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But like I said, the numbers don't lie, and they do lie at the same time. If the overall murder rate goes down in Chicago, but the murder rate in neighborhoods like Englewood are still some of the highest in the nation, than that may be progress on a city-level, but Englewood is still suffering. There are still individual neighborhoods, districts, etc, in which violence is as high as it's ever been. We need not to be blissfully ignorant and blinded by some of these stats.
I wonder how much of that is driven by the media and how they skew the perception of inner cities in America?
Also, improvements in medicine and life-saving strategies have accounted for fewer slayings compared to years past. Meaning that neighborhoods in America's roughest cities may be statistically safer, but not if you are on the receiving end of a bullet that just maims you instead of kills you!
Last edited by Min-Chi-Cbus; 12-26-2012 at 07:40 AM..
Probably because the suburbs, where many of us grew up, used to be a lot safer than the cities, and now the criminals live in the suburbs. I grew up in a Cleveland suburb (born in '82) and can tell you that as a kid and adolescent in the late 80s-90s, the suburbs were almost completely safe, with violent crime being an aberration. Only East Cleveland (a complete warzone) and parts of Cleveland Heights really had problems.
2012 is very very different. Suburbs like Maple Heights, Warrensville Heights, and Euclid are in terrible, catastrophic shape. To different degrees, Garfield Heights, Cleveland Heights (though it's always been 50/50 basically), Lakewood (growing section 8 community), either Parma or Parma Heights (I can't remember), South Euclid, either Bedford Heights or Bedford, and parts of the otherwise wealthy Shaker Heights are different for the worse, with crime on the rise.
Cleveland supposedly has gotten safer (it really hasn't, as the west-side has growing crime) simply because many of the thugs moved out to the suburbs, some of which are somewhat stable (like Lakewood), dying (South Euclid), on death's door (Garfield Heights), or virtually warzones (Maple Heights). These four city-suburbs were absolutely fine 20 years ago, so when people talk about Cleveland having less crime, well, they're just ignoring what's in front of them.
I live in this area (East Side suburbs - Shaker Heights), and must agree that the suburbs over here are really depressing and messed up, and in many cases worse-looking/feeling than some parts of the city (but most parts of the East Side of Cleveland are pretty crappy as well). I was sort of surprised when we were moving here and I asked my wife about these other surburbs as places to live, and she was like "that one is bad, so is that one, and that one, and that one....." and I was wondering what was wrong with her to think that about all of these places, but now I see why.
This phenomenon is happening in every city I'm sure, but also the Minneapolis area where I'm originally from. Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park have been sort of "edgy" for a couple decades now, but recently those areas within those two suburbs have expanded quite a bit and now several other suburbs have seemed to pick up on crime statistics over the years, and formerly rough parts of the city are begining to improve slightly. In addition to "the Brooklyns", which now have multiple homicides annually, Northeast Mpls (part of the city), Columbia Heights, Fridley, Richfield, Bloomington (East) and Little Canada seem to make the news at least once a year for violent crime and schools in these areas are sometimes worse than many in the inner city. Also, New Hope, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Mounds View, New Brighton, St. Louis Park, Hopkins and even Coon Rapids, Burnsville and Shakopee (not inner-ring suburbs) seem to be getting into the mix more lately as well, and most of these areas almost never had issues previously.
That being said, very few of these places are on the same level as the Cleveland suburbs (except the "Brooklyns").
I think that if there is less crime now, it would be because the crime areas have shifted. Growing up in the 50s and 60s I was very aware and read the newspapers and watched the news and hardly ever heard of crime, if we are talking about violent crime.
It's not that we are romanticizing the past or that we've forgotten--the crime just wasn't there. It must have been elsewhere but it was not in the suburbs where most people lived.
I distinctly remember a murder--it was in the paper for weeks. A baby sitter was murdered and it was in a city about 100 miles away. Everyone talked about it and it was in the news constantly.
Other than that we never thought about crime. It must have been happening in the inner cities but in those days you never heard about what when on in the inner cities.
Not until the late 60s did we start to be aware of what went on in those cities. It became politically correct to become more aware and to want to fix the problems of cities.
We definitely didn't have random shootings like we do today.
Strangely, the cities I knew of weren't that violent, they hadn't deteriorated to the level of today, so I don't know where all the crime was. It's hard for me to believe that there was more crime back in those days. The first time I heard anyone discussing actual "crime" was around 1970--it was older people saying that this was the new thing. They were talking about installing locks on the doors and putting up signs saying that they had guns. "Crime" was the latest thing to worry about.
I wonder how much of that is driven by the media and how they skew the perception of inner cities in America?
Also, improvements in medicine and life-saving strategies have accounted for fewer slayings compared to years past. Meaning that neighborhoods in America's roughest cities may be statistically safer, but not if you are on the receiving end of a bullet that just maims you instead of kills you!
Exactly, people still get shot on the regular. It isn't ruled a homicide until someone dies. If 5 people get shot in one neighborhood in a one week span and only one dies, than it's only one homicide. 1 homicide makes the neighborhood SEEM alot safer than it is. New medical technology has helped pro-long life after shootings.
I live in this area (East Side suburbs - Shaker Heights), and must agree that the suburbs over here are really depressing and messed up, and in many cases worse-looking/feeling than some parts of the city (but most parts of the East Side of Cleveland are pretty crappy as well). I was sort of surprised when we were moving here and I asked my wife about these other surburbs as places to live, and she was like "that one is bad, so is that one, and that one, and that one....." and I was wondering what was wrong with her to think that about all of these places, but now I see why.
This phenomenon is happening in every city I'm sure, but also the Minneapolis area where I'm originally from. Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park have been sort of "edgy" for a couple decades now, but recently those areas within those two suburbs have expanded quite a bit and now several other suburbs have seemed to pick up on crime statistics over the years, and formerly rough parts of the city are begining to improve slightly. In addition to "the Brooklyns", which now have multiple homicides annually, Northeast Mpls (part of the city), Columbia Heights, Fridley, Richfield, Bloomington (East) and Little Canada seem to make the news at least once a year for violent crime and schools in these areas are sometimes worse than many in the inner city. Also, New Hope, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Mounds View, New Brighton, St. Louis Park, Hopkins and even Coon Rapids, Burnsville and Shakopee (not inner-ring suburbs) seem to be getting into the mix more lately as well, and most of these areas almost never had issues previously.
That being said, very few of these places are on the same level as the Cleveland suburbs (except the "Brooklyns").
The phenomenon of crime shifts to the burbs are interesting. Also interesting that the most violent of them in the MPLS area are both named Brooklyn.
To expand on that, Old Brooklyn, which was a blue collar, functional Cleveland neighborhood, and Brooklyn Heights, a small west-side village, have also had escalated crime in the last 10-15 years.
Crime is clearly lower by all measures. In fact, the homicide rate last year at 4.7 per 100,000 was the lowest since 1961, and that year was one of the lowest in the last hundred years. The murder rate last year was lower that it was exactly 100 years ago, in 1911.
I am little bit curious about something. I have been living in U.S for some time and noticed one thing. Many people say things like "back then when I was a kid we used to keep our door unlocked, I could ride my bike in neighborhood without being worried, I knew all my neighbor by their name. It was just much more safe, not like today when it is much more dangerous and crime is everywhere...etc".
Well but if you look at statistics what the show is that crime rate was much higher back then in most cities. Especially murders.
So how come? Is it that well know "back then everything used to be better syndrome" or do I miss something.
I think one of the issues with crime stats is that many stats are presented as an average for an entire state, region or country. So, it may appear that violent crime is decreasing overall in an area or state, but if you look at specific cities, many have a huge increase in violent crime over the last 5 years, for example. It's just when you look at averages, the larger cities are averaged with the lower crime rates of smaller towns and rural areas, so overall numbers look better. In my research for moving to an area this summer, I try to look at crime stats for a specific city.
The other reality is that crime stats are political. Some cities underreport, and some classify violent crimes as less violent crimes to make the stats look better than they are. All kinds of manipulation and underreporting goes on, so stats only tell part of the story.
Some posters mentioned that center city high crime rates of the past have moved to the burbs or other towns, as criminals are pushed out due to gentrification. The thugs are going to live somewhere and they move around based on development, gentrification and where ever they can find cheap housing.
Overall, if murder rates are down as an overall average for the country, keep in mind that property crimes have increased dramatically, in direct relationship to increased drug use. Most of us have a much higher chance today of being a victim of a burglary or even robbery or car jacking than homicide.
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Is it that well know "back then everything used to be better syndrome" or do I miss something.
