Tukwila Named America's Most Dangerous City (Spokane, Sammamish: 2015, crime rate, house)

[st33lcas3]

Tukwila named America's most dangerous city | KING5.com

Surprised it's the most dangerous in America, not just WA. Is it really that bad?

Spokane comes in at number 22 on the list as well. What's going on Washington?

Here's the entire list - The 30 Most Dangerous Cities in America

[west seattle gal]

Property crimes skewed the results. It's my opinion that only violent crimes should factor into the label "dangerous". Also, these are smaller populations. They didn't consider larger areas like Richmond, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, etc...

[west seattle gal]

This one makes more sense:
FBI’s Violent Crime Statistics For Every City In America « CBS Chicago

[Tall Traveler]

Uhm, that's a different definition of dangerous than I have for sure. For example, Tukwila average 3 murders/100,000 over the last 5 years and Detroit averaged 47 murders per 100,000 over the last 5 years. I mean it's not good to have a property crime or your car stolen but I can recover from that...there's no recovering from being murdered.

[Hemlock140]

Fortunately, we are living in the "Safest City in WA" (Sammamish) but I never feel unsafe in Tukwila. Yes, we do make sure to not leave anything of values exposed in the car when there, but the same applies to everywhere else we go. Like Tall Traveler, I do not associate car prowls and other property crime with "dangerous". Murders, rapes, and other violent crimes make a city more dangerous. Numbers 2-9 on the most dangerous list all have much higher violent crime rates than Tukwila.


The 40 Safest Cities in Washington

[PS90]

I think it's interesting to note that, of the cities on that list, Spokane actually had the lowest violent crime rate, and Tukwila had the fourth lowest.

I think it's alarming that we have so much petty property crime in this state, but I think that calling that list the Most "Dangerous" Cities had to have been done for sensationalism and/or done as click-bait.

That is the entire point, after all, of using FBI stats that distinguish "property" crime from "violent" crime - the overall crime rate in an area that results in risk to property vs. risk to human life - and this compilation just "conveniently" assumed that they were the same thing.

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by PS90

I think it's interesting to note that, of the cities on that list, Spokane actually had the lowest violent crime rate, and Tukwila had the fourth lowest.

I think it's alarming that we have so much petty property crime in this state, but I think that calling that list the Most "Dangerous" Cities had to have been done for sensationalism and/or done as click-bait.

That is the entire point, after all, of using FBI stats that distinguish "property" crime from "violent" crime - the overall crime rate in an area that results in risk to property vs. risk to human life - and this compilation just "conveniently" assumed that they were the same thing.

I agree that lumping property crime under the heading of dangerous crime is inferior to separating the two categories. But then cities with low rates of violent crime should likewise NOT be considered "safe". I live in an area where violent crime is low but property crime is high. I would never call it safe, because a sheriff told me that many burglars later add violent crime to their repertoire. They advance their "careers" as they become more able to escape much in the way of consequences.

I do not think having a house or car broken into, or anything stolen or damaged, is "safe." It is still a crime.

Another problem is that some people who live in places with little violent crime get very lax about locking doors, keeping valuables indoors when not being used, not leaving valuables visible through car windows, and watching for suspicious activity such as car prowls. In both my former neighborhood and in my present one, at least one neighbor has said, "I never lock the house or car." Or "There isn't much crime here." They think neighbors are watching out for each other.

Well, this ain't Mayberry. Retired folks rarely just sit in rocking chairs on a front porch watching everything go by. Add to that the fact that lots of lost tourists, realtors, and assorted other nonneighbors are always present, plus the often gray, cool, drizzly weather, and hardly anybody routinely sits outside. I walk miles all over town, and in this city of mostly retirees, there is exactly ONE house where someone often sits on the porch just watching the world go by. When I was a kid and we really did play in the streets of my neighborhood, parents were not hovering right over us, but you could bet that at least one or two were periodically looking outside to see what was going on. Things got noticed and acted on.

[PS90]

Originally Posted by pikabike

I agree that lumping property crime under the heading of dangerous crime is inferior to separating the two categories. But then cities with low rates of violent crime should likewise NOT be considered "safe". I live in an area where violent crime is low but property crime is high. I would never call it safe, because a sheriff told me that many burglars later add violent crime to their repertoire. They advance their "careers" as they become more able to escape much in the way of consequences.

I do not think having a house or car broken into, or anything stolen or damaged, is "safe." It is still a crime.

Another problem is that some people who live in places with little violent crime get very lax about locking doors, keeping valuables indoors when not being used, not leaving valuables visible through car windows, and watching for suspicious activity such as car prowls. In both my former neighborhood and in my present one, at least one neighbor has said, "I never lock the house or car." Or "There isn't much crime here." They think neighbors are watching out for each other.

Well, this ain't Mayberry. Retired folks rarely just sit in rocking chairs on a front porch watching everything go by. Add to that the fact that lots of lost tourists, realtors, and assorted other nonneighbors are always present, plus the often gray, cool, drizzly weather, and hardly anybody routinely sits outside. I walk miles all over town, and in this city of mostly retirees, there is exactly ONE house where someone often sits on the porch just watching the world go by. When I was a kid and we really did play in the streets of my neighborhood, parents were not hovering right over us, but you could bet that at least one or two were periodically looking outside to see what was going on. Things got noticed and acted on.

While I agree with you to some extent, and crime is crime - and is bad no matter what kind of crimes it is, I still don't think that you can say that cities with high violent crime/low property crime (like Detroit or St. Louis) aren't as bad as cities with low violent crime/high property crime (like Tukwila), by the reasoning that some unknown percent of those property crimes might elevate to violent crime in the future.

[CrazyDonkey]

Very misleading. Tukwila is mostly non-residential (Boeing, railroads, etc.) and has a low population density relative to its area., which inflates per capita crime data. Most crime is transient, committed by non-residents.

[cdelena]

Very misleading statistics (yes, you can prove anything with stats). By mixing all crimes together, not categorizing by population size, and ignoring the variance in reporting rates, the term 'dangerous' is nothing more than hype.

There is a big difference between homicide, theft from an open car, or graffiti.