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I think it is stunning to compare Western areas to the Midwest and South.
Orange County, California in 2015 for instance had 57 homicides for the entire year with a population of 3.2 million people. Cities in the Midwest like Louisville, St. Louis and Detroit with far smaller populations have already far surpassed that this year and it is barely June.
Birmingham, Alabama with just over 200,000 people has already surpassed the total of all of the 2 million person San Jose metro area in 2015.
Why do Western cities have such low homicide rates as opposed to Midwestern and Southern cities.
Even the highest-homicide rate major cities in the West like Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Phoenix have rates of around 10 per 100,000 people.
Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles tend to have about 7 per 100,000 residents per year.
Then there ones like Seattle, Portland, San Diego that have rates around 2 per 100,000 residents in a good year.
The only exceptions to this seem to be San Bernadino and sometimes Oakland but even that Oakland for instance has lower homicide rates than Des Moines.
There really isn't anything like Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Birmingham, Jackson, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and the list goes on and on.
Anaheim and Riverside for instance which are considered rough in California tend to have about as homicides over the course of a year as St. Louis has during a bad week.
Last edited by lovecrowds; 06-18-2017 at 03:12 PM..
Because they're newer cities where the American pattern of trash a neighborhood through letting it decay and moving into newer neighborhoods hasn't hit the repeat cycle enough...i.e modern day suburban sprawl. Also the cities mentioned out West did not experience the massive "white flight" from city centers like cities in the East and Midwest. While many city neighborhoods have recovered from that, many have not.
Because they're newer cities where the American pattern of trash a neighborhood through letting it decay and moving into newer neighborhoods hasn't hit the repeat cycle enough...i.e modern day suburban sprawl. Also the cities mentioned out West did not experience the massive "white flight" from city centers like cities in the East and Midwest. While many city neighborhoods have recovered from that, many have not.
And, many newer western and southern cities are MASSIVE geographically whereas many midwestern and eastern cities are hemmed in by burbs. So if poverty is concentrated in a smaller city the prevekamce numbers skyrocket.
A lof of Western cities, like LA, SF, Oakland (really just the California cities) use to be way worse though. I think some of the bad element got exported out of the state, in addition to spreading to smaller Western cities.
I think it is stunning to compare Western areas to the Midwest and South.
Orange County, California in 2015 for instance had 57 homicides for the entire year with a population of 3.2 million people. Cities in the Midwest like Louisville, St. Louis and Detroit with far smaller populations have already far surpassed that this year and it is barely June.
Birmingham, Alabama with just over 200,000 people has already surpassed the total of all of the 2 million person San Jose metro area in 2015.
Why do Western cities have such low homicide rates as opposed to Midwestern and Southern cities.
Even the highest-homicide rate major cities in the West like Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Phoenix have rates of around 10 per 100,000 people.
Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles tend to have about 7 per 100,000 residents per year.
Then there ones like Seattle, Portland, San Diego that have rates around 2 per 100,000 residents in a good year.
The only exceptions to this seem to be San Bernadino and sometimes Oakland but even that Oakland for instance has lower homicide rates than Des Moines.
There really isn't anything like Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Birmingham, Jackson, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and the list goes on and on.
Anaheim and Riverside for instance which are considered rough in California tend to have about as homicides over the course of a year as St. Louis has during a bad week.
Being from Louisville, I can tell you first hand that literally almost ALL the homicides & violent crime is contained to one area. That area would the West/South End. If you're any of the other major areas, you will likely not see/experience any major problems.
San Francisco is it's own place, but literally across the bridge, you have multiple TERRIBLE cities with a lot of major crime. Oakland, Richmond, Vallejo, just to name a few.
Expanding on some of the points that have been made already, one of the reasons why the murder rates SEEM low in the west is due to (a) the geographic space between neighboring cities, and (b) the relatively close nature that lurks nearby.
What I mean to say is this: it is very easy to hide a body out in these parts and that body could remain not found for a long time. And because people "disappear" all of the time, those numbers may not appear in murder tallies but they are almost certainly murders in some situations.
In the above instance, though it pains me to say it, this child is almost certainly deceased and there's a good chance he died in a city that has (a) low "stated" crime and (b) a median household income above $100k.
The better answer is the Western cities are growing and increasing population, while the Midwestern and Southern cities you mention are mostly all continuing to lose population due to deindustrialization, and those who are left are mainly those too poor to leave (poverty and crime go hand-in-hand) outside of a couple gentrifying neighborhoods.
The better answer is the Western cities are growing and increasing population, while the Midwestern and Southern cities you mention are mostly all continuing to lose population due to deindustrialization, and those who are left are mainly those too poor to leave (poverty and crime go hand-in-hand) outside of a couple gentrifying neighborhoods.
Detroit is in the midst of a massive economic boom in it's downtown area/surrounding neighborhoods that is going to pay dividends in the coming years to the rest of the city. St. Louis's population decline has reversed and is in the plus category for the first time in decades. Baltimore the city has lost population but much of it has gone to the metro area suburbs surrounding it and certainly isn't due to deindustrialization, rather crime and blight which history has shown is typically cyclical. Indianapolis is on the plus side in population growth and is arguably on the upswing in terms of economy. Cleveland like St Louis has stemmed the loss of population and likely will continue to grow like other "Rust Belt" cities due to rising costs of living in the cities currently booming. Birmingham is shrinking despite it's downtown resurgence unfortunately. Jackson suffers much like Baltimore in terms of socio-economic conditions and while the city has lost population the suburbs have gained. New Orleans had gained considerably in population since 2010 and currently shows a slight population loss (-.02%) and at flatline growth certainly not alarming, Tulsa doesn't appear to be hurting and is still experiencing an average US growth rate of around 1%. Oklahoma City grew double digits through 2015 but has slowed since, but no where near dire circumstances.
The point being it's not as dire as some think, plus economic vitality and population growth isn't consistent over time and when the unsustainable growth catches up to many of the cities currently booming, population numbers will adjust accordingly.
Last edited by kyle19125; 06-19-2017 at 07:34 AM..
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