The urbanist's favorite suburb, Ballwin, comes out against city/county merger..... (Oakland: most dangerous, statistics)

[STLCityMike]

I don't think of this as smoke and mirror or slide of hand. Rather, I see this as a way to report crime like most of the otehr 300+ metro areas do - as a county. St. Louis is among the very few where the city is it's own county. Example, Chicago crime stats are for Cook County - which is Chicago and various suburban municipalities. The city entering the county would mean we report crime stats for a a consolidated St. Louis County.

My fear - politicians recognize conslidation comes with efficiencies. Politicians fear their government jobs. It makes sense that our area act as one in an increasing competitive market. I propose the question be how does it help Ballwin?

Yes - the city and also work within itself to promote positive change, but in doing so that also benefits the metro area. SO - why can't the metro area, which would benefit, also try and help??

[Dawn10am]

No. Most crime statistics are NOT reported at the county level. They are for the municipal level. The crime statistics for Memphis are for the city of Memphis only, not Shelby County as a whole. The statistics for Kansas City are for Kansas City only, not Jackson county as a whole. The statistics for St. Louis City are calculated for St. Louis City as a municipality, not as its own county.

[marigolds6]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

No. Most crime statistics are NOT reported at the county level. They are for the municipal level. The crime statistics for Memphis are for the city of Memphis only, not Shelby County as a whole. The statistics for Kansas City are for Kansas City only, not Jackson county as a whole. The statistics for St. Louis City are calculated for St. Louis City as a municipality, not as its own county.

Um, actually, all crime stats are reported at the county level for UCR. Most cities opt to report separately from their counties, but many do not.

Go here and run any query you want:
UCR Page
You will see that 393 of the 1011 jurisdictions do not report. Of those 393, 1 is St Louis County Park Rangers (they report with the county police), 4 are colleges, and the rest are city police. That's less than 70% coverage for cities, and 100% coverage for counties in Missouri.

UCR is voluntary; as we have seen, Illinois and Minnesota have both chosen not to do standard reporting for any of their cities, and many believe this is precisely to keep those cities out of dangerous city rankings. But not reporting means given up funding, and reporting with your county is a way around that for other potential "dangerous" cities in the country. Sneaky and underhanded, yet people rarely call out the other metro cities who do this right now.

[Dawn10am]

Alright, so some cities can choose to report through the county level rather than the city level, but the mere fact of St. Louis City becoming a municipality in St. Louis County would not change the statistics by itself. The city would have to choose to only report through the County. Some of the posters on here make it sound like that would be automatic.

But what I was getting at is that, at least for the "most dangerous city" rankings, the crime statistics used to compile those lists are from the municipal level, not the county level. If the media used the crime statistics from all of Wayne County, Detroit would never be at the top of the list again. The reason St. Louis shows up on those lists is because they are using crime statistics from St. Louis as a municipality, not because all of the other cities on the lists use county-level data.

[SouthCitySam]

Originally Posted by STLCityMike

The city entering the county would mean we report crime stats for a a consolidated St. Louis County.

I think people are smart enough not to be fooled by such things. And the problem I have with the strategy is that the city may feel inclined to not look at itself in an honest way and actually fix the crime problem. How the crime statistics are reported doesn't magically make the crime go away.

[OuttaTheLouBurbs]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

No. Most crime statistics are NOT reported at the county level. They are for the municipal level. The crime statistics for Memphis are for the city of Memphis only, not Shelby County as a whole. The statistics for Kansas City are for Kansas City only, not Jackson county as a whole. The statistics for St. Louis City are calculated for St. Louis City as a municipality, not as its own county.

Kansas City: 319.03 sq mi

Memphis: 324.0 sq mi

St. Louis: 66.2 sq mi


Kansas City spans four counties. Memphis takes up the majority of one. They report the crime stats both of the inner city neighborhoods and of annexed suburban areas. Whereas St. Louis only reports the crime within the city boundaries. While cities don't report crime as a metro area, they certainly report a larger area coverage of their respective metro areas (including the safer areas) than St. Louis does.

[Dawn10am]

^ Yes, this is correct. The discrepancy for St. Louis comes from the fact that it doesn't cover as much ground nor does it include any annexed suburban areas, NOT that other cities use county-level crime stats and we don't.

[marigolds6]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

Alright, so some cities can choose to report through the county level rather than the city level, but the mere fact of St. Louis City becoming a municipality in St. Louis County would not change the statistics by itself. The city would have to choose to only report through the County. Some of the posters on here make it sound like that would be automatic.

But what I was getting at is that, at least for the "most dangerous city" rankings, the crime statistics used to compile those lists are from the municipal level, not the county level. If the media used the crime statistics from all of Wayne County, Detroit would never be at the top of the list again. The reason St. Louis shows up on those lists is because they are using crime statistics from St. Louis as a municipality, not because all of the other cities on the lists use county-level data.

I'm pretty sure the City would choose to report only through the County, since the City has already asked the FBI for permission to report with St Louis County instead of reporting as their own county.
St Louis would simply drop off those lists altogether, like many other cities, rather than dropping lower.

[STLCityMike]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

^ Yes, this is correct. The discrepancy for St. Louis comes from the fact that it doesn't cover as much ground nor does it include any annexed suburban areas, NOT that other cities use county-level crime stats and we don't.

St. Louis would NOT appear at the top of the most dangerous cities list if the statistics were pulled from a consolidated city / county, which would be an apples to apples comparison for the majority of the MSA's in our country.

[NewStLouisan]

Originally Posted by STLCityMike

St. Louis would NOT appear at the top of the most dangerous cities list if the statistics were pulled from a consolidated city / county, which would be an apples to apples comparison for the majority of the MSA's in our country.

Yeah but neither would Chicago (Cook County) or Oakland (Alameda County) make it to "most dangerous cities" lists if we pulled statistics from consolidated city-counties. I genuinely don't understand this argument, unless I'm missing something. These rankings are for cities, not counties, and unless St. Louis merges with STL County to become one large city, our crime ranking will always be high. I agree with Dawn10am here. St. Louis's high crime ranking is due to its small geographical area that does not include many of the nicer, safer neighborhoods that many St. Louisans live in (in the inner ring suburbs). The city entering St. Louis County will not change this.

As I understand it, St. Louis as part of St. Louis County would be similar to Chicago in Cook County.