this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Here's the top 20 rated cities for homicide. List is less simple because they take into account other factors, but Chicago is #27 (rated #13 based on solely homicide rates)
Source (2023): https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-homicide-rate/94070
The biggest problem I have with that chart is it only includes the 40 largest cities. The city I live in is in a deep red state and is run by a Republican mayor. Our homicide rate is 6.5 That's enough to put us at #20. That's worse than Chicago but 3/4 of a point but because we have a population that is a 1/3 the size of the cut-off for the chart we don't get mentioned.
Isn't Washington, DC our country's capital or something? Is it #1 on the list because it has a higher rate than other places or because there is a smaller population living there, and its popularity attracts a broad variety of people who dont normally live there? Like why is usa's main capitol the #1 in the list?
"per capita"
This is a statistical term meant to signify that this is an average based on the number of residents in the area. DC is number #1 because of it's large amount of murders compared to the small number of residents.
If you're going to compare crime statistics, most statisticians divide the number of a crime (homicide) by the city population then multiply it by the largest unit of measurement they each have in common (usually 100,000).
I would guess it's because there are a lot of people who don't live in there city but commute there for work
Commute there for murder
Job's a job
Out on the streets...
Short and long of it: DC is the "city-est" city... Because it was carved out as a small patch ahead of time, only the most urban areas fall inside DC, whereas the more peaceful outskirts and suburbs that would normally dilute the crime stats are excluded
DC has a police problem as much as a crime problem. Also, Congress literally just blocked a re-write of the criminal code which took decades to write and was supposed to finally put restorative justice front and center. So DC has a Congress problem as well.
The kicker is these are mostly predominantly black cities run by Democrats. Especially DC.
The article literally says "Blue Cities Have Higher Homicide Rate Problems Than Red Cities". Am I missing something?
One thing to look out for: it's pretty hard to objectively compare city crime rates because the city boundaries might include nicer or worse neighborhoods that dilute or concentrate the crime rates.
That's why DC is at the top of the list... The way the city was defined, it's the "city-est" city on the list.
You could also look at St Louis, MO vs East St Louis, IL. would it be rational to conclude that Illinois is DRAMATICALLY worse based on this data?