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I wanna touch on murder rate, I think it being based on population is kinda overrated. Of course more people gonna mean more murders but I don't think the smaller cities like Gary or Flint is more dangerous than a Brooklyn or Houston because every city has good and bad parts & the smaller cities are more likely to have more bad area's than the bigger cities.
A better comparison is to see how bad neighborhoods match up with each other.
I wanna touch on murder rate, I think it being based on population is kinda overrated. Of course more people gonna mean more murders but I don't think the smaller cities like Gary or Flint is more dangerous than a Brooklyn or Houston because every city has good and bad parts & the smaller cities are more likely to have more bad area's than the bigger cities.
A better comparison is to see how bad neighborhoods match up with each other.
The "small city" murder rate distortions actually only really applies to very small places. Say a town of 1000 people has five people murdered in a single freak incident. Then it would have a sky-high homicide rate per 100,000 for that year.
But places like Flint and Gary are large enough with tens of thousands of people, for murder rates of 40 or 50 per 100,000 to be legitimately alarming.
My city has about 285,000 people and the built up area where most everyone lives is about 75 sq mi. So similar to St. Louis. Another part within the city limits is largely unpopulated.
I know many Americans have avoiding bad areas of cities down to a science, but still just thinking about the amount of murders one sees in St. Louis (250?) and the geography of a city of that size (I live in one)... even if you live in a really nice area and you avoid all the bad ones, at least several of those are going to be too close for comfort.
The "small city" murder rate distortions actually only really applies to very small places. Say a town of 1000 people has five people murdered in a single freak incident. Then it would have a sky-high homicide rate per 100,000 for that year.
But places like Flint and Gary are large enough with tens of thousands of people, for murder rates of 40 or 50 per 100,000 to be legitimately alarming.
My city has about 285,000 people and the built up area where most everyone lives is about 75 sq mi. So similar to St. Louis. Another part within the city limits is largely unpopulated.
I know many Americans have avoiding bad areas of cities down to a science, but still just thinking about the amount of murders one sees in St. Louis (250?) and the geography of a city of that size (I live in one)... even if you live in a really nice area and you avoid all the bad ones, at least several of those are going to be too close for comfort.
I absolutely agree, St Louis and New Orleans have always had high murder rates throughout history. It's a generational process in certain areas.
But I still think the core of what makes a city dangerous is the number of run down neighborhoods and the poor education system.
In a city like New York or Los Angeles, one can walk outside and take the subway next to a millionaire or visit the Hollywood walk of fame and than literally 15 minutes away it's nothing but liquor stores and project's in the areas where blacks and hispanics occupy. It's segregation in every city due to what I call a broken system that was built on racism.
I wanna touch on murder rate, I think it being based on population is kinda overrated. Of course more people gonna mean more murders but I don't think the smaller cities like Gary or Flint is more dangerous than a Brooklyn or Houston because every city has good and bad parts & the smaller cities are more likely to have more bad area's than the bigger cities.
A better comparison is to see how bad neighborhoods match up with each other.
Perhaps for some smallish large cities but generally i doubt it.
Flint is at 45 homicides this year according to Flint police: link. This is an increase of 7% over the same period last year. I would have expected the number to be lower compared to last year because of the lockdowns and people staying inside but apparently not.
The "small city" murder rate distortions actually only really applies to very small places. Say a town of 1000 people has five people murdered in a single freak incident. Then it would have a sky-high homicide rate per 100,000 for that year.
But places like Flint and Gary are large enough with tens of thousands of people, for murder rates of 40 or 50 per 100,000 to be legitimately alarming.
My city has about 285,000 people and the built up area where most everyone lives is about 75 sq mi. So similar to St. Louis. Another part within the city limits is largely unpopulated.
I know many Americans have avoiding bad areas of cities down to a science, but still just thinking about the amount of murders one sees in St. Louis (250?) and the geography of a city of that size (I live in one)... even if you live in a really nice area and you avoid all the bad ones, at least several of those are going to be too close for comfort.
St. Louis is both large and small enough to have areas that are safe bubbles, while those same areas do run the high risk of some "spill", considering the city's very high murder rate. This is true for even cities with much lower murder rates.( Overall violent crime rates still could be on the higher end though.)
In St. Louis city, there are currently 21( out of 79) neighborhoods that are homicide-free; of which, 11 are south and 10 are central.
13 homicides over the last 2 weeks. LA through 10/24:
2020- 268
2019- 217
2018- 206
LAPD finally released an update yesterday. Usually they release numbers every Tues, but they skipped Election Day and then didn't release numbers until Friday this week. Numbers through Saturday, 11/7/20:
LAPD finally released an update yesterday. Usually they release numbers every Tues, but they skipped Election Day and then didn't release numbers until Friday this week. Numbers through Saturday, 11/7/20:
2020- 285
2019- 228
2018- 219
LA is going to end up over 300 for the year.
Murder is up in alot of big cities this year. Chicago will hit 700. NY already hit 400. LA approaching 300. Dallas passed 200. Houston approaching 400. Philly passing 400. Interesting.
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