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Wouldn't St. Paul also be considered a "core city" for the Twin Cities?
Good point- but the same could be said of many other metropolitan areas that include two or more major cities. Basically it's crime stats of the largest core cities residing within one of the 32 largest metro areas.
Somewhat.. But rates put everything on an even scale. So I find rates more useful. I can realistically compare crime. Here, I can see stats, but of course the larger cities are going to have more in pure numbers -- they have a larger population.
But in real life, not all of the cities are at the same scale, so i see no point in rates. Raw numbers i feel are more realistic. That's just me though. I mean its always interesting (rates), but not very useful imo.
But in real life, not all of the cities are at the same scale, so i see no point in rates. Raw numbers i feel are more realistic. That's just me though. I mean its always interesting (rates), but not very useful imo.
Rates tell you the chances of crime occurring, raw numbers do not. Rates are much more useful than raw numbers in showing the likelihood of crime occurring. Raw numbers are very misleading, looking at raw numbers you'd think NYC would be them most dangerous when it's actually one of the safest.
It would be a lot more interesting if they used rates. The sheer numbers are interesting to see the scale of the numbers, but you can't really compare any cities.
The first thing you do is start looking at how many crimes are being done given the size of the city in population.
The sheer numbers just aren't as useful in a list like this. They don't really give any indication of how things are on the ground.
You could have a city of 8,000,000 with 100 crimes, or you could have a city of 800,000 with 108 crimes. If you just look at the numbers, it looks like they're pretty similar places. Then you see the fact one has TEN TIMES as many people and it's a whole new story.
Otherwise I could sit here and say that given the numbers, the murder problems in Detroit and Houston is almost exactly the same, and that Houston has a much bigger problem with murder than Baltimore. Obviously people wouldn't think this rationally - because of the size differences.
Rates tell you the chances of crime occurring, raw numbers do not. Rates are much more useful than raw numbers in showing the likelihood of crime occurring. Raw numbers are very misleading, looking at raw numbers you'd think NYC would be them most dangerous when it's actually one of the safest.
I don't agree with all of what you've said. But we'll just end it at the fact that i disagree, and that's that.
I always have been interested as well if there is any way of showing how distributed crime is in an area. Basically measuring how much of an area contributes say 50% and 90% of an area's total crime, some places it could be 10% of the area contributes at least half of the overall crime. It would give an idea of how safe an average location is as well.
But in real life, not all of the cities are at the same scale, so i see no point in rates. Raw numbers i feel are more realistic. That's just me though. I mean its always interesting (rates), but not very useful imo.
To sum up why I like rates, look below. Rates DO show you the chances of crime occurring. Like sav stated, by raw numbers NYC would be the most dangerous, when in reality it's one of the safest big cities in the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sav858
Rates tell you the chances of crime occurring, raw numbers do not. Rates are much more useful than raw numbers in showing the likelihood of crime occurring. Raw numbers are very misleading, looking at raw numbers you'd think NYC would be them most dangerous when it's actually one of the safest.
I don't agree with all of what you've said. But we'll just end it at the fact that i disagree, and that's that.
Crime rate = probability that you will be a victim of crime. A city of 50 million may have 600 murders, ahead of NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, but does that mean the city of 50 million is more dangerous than NYC, LA and Chicago?
That theoretical city would perhaps be the safest city in the world.
If we go by raw numbers, NYC is one of the most dangerous city in the United States, ahead of Newark, Oakland, Camden and Detroit.
But it isn't, it's the safest according to the FBI
I created a random project for myself in response to a MN thread that I thought I would post/share on the US General Forums.
Using published census data (core city and MSA population) and 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Reports, I created the attached tables ranking the various Part 1 Crimes (highest to lowest) in the largest 32 metro areas in the US (you can get pretty much the same information on link above for core cities with population greater than 250K, but this just shows the data in relation to metro size of the largest 32 cities).
*Note:All rates are based on "cases per 100,000" and all crime stats/ rankings relate to crimes that occurred in CORE CITIES only (the MSA population is listed solely to designate the city as part of one of the largest 32 metropolitan areas). The first attachment has nothing to do with crime and is solely to show rank of metropolitan area size.
**Also Note: There are several ocassions where a city didn't report one of the Part 1 crimes- when this is the case these cities are listed at the bottom (and thus are ranked last but should be listed as n/a).
I was surprised by a few on here- who knew Riverside, CA ranked so low- crime?
I checked out a couple of those charts && seen that the LV metro had more violent crime than the NYC metro (in RAW numbers). Somethin' can't be right with this.
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