Long Island, NY has been hit bad too.
indeed, they are everywhere here. I feel safer in many parts of manhattan then I do here in Nassau now. I never go to the large shopping malls like Roosevelt Field unless I take a day off from work; after school lets out and on weekends, it looks like a scene from the movie Colors at the mall.
someday soon here, there is going to be some kind of gang related crime of significant proportion that is going to shock these sleepy long islanders into realizing exactly what the demographic changes have brought. I know alot of people moving out of Nassau, back to Queens and Brooklyn - they avoid these insane LIRR fares (going up again), and the quality of life is about the same.