1. Camden, N.J.
2. Detroit
3. St. Louis
4. Flint, Mich.
5. Richmond, Va.
6. Baltimore
7. Atlanta
8. New Orleans
9. Gary, Ind.
10. Birmingham, Ala.
methodology
now what does this really mean?... i grew up in RVA when we were consistently in the top 3 per capita murders.. i always felt safe because i knew what was going on... i was for sure street smart... i feel confident in saying that in the case of RVA its violent crime is not random and is tied almost exclusively to its drug traffic problem... any city on the I-95 between Miami and Maine is going to have a problem with violent crime... i think that if you arent out in the street you will have much less of a problem... and if you can live a life where you are not required to go near projects or areas where drug violence is prevalent then you are living in a much different city than the RVA that made this list... you might have a break-in (i never had one and i lived close to the hood) but if you dont have any involvement with drugs, or "street life" then you are significantly more likely to die in a car accident than as a result of violent crime...
so then.. when you consider what cities are the most dangerous wouldnt it be more accurate to include all possible dangers?.. or at least the dangers that people are more likely to be affected by?... like car accidents, cancers caused by environmental factors (DDT or radon, or lead in the water, or something like that) death by house fires, hurricanes, or earthquake?...
or at least consider that a significant portion of violent crime is not random...
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11 comments:
We're safe here in RVA as Erok suggests. Now if you are a drug dealing gang banger that's another story.....
yeah, gang banging will kill you with the hiv for sure.
N.O. should be way higher on this list as its cleary more dangerous to live there during cat 5 hurricanes...
and Mardi Gras where you are likely to contract HIV depending on who you are... but this number is hard to be accurate on since you are likey to take your HIV home with you and this number will not be attributed to N.O.... this is a similar dilema to what a researcher would expect from Lake Havasu.. and Las Vegas (interbike)...
Steven Levitt wrote an interesting paper somewhere about the difference between "targeted crime" cities and cities with very high accidental or randomn death rates.
Richmond and Flint are both towns with a very dense and isolated pocket of morosely poor "projects" that get largely ignored by the remaining 3/4 of the city occupied by yuppies and grandmas.
Camden is the new south philly, the isolated poor "projects" surround by 3/4 of, well, you get the picture.
It's the smaller homogenous towns and bedroom communities where (per capita) the really freaky crap (random violence) happens. Columbine and Waco, anyone?
Anyway, I still think Richmond is one of the best places to grow up (unless you're a part of that 1/4).
Of course, if you live in Newton Ma and have a pool in your backyard your kids are 12 times more endangared than in front of a bodega in Camden.
Newark N.J. is in a class by its self. they lead the nation in homicide, Sharp James the mayor of Newark did nt turn the numbers in he was to busy at a Nets game sitting court side.
i always thought springfield, mass was the most f'ed up. everyone i've ever encountered from there was violent and had suffered abuse. just sounded like it sucked.
May I submit West Palm Beach to the list? I was down there in 2002 as a last year junior doing Cycle Fest with another junior. We were staying in a Red Roof Inn right off the highway. I'm not going to lie... we almost got murdered at 6:00 AM Saturday morning by an angry woman looking for her brother who had apparently been staying there for about three weeks. Seriously, she almost beat the door down. It was pretty awesome. I also pseudo-ran a car off the highway while we were there, AND saw a van completely gutted by an explosion, both within ten minutes of each other. And when I say pseudo-ran off the road, I mean I barely drifted into their lane for a second and they freaked, slammed on the brakes, and spun off the road. Did I stop? I'll have to refer you to my lawyer on that one. So bottom line, West Palm Beach, FL.
yeah... its another very dangerous place to live if you are a criminal...
actually Flint is not filled with projects, and its nothing like the media makes it out to be. 90% of the city is homes. Crime is everywhere and thats because everyone knows everyone so there is more altercation and its easier to find trouble if you're looking for it.
I agree with Erik. I live in RVA, and have lived on the 2200 block of E. Cary St. If you have spent any amount of time here, you probably have figured out that this area is pretty much crack/heroin central. Never had a problem, never hassled by the husslers on the corner (aside from the occasional "what you need, what you looking for?" comment). Those guys are just trying to do bussiness, essentially, and aren't looking to get caught, so they certainly aren't gonna bring unnecesarry attention to themselves by randomly fucking with you. But it never hurts to own a big black scary looking dog...
Tony
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