What city (besides Chicago) would benefit/prosper the most from getting its crime under control (map, place)
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I disagree completely. Through a process of elimination:
Eliminate: Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee: No rustbelt city should be on this list. The problems they face(d) are far beyond crime rates and that's not what is holding them back. These places need to reinvent themselves entirely. Lower crime doesn't cancel out decades of disinvestment. Atlanta, DC, and Philly: already prosperous even if they do have areas of significant poverty. Really don't see them getting more prosperous. DC is arguably the 2nd wealthiest region per capita and one of the wealthiest major cities in the country. Not even sure why that's an option. Memphis, Birmingham, New Orleans, Hartford: Economic doldrums. Need a kickstart or major investment, otherwise they simply don't have the ecosystems and critical industry mass to compete with other cities in their respective region. Memphis does have a thing going w/ logistics...
Contenders: Indianapolis, Kansas City: These cities already have steady (and increasing) growth potential. I could see a major urban infill boom, especially in KC which has really good bones. I think these places are on the upward track regardless of crime, so I'm not sure it would make as much a difference.
Winner: Baltimore:How can it not be Baltimore? The region is impressively strong economically, the infrastructure and ecosystems are in place for it to prosper, but yet...people and businesses stay away because the crime is so high. If crime dropped in Baltimore, there would be a massive flood of newcomers and investment from regions they were priced out of. The unknown and potentially significant variable, however, is the city's corruption. But honestly, crime is a huge part of why the City of Baltimore languishes while the region continues to flourish.
I agree with your point that cities that have a lot more problems than crime, where growth is poor in the metro as a whole and not just the central city, probably aren't going to see a big boost just by reducing crime in the central city. So there are two ways that I can see that you can look at the OP's question, and while similar, they are not exactly the same:
1. Which central city does crime have the biggest negative impact on QOL?
2. In which central city is crime the main thing that holds back the city from booming crazily?
I think most people are answering question 1, but I think question 2 is the more interesting question.
Cities like DC, Philly, and Atlanta would probably see a lot of residential gentrification in the city proper if crime was well controlled, so I think they would see the biggest boost if their dangerous neighborhoods were made safe. Crime is the main thing holding those areas back, and the city as a whole would quickly change into a very different place.
It wasn't on the list, but Oakland should probably be in the conversation. It gentrified and grew its economy over the last 10-20 years quite a bit in spite of crime. If crime was better, the city would be completely transformed and booming.
Baltimore is interesting, and would certainly be improved with better crime, but economically, it's probably closer in growth to those Rust Belt cities than it is to Atlanta or DC, even with crime in check.
Philly is in a better position to benefit than Baltimore. Baltimore's location is a problem that isn't going away.
This obsession with location. They are both next door to substantially more prominent and expensive cities; that’s literally it. Everything else is grasping at straws because that comes down to local/regional politics which can, will and do change and has nothing to do with actual physical location of the city.
That being said, crime does not hinder Philly the way it does Baltimore and its not rocket science to understand why the poll reflects that.
In all seriousness there is nothing “bad” about Baltimore’s geographic location.
The issues stems from MD’s current political leadership and the state being notoriously difficult to start business in. NoVA in constraint might as well be Noah’s arc for business start ups which is why the vast majority of DC’s economic growth is on the VA side, not MD. This in turn allows DC to pull white collar jobs, business, economic resources/state funds from the Baltimore area which is even more exasperated because its the larger and more affluent of the two metros.
That being said.... because of DC’s absurd ascension to prominence people are now being priced out. Baltimore in turn is now getting an ever growing conveyer belt of new residents that were priced out of the district which raises its own tax base and stabilizes its population loss (Think NYC-Philly on a smaller scale). The federal government (and its plethora of contracting agency) being scattered through the entire area and it’s port being one of the fastest growing in the county has also enabled the Baltimore’s GDP to grow at a faster relative rate the the DC’s.
Baltimore has its own issues it needs to iron out for sure (crime, property taxes, corruption), but the state plays a massive roll in shooting the city in the foot.
Granted the few times I did explore Philadelphia were:
1. A very very cold November Sunday day that I flew up from Orlando at 7am, explored the city and left at 8pm.
2. One day in the summer of 2019 but it was raining.
3. One day in the summer of 2020. (May) but in the heart of COVID righhht after the start of George Floyd protests. Also cloudy and boarded up.
I mean, maybe my visits to Philadelphia have literally just ALL been terrible timing. Because it seems that way. Funny enough too, when I went to ACY, Wildwood and Cape May.. rained the whole three days in the summer of 2018 that I went. Every day around it was good weather.
Someone literally does not want me to see Philadelphia and metro Philly when it is nice out.
Again I technically live in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area (I think?) so I need to explore more on good weather weekends. idk why i dont.
Tell me what New Jersey county you live in and I'll tell you whether you're in the Philadelphia MSA/CSA or not.
Booby trap: If that county is Mercer (Trenton/Princeton), most of the media cues and many of the businesses will suggest to you that you are, but you are not.
Mercer County is its own MSA (Trenton). It had been in the Philadelphia CSA until the early 1990s, when the Office of Management and Budget (which maintains the official Federal government list of "core-based statistical areas") moved it into the New York CSA. But all the media ratings agencies still place it in the Philadelphia DMA (designated market area).
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD
Yeah, but its poor people on poor people crime. I can walk around Center City in Philly without worrying about getting mugged. Walking through the homeless people lair under the convention center is pretty nasty but I've done that by mistake and not had any issue. Baltimore Inner Harbor is the same. It is a separate police district where everyone pays extra for more policing.
My life experience with cities is if you're not in a gang, buying drugs, or buying hookers, your odds of violent crime are near zero. Property crime is a totally different story. I'm not going to leave any visible valuable in my car in most cities. I wouldn't leave a bicycle unattended without a really beefy lock. My leafy suburban town has Mall Hell that replaced the downtown shopping area in the 1970s. My town has a fairly high crime rate due to the property crime at the Mall and the big box stores. Generally shoplifting and breaking into cars. I don't lock my doors or my garage. I have no property crime issue at all despite a fairly high crime rate for the town.
Lucky you.
Regarding the concourses, I walked through the encampments in the Locust Street PATCO concourse on numerous occasions prior to (I presume) SEPTA having the gates between it and the South Broad concourse closed. My impression was that the campers actually did a very good job of keeping the concourse clean, and they certainly didn't pose a problem to me as I was walking through the space. I imagine, though, that some PATCO riders feel nervous negotiating the camps above 12th/13th and 15th/16th and Locust stations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SEAandATL
I picked Atlanta since I'm familiar with it, and I feel like the two things holding it back from reaching its full potential are the traffic/lack of transportation options and the crime. Maybe it is already fairly prosperous despite those issues and not as blighted compared to Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, etc. hence why cities like those are better choices for this particular poll.
Lack of transportation options?
That, to me, is rather damning, either to MARTA or to you, and I can't figure out which. Atlanta has the most extensive rapid transit system in the South and a pretty dense bus network too. I do know, however, that the system could serve more of the area better if some of the suburban counties dropped their resistance to having MARTA rail lines enter them. I also look forward to the development of the Beltline light rail loop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KodeBlue
No, it is not. It's a hinderance. If going by that logic, Newark, NJ would prosper far more than Baltimore. Its location already makes it a much better city than Baltimore.
Newark's location actually works against it as a metropolitan center.
It's even closer to New York than Baltimore is to Washington, and as a result, its transportation facilities and civic institutions all either get overshadowed by or are actually run by New York-centric counterparts (save for the local transit system, which is run by a state agency similar to the Maryland Transit Administration).
Were Newark located on the Delaware rather than the Passaic, it would be regarded as a metropolitan center in its own right.
But I do think Newark gets an undeserved bum rap.
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