian. [US Census-Race Only]
- Long Beach has many more people living under the poverty line. 19.8% of the population, or 93,244 people live under the poverty line. The numbers for Oakland are 64,028 and 17.5%.
- Oakland is much higher educated; 37.3% of those over 25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher vs. 28.6% for Long Beach.
- Long Beach has many more students enrolled in school; 57,896 enrolled in 1-8 vs. 31,568 in Oakland; 33,216 are in high school [9-12] vs. 17,813 in Oakland.
- Oakland’s population is more stable; 85.1% of the population has lived in the same house for over a year in Oakland vs. 79.9% in Long Beach.
- Housing costs about the same; the median price in Long Beach is $538,800 vs. 541,900 in Oakland. Median rent in Long Beach is $1,035 vs. $1,036 in Oakland.
No, Long Beach and Oakland are no more similar than Oakland and many other cities. Actually, there is no excuse for Oakland’s high crime rate, given that our demographics are not predictive of the inordinately high violent crime rates we suffer. One might think that with a much younger population, less educated, more mobile, many more in the school system, and with many more living under the poverty line, that Long Beach should have a much higher crime rate than Oakland. Yet, Oakland’s violent crime rate per capita is +322% higher than in Long Beach. There is no similarity in that number.
There are 64 cities in California with populations over 100,000. It’s no surprise that Oakland has the most violent crimes per capita [83% higher than Richmond]. Long Beach is 15th out of 64. San Jose is 40th. Why not become more like San Jose?
Let’s take a look at the 2008/2009 budgets of Long Beach and Oakland.
- Oakland had a general fund budget of $491 million in 2009 and Long Beach budgeted $404 Million.
- The Long Beach Police Department [963 cops] cost $207 million and O.P.D. cost $216 million. Note: Long Beach includes a Jail that processes about 20,000 arrests in their budget. Chief Tucker closed Oakland’s Jail in 2005.
- Since 2004, Oakland added over 150 employees while Long Beach reduced 520 from their payroll.
- Since 2004, Long Beach cut $90 from their General Fund, while Oakland added $90 million to its general fund expenditures.
- In terms of efficiency, 617 Long Beach patrol personnel respond to about 700,000 calls for service. Looking for some meaningful correlation, this means they can process about 222 calls for every violent crime. Oakland’s equivalent for 566 patrol personnel is that they respond to about 780,000 calls and process only about 98 calls for every violent crime.
Five years ago, our city principals crafted the following goal set forth in the Oakland Budget: “Reduce crime by implementing a comprehensive crime prevention/reduction strategy.” So where is it? The genesis for community policing [and eventually Measure Y] was set forth by the City Council in 1993. Meanwhile the violence keeps marching.
We must get our budget in line and our police services operating efficiently. Our leaders work and sweat, focusing with severe near-sightedness at Oakland’s budget and come up with frustration that they have such little discretion and leeway. Why not take a close look at Long Beach, and closer to home San Jose, and see what they’re doing. After all, they’re doing much more, much better, with much less. We don’t have to be like them overnight, but can’t we get going in the right direction?
ronoz |
