Moving fast on a much criticized ordinance resembling measures once taken by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (sp?) to rid the mean streets of indigents, the town council of Brick Township, NJ is favoring a "keep-moving" ordinance that makes it illegal to "remain idle" in public without a legitimate reason.

The ordinance is designed to stem the tide of assault- theft- and drug-related arrests of unruly teens who have prompted police to set up a substation at Brick Plaza, a favorite teen hang out in a town of 77,000 residents.

Amherst, NY's "Task Force On Substance Use & Abuse" was founded after representatives of the town's three public school districts and the Director of the Amherst Youth Board met to discuss ways to deal with the problem of substance use and abuse among young people. More than a decade later in the town of 111,000, the task force has yet to disband because the need remains.

And in San Jose, CA, ground zero for technology's rise and fall, and home to nearly 1 million residents, "state-of-the-art" gang abatement techniques and unique crime reducing efforts won the city accolades for its law enforcement efforts. The same efforts raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union, local real estate groups and even a police association.

From small town Brick to ethnically diverse San Jose, it's not easy being one of the nation's safest cities.

But in their population-size category -- Brick, among 117 cities with populations from 75,000 to 99,999); Amherst, among 195 cities of 100,000 to 499,999; and San Jose, among 30 cities of a half million or more -- the three came out at the top of the heap as the nation's safest cities.

Amherst was named the nation's safest city overall among 342 examined in the ninth annual Safest City Award, conducted by Morgan Quitno Press, a Lawrence, KS-based publishing and research company.

"Amherst is stuck at the top of our rankings, but it is no wonder that the city does so well. With no murders and some of the lowest crime rates in the nation, Amherst easily beat out the other 341 cities in this year's ranking," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press.

Amherst has been No. 1 in low crime six of the nine years Morgan Quitno has presented the award.

To determine each city or state's level of safety, Morgan Quitno examined Federal Bureau of Investigations statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft and measured how a particular city or metro area compared to the national average for a given crime category.

At the bottom of the heap, Camden, NJ (small); St. Louis, MO (medium); and Detroit, MI (large) were the nation's most dangerous cities in their population-size category.

St. Louis received the dubious honor of being America's most dangerous city.

Published: December 11, 2002

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.