It’s a crime that retirement study didn’t give more weight to safety

A new analysis by the personal-finance site WalletHub, “2016’s Best & Worst Cities to Retire,” ranks Modesto 132nd out of 150.

WalletHub releases a lot of these studies. Recent ones include “Strictest & Most Lenient States on DUI” and “Best & Worst States to Have a Baby.”

But this one piqued my curiosity because my parents chose to retire to Modesto from Pittsburgh back in 1974. Their primary reason was that we had family already living here, but also, it was a city full of opportunities that would fill decades of their lives.

My mother was a leader in the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Guild and the Modesto Garden Club. She played with several bridge groups.

My dad, a longtime electrical engineer with Bell Telephone, became a student again at Modesto Junior College, over the years taking courses in everything from philosophy and psychology to meteorology, astronomy and lapidary. He loved visiting the Great Valley Museum and volunteered on a city commission and the Muir Trail Girl Scout Council (now Girl Scouts Heart of Central California).

Both enjoyed taking in MoBand and MSO concerts, plays produced by Modesto Performing Arts and Modesto Junior College, and more.

Last I checked, all those opportunities still exist – in some cases, bigger and better. MPA shows now are in the beautiful Gallo Center for the Arts and the Great Valley Museum has a new home in the Science Community Center on the Modesto Junior College West Campus.

So why did the WalletHub report rank Modesto so low?

Analysts compared affordability, quality of life, health care and availability of recreational activities – giving each equal weight – in the 150 largest U.S. cities. Its data set of 31 key metrics ranged from cost of living to public-hospital rankings to the percentage of the 65-and-older population.

Modesto’s lowest rankings came in activities (144th) and health care (133rd). The city fared better in affordability (92) and quality of life (60).

The metrics within “activities” include number of recreation and senior centers, fishing facilities, public golf courses, museums, theaters, art galleries, music venues and adult volunteer activities per capita.

But we’re 144th? Even with amenities such as the McHenry Mansion and McHenry Museum, the Mistlin Gallery and the Virginia Corridor trail; the terrific movies and more offered by the State Theatre; and the hugely popular Graffiti Summer events, to name just a few?

I don’t want to get into health care, the other category that really dragged down Modesto. You can look over the study online, at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-places-to-retire/6165, to your heart’s desire.

But I don’t think it gave enough weight to a big area: crime and safety. For people who can choose where to retire – as opposed to people who live somewhere all their lives because they can’t afford to move – I have to think feeling safe is a high priority. Yet WalletHub has violent crime and property crime as just two of nine measurements within “quality of life,” and individually not even given as much weight as mild weather.

Here’s where I’m going to say that if I’d been writing about this retirement study a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn’t be the same piece. I’ve been pretty regularly reporting on crime for more than a year now, but events of the past couple of weeks have it in the forefront of my mind.

On Aug. 9, I had the displeasure of reporting on a home-invasion robbery and an attempted carjacking in my neighborhood. And by in my neighborhood, I don’t mean a couple of blocks from my house, but less than 100 yards away. The following day, a gun was recovered from my next-door neighbor’s courtyard, where a suspect had been hiding.

Then, on Thursday, I was reporting on the shooting and subsequent manhunt that had blocks in the area of East Rumble Road and Keller Street cordoned off for hours. Tensions were high along the perimeter, as people who lived within or adjacent to the area demanded information and entry. A lot of hate was directed my way for being white and being a reporter. I was called a honky, taunted about being a redneck who shouldn’t be out in the heat and threatened with having my camera smacked out of my hands. Someone suggested I was damn lucky there were police around (ignoring the obvious: that if the police weren’t there to begin with, I wouldn’t have been, either).

Meanwhile, my kids at Beyer High and Somerset Middle School – including a French exchange student living with us this school year – were on lockdown as the search for an undetermined number of possibly armed subjects was conducted. I’d already been thinking about the first impression of Modesto our French “son,” Alex, got from the home invasion and carjacking – he was right there at the scene with my family.

It crossed my mind that Thursday’s added tension might have him calling AFS to say, “Get me out of this place!” But for someone who says crime is almost nonexistent in his small town across the ocean, he seems to be handling it OK.

It would be a ridiculous understatement to say Modesto has changed since my folks moved here in ’74. I may have led a fairly sheltered life in north Modesto, but if gangs and meth problems existed, I was blissfully unaware of them. Sure, there was teen drinking and pot use, even coke and magic mushrooms, but it all seems pretty tame looking into the rearview mirror.

When I look around today – certainly, my awareness heightened because of my occupation – it’s a different world, a different city. Drive-by purse snatchings that knock older ladies to the ground. Car thefts, break-ins, hit-and-runs, shootings.

I don’t mean at all to knock law enforcement. I was impressed with the quick and effective response to my neighborhood Aug. 9. I was impressed again at how officers conducted themselves Thursday in the face of angry residents repeatedly telling them, “F--- you.”

Modesto has strong Neighborhood Watch and National Night Out programs, and the Police Department regularly holds “Coffee with a Cop” meetings around town and has crime-prevention officers who share information at public events and even will do home-security inspections.

Will my wife and I, if we’re fortunate enough to have a choice, retire in Modesto? I don’t know. Just as I think the WalletHub analysis didn’t give enough weight to crime, I think it didn’t nearly capture in “activities” all that the city has to offer.

This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 3:19 PM with the headline "It’s a crime that retirement study didn’t give more weight to safety."