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Would you rather have crime in your city that is extremley bad but concetrated mainly in one area and the rest of the city is mostly safe, or crime that is evenly dispersed throughout your city but is not as as bad?
In 2006, roughly 75% of the murders were in neighborhoods with 25% of the people. 25% of the murders were in the areas of the city with 75% of the people.
Average murder rate for 75% of the city: 5.06/100,000
Average murder rate for 25% of the city: 45.9/100,000
I think it's a huge reason we still have such a problem. It's kinda shoved to the west and areas on the south side of the city. It's sad and certainly not right, but it kinda explains the issue as it is in reality.
The areas from downtown up through the north lakefront have around 800,000 people, and just a small handful of murders per year. Watch someone get killed in Lincoln Park and every news media in the city is out there interviewing paniced people and there's all this "outrage". Then have 3 people be found dead in a garage on 79th Street and it's stuffed away on page 3 of the paper.
Would you rather have crime in your city that is extremley bad but concetrated mainly in one area and the rest of the city is mostly safe, or crime that is evenly dispersed throughout your city but is not as as bad?
Concentrated crime.
Emergency response would have to be excellent too.
Evenly dispersed. Would force politicians to address it instead of trying to get everyone to ignore it and giving all the resources to the rich white gentrifying areas.
My selfish answer is that I'd rather have it concentrated, because it would be easier for me to avoid it. But it would truly stink if you were stuck in the area with the concentrated crime.
If it's more spread out, even if the likelihood of serious crime is lower (as per the OP saying that the spread-out crime is overall less serious), your odds of being the victim of some kind of crime are greater. And there's certainly a correlation between crime and quality of life, so if it were more dispersed, that would probably mean that the overall quality of life would be lower than it would if the crime were concentrated.
I would rather have it concentrated in one area. It's easier to avoid that way.
Agreed on a personal level for exactly that reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars
Evenly dispersed. Would force politicians to address it instead of trying to get everyone to ignore it and giving all the resources to the rich white gentrifying areas.
Agreed on a practical level because I see that in my area.
My home town has 40% of violent crimes in 4 zip codes. The metro area contains 24 zip codes, so the vast majority of the are is safe. Practical side of that is its very difficult to get public safety initiatives passed unless the crimes creep into more affluent neighborhoods. It also tends to show higher than average crime rates which always leads to extended discussions about the why when someone is considering moving here and joins CD to inquire.
I would rather have it concentrated in one area. It's easier to avoid that way.
Over the past 20 years crime violent crime in American cities has become more dispersed. It's all tied to a change in federal policy over Section 8 housing. Long ago crime was usually concentrated only in one area of a city, "the projects." About 25 years ago a group of Section 8 tenants sued HUD, creating the voucher system. After HUD started the voucher system, allowing poor people to move practically anywhere in a city, they imported violent crime from the ghetto and into the suburbs of most American cities.
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