2010: Atlanta ranked 25th (Sandy Springs, Marietta, Lawrenceville: apartments, insurance, crime)

[tonygeorgia]

25 Most Dangerous Cities, 2010(Data is actually 2009)
Rank/ City, State/ Change in ranking from previous year
1 St Louis, MO +1
2 Camden, NJ -1
3 Detroit, MI +1
4 Flint, MI +1
5 Oakland, CA -2
6 Richmond, CA +7
7 Cleveland, OH +1
8 Compton, CA +4
9 Gary, IN +2
10 Birmingham, AL -3
11 Baltimore, MD +2
12 Memphis, TN -2
13 New Orleans, LA -7
14 Jackson, MS -5
15 Little Rock, AR +8
16 Baton Rouge, LA +9
17 Buffalo, NY(Not in Top 25 last year)
18 New Haven, CT( Not in Top 25 last year)
19 Hartford, CT +4
20 Dayton, OH Unchanged
21 Kansas City, MO -6
22 Washington, DC -6
23 Newark, NJ (Not in Top 25 last year)
24 Cincinnati, OH -5
25 Atlanta, GA -7

Most Dangerous Cities 2010 - WalletPop

[Aesthetic_Mess]

It's not the 25th safest; it's the 25th most dangerous.
These are the top 10 most safest cities:
America's Safest Cities - Forbes.com

[tonygeorgia]

It's safer than the 24 listed

[AnsleyPark]

Being the 6th (or so) largest metro area and ranked 25th, I think is pretty darn good.

[TakeAhike]

This seems more realistic than the previous list--not really that great of a list since cities of varying sizes were included.

[Steelers10]

Originally Posted by Aesthetic_Mess

It's not the 25th safest; it's the 25th most dangerous.
These are the top 10 most safest cities:
America's Safest Cities - Forbes.com

C'mon...Glendale, Anaheim, Santa Ana, San Jose, Plano? These aren't REAL cities! These are the suburbs of very large western "Sunbelt" cities that incorporated a lot of area. This is just a function of being out west. I'm sure if Fairfax County, Virginia or Montgomery County, MD in suburban Washington DC carved out a 180 square-mile city from its territory (the equivalent of San Jose) it would have 900,000 people and be even richer and safer than San Jose!

Likewise, if Marietta were to triple its incorporated area and Lawrenceville were to quadruple its incorporated area they would be every bit as large and safe (probably safer) than Glendale, Santa Ana, and Plano. And to say Anaheim is a safe "city" would be the equivalent of Douglasville incorporating 50 square miles around Six Flags and calling itself a "city". Pure nonsense. And if you have ever seen the documentary Homeless: the Motel Kids of Orange County, Anaheim isn't all that safe or great. Anaheim and Santa Ana are just really expensive and that certainly is going to skew the crime and poverty statistics, as even the Forbes list admitted.

Accordingly, this is why New York appears so safe. There are areas that are downright dangerous but gentrification outprices criminals. Lower Manhattan i'm sure was the most dangerous place in America 100 years ago but the cramped tenements got leveled and the conditions were shifted to the Bronx and Brooklyn. When those old apartments began to be torn down that poverty (and danger) just got shifted to Yonkers and Jersey. Who would have thought 40 years ago there would be places in Westchester more dangerous than anywhere in the boroughs? This is why Honolulu is so safe. I literally drove around looking for the hood and couldn't find it. Sure it had a few housing projects and most areas were far from upscale, but it is so expensive, what criminal can afford to live in a tropical paradise that is on an island with no place to run to or hide?

If Atlanta had not been prevented fron annexing Sandy Springs or if there was any political will to annex Cascade and Sandtown (there wasn't), Atlanta's population would be somewhat larger than it is today but certainly viewed as safer because a third of the city would just be low-density, more-or-less middle to upper-middle income suburbs. But cities like Baltimore and DC could never have annexed more land and will never have low-density, high-income areas within their city limits. So unless they go on a campaign to RAZE one-third of their cities they will always have high-density, high-poverty, high-crime areas. Atlanta is just in an in-between situation. One of the safest "dangerous" cities but with too large of a low-income inner-city and not a large enough "Buckhead" to ever be on the Forbes list.

[ATLHRLGUY]

Unfortunately for St. Louis, no matter how you slice it, they're still number #1 on both lists. Ouch!

[Zel Ya]

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

25 Most Dangerous Cities, 2010(Data is actually 2009)
Rank/ City, State/ Change in ranking from previous year
1 St Louis, MO +1
2 Camden, NJ -1
3 Detroit, MI +1
4 Flint, MI +1
5 Oakland, CA -2
6 Richmond, CA +7
7 Cleveland, OH +1
8 Compton, CA +4
9 Gary, IN +2
10 Birmingham, AL -3
11 Baltimore, MD +2
12 Memphis, TN -2
13 New Orleans, LA -7
14 Jackson, MS -5
15 Little Rock, AR +8
16 Baton Rouge, LA +9
17 Buffalo, NY(Not in Top 25 last year)
18 New Haven, CT( Not in Top 25 last year)
19 Hartford, CT +4
20 Dayton, OH Unchanged
21 Kansas City, MO -6
22 Washington, DC -6
23 Newark, NJ (Not in Top 25 last year)
24 Cincinnati, OH -5
25 Atlanta, GA -7

Most Dangerous Cities 2010 - WalletPop

Who really knows the "accurate" statistics?

FIGURES DON'T LIE BUT LIARS CAN FIGURE.

[durf]

Steelers10, what ignorant world you come from! San Jose is 1,000,000 and the capital of Silicon Valley. It's downtown destroys Atlanta's. Atlanta is a hamlet city, not a real city with a true downtown. It's downtown is crime infested and infested with panhandlers asking for money. What a city!

[mike7586]

Originally Posted by durf

Steelers10, what ignorant world you come from! San Jose is 1,000,000 and the capital of Silicon Valley. It's downtown destroys Atlanta's. Atlanta is a hamlet city, not a real city with a true downtown. It's downtown is crime infested and infested with panhandlers asking for money. What a city!

Downtown is not crime infested. You're referring to Underground/Five Points, which is a sketchy area of Downtown but it does not represent all of Downtown. Yeah, the panhandlers are a problem but on my most recent visit Downtown last Saturday night, I did not encounter one panhandler or bum (I was not near Underground/Five Points though). I was really surprised actually, but maybe it's a sign things are going to get better.

Also, Downtown is not the only part of the city...