Pittsburgh Truth (standard of living, statistics, murder rate)

[216facts]

Love it how Cleveland's not on the list - why? Decided not to report the bad numbers. Always felt safe in Pittsburgh when we've stayed there. The scariest place I've ever stayed? Dallas (SW suburban hotel near Duncanville.) So even the big growth cities can have terrible crime (like Dallas) but it gets masked by the per-capita weight of all the residents. If you want to be a crime victim, you can do it in any major city in the US. Be smart and aware of your vulnerability.

No doubt the overwhelming saturation of our culture with the hardware and software (guns and TV/video games/movies) that promote crime have caused our murder rates to be internationally embarrassing. Not sure what the solution is.

[gg]

Originally Posted by PGH423

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._by_crime_rate

We don’t really stand out compared to other cities in this table.

At a murder rate of 18, we do stand out. That is a very high number and lots of cities have single digit numbers in that very important category.

I don't think we can claim our city as "safe" with a murder rate at nearly 6 times that of NYC.

On the other hand a lot of our murders are in the drug trade, but still kids are being shot at an alarming rate in our city and those lives should matter.

[gg]

Originally Posted by 216facts

Love it how Cleveland's not on the list - why?

Cleveland is on the list that PGH423 repeated of mine. Cleveland is at 16.2 compared to Pittsburgh's 18.6. Heck even Philly has a better murder rate per capita at 17.9.

I have to digest this a bit, but I never realized how many murders per 100,000 people there are in our city. It is shocking to be honest. Still it is mostly in the drug trade, but shootings are going down.

[PGH423]

Originally Posted by gg

Cleveland is on the list that PGH423 repeated of mine. Cleveland is at 16.2 compared to Pittsburgh's 18.6. Heck even Philly has a better murder rate per capita at 17.9.

I have to digest this a bit, but I never realized how many murders per 100,000 people there are in our city. It is shocking to be honest. Still it is mostly in the drug trade, but shootings are going down.

It’s a good thing we’re not in murder capitals like Atlanta and Chicago!

[gg]

Originally Posted by PGH423

It’s a good thing we’re not in murder capitals like Atlanta and Chicago!

Per capita Chicago isn't much worse than here at 23.8 vs Pittsburgh 18.6. Kind of unsettling, but compare to St. Louis at 59.8, New Orleans at 41.7, Detroit 43.4 or Baltimore at 46.2.

How about St. Louis? Wow, that is a lot of bloodshed. Wonder why?

The murders seem to be in certain areas of our city, so maybe that is why we feel safe for the most part. I suspect that is true with all these cities with so many murders. Chicago is safe in most places, but wow if you are in the wrong part of town that must sound like a shooting gallery.

The US is very violent when comparing it to the rest of civilized countries, not third world stuff. We just live in an aggressive place I guess.

[216facts]

Originally Posted by gg

Cleveland is on the list that PGH423 repeated of mine. Cleveland is at 16.2 compared to Pittsburgh's 18.6. Heck even Philly has a better murder rate per capita at 17.9.

I have to digest this a bit, but I never realized how many murders per 100,000 people there are in our city. It is shocking to be honest. Still it is mostly in the drug trade, but shootings are going down.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/mur...u-s-cities/48/
On this list:

5. Cleveland
,
,
,
11. Cincinnati
12. Philadephia
15. Pittsburgh


The older, industrialized cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, KC are going to be at a mathematical disadvantage for a while - despite gentrification. We simply don't have enough momentum of population growth to offset the losses of the last 4 decades. The poor numbers reflect the flight of the middle class from the core city. We can dream about a middle class comeback, but its decades away if it happens.

[PGH423]

Originally Posted by gg

Per capita Chicago isn't much worse than here at 23.8 vs Pittsburgh 18.6. Kind of unsettling, but compare to St. Louis at 59.8, New Orleans at 41.7, Detroit 43.4 or Baltimore at 46.2.

How about St. Louis? Wow, that is a lot of bloodshed. Wonder why?

The murders seem to be in certain areas of our city, so maybe that is why we feel safe for the most part. I suspect that is true with all these cities with so many murders. Chicago is safe in most places, but wow if you are in the wrong part of town that must sound like a shooting gallery.

The US is very violent when comparing it to the rest of civilized countries, not third world stuff. We just live in an aggressive place I guess.

I don’t disagree but it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective. The average person has about a 1 in 6000 chance of being murdered each year in Pittsburgh. If you are staying out of trouble and cautious, I’ll guess that it’s 1 in 50,000. If you live in a safe suburb and just occasionally go into the city, I’ll guess it’s 1 in a couple hundred thousand. It would be great if we could get to the NYC rate. It’s impressive! But any one individual shouldn’t be terrifed.

[Tractor Face]

One more thing to consider, or not, is the number of shootings that don't necessarily end up as a murder. It seems like there is a shooting every day/night. This is different than muder, obviously. Now that I think more about this, the number of shootings is what jumps out at me every morning I read the online paper(Trib). I think shootings and murder don't seem to affect alot of people because it's generally found in the crime prone areas. Essentially, it's okay as long as it's not in my neighborhood kind of thing. I avoid thses areas unless I need to go there for a specific reason.

[szug-bot]

4 pages in and of course no one has yet to discuss any "truth" besides statistics, as important a role as they do play.
WHY is murder so prevalent in a country with a typically high standard of living, where even the poorest are (usually) well fed, and luxuries abound? The question can be phrased in different ways.

[Tominftl]

My grandfather lived in Pittsburgh and he wasn’t in a great area. We never felt threatened or unsafe there. They have done a fabulous job cleaning up the city and the people I’ve met were very nice.