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I've always lived in a low-crime area...I have no experience with crime, really. But I'm sick of winters and thinking of moving away for college. The thing is that when I read about crime rates I get very alarmed and I have no idea what constitutes a high crime rate or not. I know that there is a U.S. average but since it also includes small towns I don't feel it's as accurate for cities and BIG cities. So, what would YOU consider a high violent crime rate? Per 100,000 residents? Is a murder rate of, say, 20 per 100k high? I live in a city of 100k where there is usually around 1 murder per year...
I've always lived in a low-crime area...I have no experience with crime, really. But I'm sick of winters and thinking of moving away for college. The thing is that when I read about crime rates I get very alarmed and I have no idea what constitutes a high crime rate or not. I know that there is a U.S. average but since it also includes small towns I don't feel it's as accurate for cities and BIG cities. So, what would YOU consider a high violent crime rate? Per 100,000 residents? Is a murder rate of, say, 20 per 100k high? I live in a city of 100k where there is usually around 1 murder per year...
The following might give you some sense of average for larger places. True there might be under-reporting in some places, but it should be okay as your looking for average rather than making a statement on a specific city.
Of course it only gives raw numbers so you might need a calculator to figure the rate per 100K. Going by that murder rates in large cities look roughly the same as the national average. Possibly more like 6 per 100K than 5, but pretty average if I read it right. However I don't see many large cities with murder rates under 2 per 100K or at least not much under that. Rates of rape seem to be 15-20 per 100K, again if I'm reading it right and calculating it right.
So a "safe city", I'm hypothesizing, would have a murder rate under 4 per 100K and a rape rate under 15 per 100K. Cities with more than 8 homicides per 100K are "dangerous" I gather and the rest are in average range. Although in many to most cases cities vary by neighborhood with some affluent areas being quite low in violent crime.
That's a somewhat relaxed standard as I think Chicago and Miami would be moderate according to it.
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