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Everyone has forgotten Atlanta. Atlanta itself has had many murders this year and not just inside the city either. Look at some of the suburbs.
Actually, Atlanta MSA is ranked #100 out of 310, which isn't bad. San Diego MSA is ranked #130. San Diego proper is ranked one of the safest cities in the United States (at the opposite end of the rankings from Atlanta proper), but it's metro area is almost comparable with Atlanta's.
The reason why Atlanta proper has a high crime rate per capita is because less than 500,000 people live within the city limits, which is less than 10% of the entire metro Atlanta area of about 5.1 million people.
That list in general is surprising because you'll see some other metro areas where their central cities have a lot of crime, but their metro areas are safe, like Cincinnati or Tampa.
I get the impression that where you have a quickly-growing population, as in many metros in the South and the Southwest, there tends to be a lot of crime. In some of the older cities in the Northeast and Midwest, there are run-down, dangerous areas, but the crime rates in the entire metros would tend to be lower because many of the suburbs are established, stable communities, unlike many new cities with transient, shifting populations in the Sun Belt.
I agree. Many of the established cities have mostly affluent suburbs.
I found this study by ICD (funded by NIJ) to be of great interest. In case you don't want to read what it's about, I will give you a basic rundown.
Rather than just looking at raw data of homicides per capita, the ICD also took demographics into account. Here is what they say about their methodology:
Homrate = a + b1(Disadvan) + b2(Pop) + b3(Same Res) + b4(Divrate), where
Homrate = Homicides per 100,000 city residents (natural log)
Disadvan = A factor representing the level of social and economic disadvantage that combines five highly intercorrelated variables (factor loadings in parentheses): the poverty rate (.934), male unemployment rate (.888), % black (.839), % female-headed families w/own children under 18 (.928), and median family income (-.862) Pop = City population in 2000 Census (natural log) Same Res = % persons living in same residence 5 or more years Divrate = % persons age 15 and over divorced
As you can see, the demographics that often lead a city to have crime (sad about the African-American part though) are all taken into consideration. Anyway, here's a rundown of the rankings, followed by the full report (there are 67 cities ranked, I only list 10).
Most Homicides (with demographics taken into consideration):
01 - San Francisco (WTF?)
02 - Washington, D.C.
03 - New Orleans
04 - Baltimore
05 - Kansas City
06 - Denver
07 - Oakland
08 - Minneapolis
09 - Phoenix
10 - Dallas
It's rather reputable, but what do you all think of this?
I think it's a very interesting study, and a good attempt at isolating "abnormal" homicide rates, but central city populations were used instead of metro populations. That's why places like SF, DC or Minneapolis rank so high. We need to remember that the homicide rate is # of homicides divided by population. Thus by definition, cities that have increased their population through annexation, or that have nontrivial suburban subdivisions within city limits (San Antonio, Phoenix, Columbus OH, Charlotte) see their homicide rate go down because the population number includes a higher proportion of the metro area's safe neighborhoods.
Detroit and New Orleans are definitely both up there.
New Orleans is mostly not very pretty. My parents have lived there through 20 years (including Katrina) of bad politics, broken city services, and ever-present crime, and although they love so much of the city, they have about had enough of the crime. Post-Katrina murders in particular are through the roof. It is a sad place. I visit there often, and support the city with my tourist dollars, but the truth is New Orleans is dying, and the criminal element is growing.
I cant believe Memphis hasnt been mentioned!? The metro isnt so bad but the city was just ranked 4th in crime in the nation last year. The South has the most dangerous and crime-ridden areas to me, but the sad part is they have the most character. You hear so much more about the culture and character of the South, but along with the history comes crime...depressing
I can't believe people in this thread complain about Detroit's suburbs. Have you been to them? Besides Pontiac, there all very safe. The city of Detroit and it's suburbs are two different entities BY FAR.
I found this study by ICD (funded by NIJ) to be of great interest. In case you don't want to read what it's about, I will give you a basic rundown.
Rather than just looking at raw data of homicides per capita, the ICD also took demographics into account. Here is what they say about their methodology:
Homrate = a + b1(Disadvan) + b2(Pop) + b3(Same Res) + b4(Divrate), where
Homrate = Homicides per 100,000 city residents (natural log)
Disadvan = A factor representing the level of social and economic disadvantage that combines five highly intercorrelated variables (factor loadings in parentheses): the poverty rate (.934), male unemployment rate (.888), % black (.839), % female-headed families w/own children under 18 (.928), and median family income (-.862) Pop = City population in 2000 Census (natural log) Same Res = % persons living in same residence 5 or more years Divrate = % persons age 15 and over divorced
As you can see, the demographics that often lead a city to have crime (sad about the African-American part though) are all taken into consideration. Anyway, here's a rundown of the rankings, followed by the full report (there are 67 cities ranked, I only list 10).
Most Homicides (with demographics taken into consideration):
01 - San Francisco (WTF?)
02 - Washington, D.C.
03 - New Orleans
04 - Baltimore
05 - Kansas City
06 - Denver
07 - Oakland
08 - Minneapolis
09 - Phoenix
10 - Dallas
It's rather reputable, but what do you all think of this?
Kansas City is often seen as safe and St. Louis as more dangerous, but it was more dangerous than St. Louis in Morgan Quitno's most dangerous metros list.
They have 2 numbers for Detroit. How is "greater" defined?
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I concur
