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American cities are pretty ghetto and have too many street gangs, go to the suburbs where most people live and notice how more normal and civil the people are, the only bad thing we have going on is an intense cat turf war that we have going on, when i get enough money i'm buying a Savannah cat to protect my other cats.
I have a black car that seems to go the trick.
In reality I find it really funny how people outside of the US view our country
I think your statement that for many the only way out of poverty is crime, there are actually quite a few programs to help the poor here in the USA and many chose to drop out of school, not find a job and just live a life of crime. Also the USA middle class is still one of the richest in the world only recently has Canada passed us making the USA number 2, the survey that made the USA second was taken during the height of the recession, many things are immproving here such as crime and unemployment rate(we now have a lower unemployment rate than Canada). Crime is actually at its lowest since 1974 and our murder rate is at its lowest since early 1960s. That's a huge improvement!
I think no one denies that the crime rates drop. That's probably the case for almost every country in the world. I don't know why crime is declining. I think the society become more humane, violence is today much less accepted than 20 years ago. A few decades ago it was normal that parents spank their children. Today that's unthinkable. Of course that have a positive impact to the crime rates. Some newer EU countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland or Czech Republic have partially lower the homicide rate by more than 50% in just the last 10 years. That's also true for turkey.
In my opinion wealth comparison between different countries by the using of PPP convertion is very questionable, but this is not a topic of this thread. We see a lot of very critical reporting about the U.S. but also some encouraging reports about dedicated people that help the poor. In my opinion a revitalisation of the most run down city districts would be a big improvement for the cirme rate. In a lovely, beautiful environment people, even the poor, will feel much better and then the crime rate will further decline. If you look at countries like Poland or Czech Republic, their cities and the whole surroundings looks today so much more beautiful than it was 20 years ago. I am sure that such a change have a huge positive impact on the feelings of the people and that is probably one reason for the great decline of crime.
The numbers regarding the crime for european and some other countries can be found at Eurostat:
This is another thing that is unclear about these murder rate statistics. Do they include the entire metro areas of these cities or just the city limits?
For example, the murder rate in the Washington, D.C. metro area (population 5.9 million) is much lower than Washington, D.C. proper (population 640,000).
There is still a high concentration of low income African Americans in Washington, D.C. proper.
In 2012 Washington DC, the city, had a murder rate of 13.9 (88 murders and a population of 632,323). But the whole entire metro area had a murder rate of 3.6 (210 murders with a population of 5,826,080).
That's nothing though! In 1991 Washington DC had a murder rate of 80.6 (482 murders and a population of 598,000). And the 1991 DC metro murder rate was 18.1 (719 murders with a population of 3,968,379).
So does Berlin and London. Actually Singapore has a significant Muslim population as well.
What's Moscow's excuse?
London is the crime capital of Europe and its the most "diverse" city. Berlin's foreign muslim population is only 5%. Moscow's muslims are not ethnic Russians, they're mainly turkic asians and they have higher crime rates.
In 2012 Washington DC, the city, had a murder rate of 13.9 (88 murders and a population of 632,323). But the whole entire metro area had a murder rate of 3.6 (210 murders with a population of 5,826,080).
In other words, the recent murder rate in the Washington DC metro area is less than that of Paris.
I think that statistic shows a more accurate (if less sensational) picture of the exposure level to crime that the typical person living in this area faces.
As for the city itself, upper-middle class and rich people live mainly in Northwest Washington DC, where the violent crime rate is much lower than in the eastern part of the city.
How about a federal fond for rebuilding the most awful city districts? And much more flowers in the streets. In such a beautiful environment even the most bad guys will probably don't get violent. I think on the long run that would be a good investment, which will pay off, maybe after 2 decades?
I takes more than flowers to make things better. The US is in a much worse condition than we Europeans realize. Have a look at this city-data topic, a bit older but an interesting read nonetheless.
From what I have seen myself, even middle class in the suburbs in the US is worse off than middle class and many lower class Europeans. The housing is poorly build, the infrastructure is poorly build and transportation costs are very high because everything is very far. Maybe we pay 10% more taxes, but for that money you get a 100x better quality of life in return.
Large US cities with large social housing projects remind me the most of cities in the former communist states with run down building and lots of urban decay.
Originally Posted by caliguy92832 In 2012 Washington DC, the city, had a murder rate of 13.9 (88 murders and a population of 632,323). But the whole entire metro area had a murder rate of 3.6 (210 murders with a population of 5,826,080).
In other words, the recent murder rate in the Washington DC metro area is less than that of Paris.
I think that statistic shows a more accurate (if less sensational) picture of the exposure level to crime that the typical person living in this area faces.
No, that's wrong.
First, the data for Paris from the NBC Chicago web site is wrong.
Homicides in Paris (Data from Eurostat):
2008: 35
2009: 25
2010: 42
2011: 40
2012: 41
Pop of Paris is about 2.2 Mio, so the homicide rate was always below 2.0
Second, it does not make much sense to compare the Washington Metropolitan Area with the City of Paris. If you want to compare those figures than compare Washington Metro with Ile de France.
Minato ku has already stated the data:
Quote:
Number of homicide by departements in Ile de France
Number of Homicide in Ile de France (approx Paris metro area): 160 (162 in 2010)
Murder rate per 100,000 : 1.36
City of Paris: 42
Seine Saint Denis: 33
Val d'Oise: 17
Hauts de Seine: 17
Yvelines: 16
Val de Marne: 15
Essonne: 11
Seine et Marne: 8
Murder rate per 100,000
Seine Saint Denis: 2.18
City of Paris: 1.88
Val d'Oise: 1.45
Yvelines: 1.14
Val de Marne: 1.14
Hauts de Seine: 1.09
Essonne: 0.91
Seine et Marne: 0.69
So the correct numbers are:
City:
Washington DC: 13.9
Paris: 1.9
Metro:
Washington: 3.6
Ile de France: 1.4
But I don't think that it make much sense to compare a rather rural area like the Washington Metropolitian Area with a very urban area like Ile de France. A lot of Metropolitain Areas in the U.S. involve often very rural counties with very low population densities.
But I agree, that all those numbers according to the homicide rates in the U.S. exaggerated the situation that the average american is exposed to. Because crime in the U.S. is much more concentrated at certain areas than that is the case in Europe. Although the homicide rate in counties beyond cities with a population of more than 500,000 is probably still higher than 2.0, but I am not sure.
I takes more than flowers to make things better. The US is in a much worse condition than we Europeans realize. Have a look at this city-data topic, a bit older but an interesting read nonetheless.
From what I have seen myself, even middle class in the suburbs in the US is worse off than middle class and many lower class Europeans. The housing is poorly build, the infrastructure is poorly build and transportation costs are very high because everything is very far. Maybe we pay 10% more taxes, but for that money you get a 100x better quality of life in return.
Large US cities with large social housing projects remind me the most of cities in the former communist states with run down building and lots of urban decay.
It sounds like you just want to bash the US.
Your posts are no better than an American redneck talking about Mexico.
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