"10 Most Dangerous Cities in Pennsylvania" (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: violent crime, university)

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by Summersm343

Ahhh, see. Philadelphia was below Pittsburgh until a bad month of September. Philadelphia before had 10 less murders than 2013. Now it has 6 more. Hoping to have a good last three months of the year so we can see another decline. Either way, the Philadelphia numbers have drastically improved in the last two years. Philadelphia through the 2000's has had 20 per 100K or more almost every year.

Couple the declining crime and murder numbers with a growing population and the crime rates continue to drop impressively.

Defintely extreme credit is due to the PPD, but it's not just new crime fighting tactics from the police improving numbers, it's also an increased wealthy and middle class population, improving neighborhoods, and lower unemployment numbers that are reducing crime as well. I would say it's a myriad of factors.

Originally Posted by Summersm343

Speagles. Noticed a slight error in your calculations. The rate for Philadelphia is actually 12.8 per 100K.

You must have used old population numbers for Philadelphia. The current pop. is at 1,553,165.

https://www.google.com/search?q=phil...n+2013&spell=1

I just used 2010 numbers due to the variance population estimates give us. I actually think both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are under-counted right now, population wise (due to the large amount of growth in each city). Either way, Philadelphia homicide counts are way down.. I've been following both for years. Hopefully the current trend continues for both cities.

Pittsburgh has become an extremely safe city over the past 10 years. Homicide counts aren't down any noticeable amount (homicide varies so much every year), but the amount of violent crime is down so, so much. Except for that neighborhood I mentioned, Homewood. I'm honestly surprised its never made one of those lists for most dangerous neighborhood in the country. I'd venture to say Homewood, alone, counts for up to 10-15% of Pittsburgh's violent crime (even though it only counts 1.9% of its population).

[Evergrey]

Nice job providing facts to overcome mindless boosterism, speagles.

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by speagles84

I just used 2010 numbers due to the variance population estimates give us. I actually think both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are under-counted right now, population wise (due to the large amount of growth in each city). Either way, Philadelphia homicide counts are way down.. I've been following both for years. Hopefully the current trend continues for both cities.

Pittsburgh has become an extremely safe city over the past 10 years. Homicide counts aren't down any noticeable amount (homicide varies so much every year), but the amount of violent crime is down so, so much. Except for that neighborhood I mentioned, Homewood. I'm honestly surprised its never made one of those lists for most dangerous neighborhood in the country. I'd venture to say Homewood, alone, counts for up to 10-15% of Pittsburgh's violent crime (even though it only counts 1.9% of its population).

Agreed. I believe both cities are being undercounted while a lot of Southern cities are being over counted. Reason being is the methods are flawed for year to year population numbers. They count new construction permits and unit numbers but do not account for renovations of existing buildings (which is happening quite frequently in Pitt and Philly).

And I believe Philly has become a safe city as well (at least the core). Even from the 90s and early 2000s there had been a significant change. I remember putting together numbers for Philly in 2012 and a select few neighborhoods in North Philadelphia accounted for over 60% of the homicides in the city. Granted these neighborhoods in North Philly make up a greater land area than Homewood in Pittsburgh, but that is still a crazy statistic. The neighborhoods in the make up include the worst in Philly: Strawberry Mansion, Hunting Park, West Kensington, etc.

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Nice job providing facts to overcome mindless boosterism, speagles.

Seriously what the hell did I say that was blind boosterism? Reread my posts. I said Philly crime rate was under Pittsburgh for this year (which it was until September). Now Philly is slightly over Pitt.

I also said: I BELIEVE Philadelphia had a lower rate last year, which Speagles proved was not the case.

So how is that boosting?

I didn't say: Philadelphia is the best and has no crime and Pittsburgh sucks ass and is a crime ridden hellhole.

So please explain your logic.

[North Beach Person]

Selinsgrove?

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by Summersm343

Seriously what the hell did I say that was blind boosterism? Reread my posts. I said Philly crime rate was under Pittsburgh for this year (which it was until September). Now Philly is slightly over Pitt.

So you were right until September, but you posted in October so that makes you __________. I will let you fill in the blank.

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Selinsgrove?

I was wondering the same thing. Does Susquehanna University with an enrollment of 2,187, have that much of an effect on the crime rate of a borough of 5,583? If so, than what about the effect of the student population at schools like California, Indiana, Kutztown, Slippery Rock, Edinboro, etc. on their local communities?

If not the effect of a student population on local crime statistics, than what would cause Selinsgrove to have a higher crime rate than cities such as Erie, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Clairton, McKeesport, New Kensington, Beaver Falls, Johnstown, Lancaster, Altoona, Washington and Uniontown?

[pman]

Originally Posted by Summersm343

Seriously what the hell did I say that was blind boosterism? Reread my posts. I said Philly crime rate was under Pittsburgh for this year (which it was until September). Now Philly is slightly over Pitt.

I also said: I BELIEVE Philadelphia had a lower rate last year, which Speagles proved was not the case.

So how is that boosting?

I didn't say: Philadelphia is the best and has no crime and Pittsburgh sucks ass and is a crime ridden hellhole.

So please explain your logic.

Philadelphia is in the top ten, getting off that list is a good goal, why does this have to be about pittsburgh?

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

So you were right until September, but you posted in October so that makes you __________. I will let you fill in the blank.

Hold up. Speagles numbers are in fact wrong for Pittsburgh.

I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew I saw this somewhere.

From CBS Pittsburgh

City officials held a press conference Monday morning to address the recent spike in homicides in the City of Pittsburgh this year. So far, there have been 41 homicides in Pittsburgh this year, which is on par with a record number set back in 1993.

Article date Aug 4th, 2014

Public Safety Director Links Uptick In Homicides To Drug Trade « CBS Pittsburgh

If there are 41 homicides in Pittsburgh as of August 4th, how are there now only 39 as of October 7th? Were three people revived and zero homicides occurred for two months? I think that map has not been updated since July.

Pittsburgh (as of August 4): 41 homicides - 305,841 pop. - 13.4 per 100K
Philadelphia (as of October 7th): 199 homicides - 1,553,165 pop. - 12.8 per 100K

So no, lol, I was not wrong at all. I was in fact 50% correct. I was wrong on the 2013 numbers but absolutely correct on the 2014 numbers since Pittsburgh in August has a higher murder rate than Philadelphia as of October 7th.

I think apologies are in order

[RightonWalnut]

Originally Posted by pman

Philadelphia is in the top ten, getting off that list is a good goal, why does this have to be about pittsburgh?

My point was that Philadelphia is put on a 10 most dangerous PA City list using 2012 numbers published in 2014 when the Philadelphia of last year has very similar crimes rates than Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia of this year has BETTER crime rates than Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh doesn't make the list.

And then we wonder why PA natives outside of the Philadelphia area consistently bash Philly for crime while praising Pittsburgh for safety. Just a little strange, don't ya think?