St. Louis: Most Dangerous City in the Nation (Columbia, Oakland: how much, house)

[Danilo-11]

Good points,
and is true that all hispanics are not the same, hispanics comprise more than 20 nationalities, some come from very poor countries and some from very rich countries.
Some were extremely poor and had no education before coming to the US, and some others (usually South American since they can't just walk to the US) have bachelors, masters or Phd's before moving to the US.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Milliano

NYC lies big time about their crime statistics. They routinely downgrade or not report crimes, to keep the rates down, because the rate is so important for their image.
But there is a point about the Hispanic thing - Hispanics are such a broad aspect of the US population. From very high crime, poor Puerto Ricans, to very low crime, wealthy educated Mexicans. Cities like Houston have much different from usual Hispanic populations, in that they've been around for so long, typically got and stayed here legally, and many of them consist of highly skilled laborers. As always been the case, not just in the USA, highly skilled immigrants tend to have lower crime rates than the native population. Highly educated people in general have much lower crime rates.
There's no real proof that blacks are poor because of racism, but whatever. There are plenty of smart blacks out there who grew up in some of the most impoverished places in the country, yet got an education, worked hard, took care of themselves and their families, didn't commit crimes .... and generally then moved to the suburbs LOL. Inner cities have wealthy black neighborhoods too that are safe but usually in the USA inner city black neighborhoods consist of the people that "have not left yet" compared to all the other blacks that were able to leave and better themselves in the face of this supposed racism these places tend to have very high crime rates. These neighborhoods have actually gotten worse since the civil rights era (since the smarter blacks have been allowed to leave them), even though African American life as a whole has gotten way better.

In terms of things like income, crime rates, etc... guess which immigrant group in America is one of the best? Nigerians! Yes those black people, who have to face such supposed terrible racism, and have only just come from Africa, somehow manage to do way better than white Americans. Hmm.
I wonder why Asian people do so well in the USA too? Why aren't their crime rates high? You know Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps just 60 years ago. Whites were just as racist to groups like the Chinese as they were to Black people, if not more. But Chinese Americans don't live in poverty like this.

If you are comparing the Chinese American experience to the Black American experience you are seriously lost. Blacks have not only been here longer than the Chinese they are also 30x as many Blacks in America than Chinese. Despite building the railroads Chinese have had little to know impact on American society compared to what Blacks have done (i.e. free labor that was the best of a lot of America's early development) for America and therefore are not as much a factor in American politics, race relations etc. etc.

[kermit_the_frog1978]

There's alot of great analysis here about the skewing of crime statistics in St. Louis. You'll also hear fools say the reason crime is so high in St. Louis is because it's including East St. Louis--an admittedly dangerous place. East St. Louis is NOT factored into crime reporting in the city St. Louis--it's in Illinois for God's sake.

[aragx6]

When do the new rankings come out?

[Juice13610]

I can't STAND that kermit_the_frog. "Oh yeah, I can see why St. Louis would be on there...I've heard about the horror stories in EAST ST. LOUIS!"

"Oh, really, idiot? Because it's in a different "state."

[thompson84606]

Ok here's a very crude attempt to put the St. Louis city/county idea into practice. St. Louis city as reported by the FBI in 2006 had roughly 8600 violent crimes with a population of close to 350k. If you subtract this from the total metro population and crime totals and find the crime rate for the rest of the STL metro the number is 293. If you use this crime rate to calculate the number of crimes in St. Louis county with a population of 1050000 there would be an additional 3100 crimes for the county. Add the population and crime totals together and you get 11700 violent crimes within a population of 1.4 million. This leaves you with a crime rate of 835 for the combined area, and a comparable rate to any of the safer large cities in the country. These are rough numbers but decently accurate.

[aragx6]

Thanks for doing that detective work/math. VERY informative!

[TNRyan23]

Originally Posted by LeavingFlorida05

It doesn't matter if you live in downtown Miami or in LaBelle, you're a potential victim.

I once lived in LaBelle...

[Sleeping in Skyscrapers]

I just want to say I've always loved St. Louis and I'm not afraid to admit it.
[SIZE=3]I am probably one of the very few, if not the only St. Louisan that stands up for the place. Many St. Louisans take a lot of flack and its ushaully replied to with a shrug of the shoulders and a "what can you do?" I've even seen T-shirts and heard of St. Louisans bragging about their #1 murder capital of the US status - its pathetic and very sad. But the tides are beginning to turn. T[/SIZE][SIZE=3]he same old "Lou" that has been verbally battered for decades by other cities throughout the country is finally trying to "catch up" to other cities and I believe just a little credit is due. [/SIZE]


[SIZE=3]Of course you need to go there to fully understand it, but believe it or not St. Louis has a lot to offer: a cultural history that rivals any midwestern city; interesting neighborhooods such as Soulard, The Hill, Clayton, Central West End, Dog Town, and South Grand just to name a few; and check out the Wayout club or City Museum and then try to claim St. Louis is "too normal". St. Louis has an incredible (free) Zoo - and Botanical Gardens ranked amoung the best in the US. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]The downtown of St. Louis is re-developing at an incredible pace - God forbid I say it but - its beginning to look like a (very) young and distant cousin of the West Village or Chelsea with restaurants, lofts, and art galleries lining the streets. And for those of you that think everyone still lines the streets bible beating in St. Louis, believe it or not, St. Louis even has (slowly) growing gay/lesbian areas in different spots throughout the city. No, there are not nearly as many multi-cultural restaurants as Manhattan, but there are many and the number is growing. Lets admit. Outside of a very rich history, and spots of truely amazing architecture (and the Eads bridge - my fav) its difficult to compare St. Louis to "global" cities such as Chicago and New York City because of their massive size. But, St. Louis does have a lot to offer and people should know about those aspects - in my opinion.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]A recent Forbes article ranked St. Louis as #14 for young professionals. To quote the article "A very high share of the best 400 big businesses and best 200 small businesses call St. Louis home. In that measure, it ranked sixth. In attracting the cream of the graduate crop, it clocked in at 16th. The never-married population was good for 24th, and salary to cost of living hovers right around the national mean."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Ok.. I'll take a breath. Now, getting to the point of this forum. The crime statisitcs are one of the biggest problems facing St. Louis - and I place blame on the St. Louis government. The decision to NOT include all of the great surrounding areas (ex: Clayton, U. City, etc) as part of St. Louis city was a horrible decision and will continue to haunt St. Louis until this decision is overturned. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]Granted, St. Louis does have other problems, some beyond its control (i.e. East St. Louis) but St. Louis will never become a great city because it stacked the cards against itself! Noone will want to move there simply becuase people in other parts of the country that might consider moving there have a (false) conception of the entire city and surrounding areas as horrible- crime ridden places to live beause of these horribly over-inflated crime statistics. Therefore, good and decent people or anyone for that matter choose other cities to move and miss out on all of the great things my city has to offer. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Check out Downtown St. Louis Partnership - Home for (God forbid) an optomistic view of St. Louis City.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]Thanks for your time.[/SIZE]
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[aragx6]

I have a headache