Chinatown, with its winding streets full of dim sum restaurants, discount bus companies, green grocers and fish shops, is no longer a battle ground for rival Chinese gangs, who waged bloody turf wars in the 1970s and 80s. Shooting incidents were down 96 percent from 1993 to 2010, and gang-related incidents dropped 46 percent in 2010, to 20 from 37. To the north is the Lower East Side, where the once-dominant Jewish population has ceded space to Hispanic families and to a thriving nightlife scene for a largely under-40 crowd.

The 5th and 7th Precincts, which cover the neighborhoods, have seen total major crimes decline by 70 percent or more ifrom 1993 to 2010, led by a combined 91 percent plunge in car thefts and 86 percent drop in robberies. All other major crimes have declined during this period as well. The trend has slowed, however, with the area's crime rate remaining even from 2009 to 2010, earning the neighborhoods a rank of 48th safest out of 69 in DNAinfo.com's Crime & Safety Report.

The area ranks in the middle for most crimes, faring slightly better in almost all categories than the East Village & Alphabet City, the neighborhoods with which it is most often compared. For violent crime, the area is 38th safest. Murders remain low, with two registed in 2010 compared with three in 2009. Rapes spiked in Chinatown by 67 percent in 2010, from six to 10, but remained level in the Lower East Side, at 11.

In the two neighborhoods, robberies were down 17 percent in 2010, from 283 to 236. Overall felony assaults declined by 11 percent in 2010, to 254, but the Lower East Side registered a 39 percent upswing for the category from 2008 to 2010, to 126.