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I thought this just illustrates how parts of the country are just as safe as the safest parts of the safest countries in the world. While, several American cities have some of the highest homicide rates globally.
Lincoln has 280,000 people, while St. Louis has 310,000 people.
What is interesting is that Lincoln has it's fair share of poverty ridden neighborhoods and is a magnet for refugees from the third-world yet for some bizzare reason despite the poverty it has such a low homicide rate.
St. Louis now has more than twice the homicide rate that New York and Los Angeles did during their worse years in the early 1990s.
It is odd what is going on in the country with certain cities like Omaha, New York, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Austin having some of the lowest homicide rates this year in their history while there are many cities that are doing just as bad as the early 1990s.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Your comparison is highly flawed. Greater St Louis has like 10 times as many people as Greater Lincoln and a much more diversified economy. That has negative side effects, as capitalism though good at creating wealth, is bad at distribution of it
Lincoln is too small find an area with 1,000,000 people with the murder rate of London or Tokyo or Paris. It’s impossible in the U.S closest we have is Nova, Orange County and Chicago Suburbs. Saint Louis is a city of nearly 3 million people with 70-90% of the murders concentrated in three areas Saint Louis City- 300,000 North Saint Louis County- 300,000 and East Saint Louis- less than 50,000 the remaining 2+ million people live in relatively safe areas, way more than Lincoln will ever reach living in low murder areas.
Because of St. Louis's unique boundaries and separation from the County, the statistics are skewed.
St. Louis City which the stats are for, cover just the city core- about a 66 square mile area. It doesn't include any of the 'suburbs'. When St. Louis County and other parts of the metro are taken into consideration, the population is 2.8 million.
I'm not saying St. Louis does not have a crime problem- of course there is a crime- but once you take the entire metro population into consideration, the overall crime rate really isn't too bad.
How is the comparison flawed?? The comparisons is for two similarly sized (in terms of population) cities. Its not taking into account surrounding/outlying areas or the metropolitan areas. Or am I missing something?
Lincoln is a very clean little city. I went there once. However, it didn't feel energized, or inspiring. It is hard to put my finger on. I didn't dislike it, and wouldn't bash it...
How is the comparison flawed?? The comparisons is for two similarly sized (in terms of population) cities. Its not taking into account surrounding/outlying areas or the metropolitan areas. Or am I missing something?
It is flawed because let’s say both areas have the same amount of crime. One area, Saint Louis literally has all its poor areas in the city and East Saint Louis with a few struggling burbs to the north. Now compare that to Lincoln which might even have a suburb or town in its metro were the majority or a large portion of criminals live, then two similar areas are at the same level.
This is especially true when we compare Saint Louis to Brazilian cities. More than half of Brazil’s 40 or so biggest cities are safer than Saint Louis (murder wise). If you compare metro to metro only 2 or three are safer than Saint Louis.
Saint Louis being a murderous city, this has been going on for decades. St. Louis' population peaked at 856,796 people in 1950. As of 2016 there are 311,404 people. St. Louis has been in severe decline since the 1950s.
How is the comparison flawed?? The comparisons is for two similarly sized (in terms of population) cities. Its not taking into account surrounding/outlying areas or the metropolitan areas. Or am I missing something?
St. Louis City legally separated from the County in 1876.
The St. Louis City limits were then 'set in stone' as it were - so unlike other cities (Lincoln included) that have been able to grow and annex areas to include suburbs within their city limits, St. Louis City has not been able to do the same.
So while St. Louis 'really' has a population of 2.8 million, the OP is comparing just the 314,000 population of the tiny city limits with Lincoln's MSA (which does include suburbs) of 302,000.
It isn't a fair comparison. Of course a metro with 2.8 million is going to have more homicides than one with only 302,000.
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