St. Louis Incorrectly Rated America's Most Dangerous City (St. Paul: statistics, airport)

[STL88]

That's fine but I definately wouldn't encourage anyone to drive around certain parts, especially if you don't know the area well. Still, O'Fallon and Fairview and neighborhoods like that would not be a wise choice to venture to.

[moorlander]

Apparently some people think that it's not possible to debunk the ranking and still agree we have a crime problem. The politicians aren't allowed to debunk it, and neither are the posters on this forum. We all must be lemmings and agree that St. Louis is the most dangerous city in America.

[STL88]

What exactly are your thoughts on crime in the city? Our southside isn't as bad as Chicago's, and we obviously have weak crime compared to places on the west coast that have much more ruthless and organized gangs, so I do agree that we aren't the MOST dangerous, but debunking the report instead of trying to PROVE it wrong for the future is counterproductive.

[mjtinmemphis]

Originally Posted by STL88

What exactly are your thoughts on crime in the city? Our southside isn't as bad as Chicago's, and we obviously have weak crime compared to places on the west coast that have much more ruthless and organized gangs, so I do agree that we aren't the MOST dangerous, but debunking the report instead of trying to PROVE it wrong for the future is counterproductive.

I dont believe that safety is an issue in St. Louis. I currently live in the HydePark neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and don't feel threatened either.

IMHO, you don't have anything to worry about as long as you arent part of the gang, thug and thug wanna be urban culture.

[DC-dupont-west end]

So you truly see no issue with comparing St. Louis' 61 sq/miles of land and a density of 5,760 sq/mi with Kansas City's 318 sq/mi of land and an average density of only 1,437 sq/mi?
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Aragx6, are the crime statistics we're speaking of on a per mile basis? Or are they based on artifical political boundaries? Much of Kansas City is essentially vacant and undeveloped. I would also point out the Oklahoma City geographically is much larger than either St. Louis or K.C. I've seen signs there that go so far as to label OKC the "largest city in the country". I've noticed a sign in OKC marking the city limits. I believe I drove 65 mph for another 20 minutes before I saw ANY sign of life. The government of OKC bought that land up to keet it from forming suburban communitis, and increase its own tax base. I think the following post is instructive -

"The part that people don't seem to get is that it isn't intellectually honest or fair to compare cities that are 61 square miles against cities that are 300 square miles. A more accurate assessment would take the same square miles measured out from the urban core and compare those results."

I agree with the above poster, and I supect that if you took a geographic area in Kansas City Mo. of 61 sq. miles, you would likely find the majority of citizens of KCMO living there.
But for a really fair comparison, I do agree a more sophisticated formula should be used, e.g. identify all the police precincts with the worst crime rates, and similar populations. Then total them, and find out where the greatest crime potential is - in group 1, or group 2 (aka K.C. or STL.)

[mc378]

This issue will never go away until there is some type of combination of the City/County. Merger or not.

Very shortly after these figures came out, I was in Chicago. I saw many people from states all over the country, and at least a dozen of them told me how awful it must be to live in the "most-dangerous" place in the U.S. Sadly, most people know very little about the St. Louis Metropolitan area, other than the Arch, Cardinals and Rams. I tried to explain briefly and concisely to each person that the "City" is only 300,000 people but that the "County" has a couple million. After 20 seconds of this simple explanation, I received a lot of blank stares. I cringed when one person from Michigan (who understood the situation after listening to my defense) commented, "St. Louis is a lot like Detroit." And that was the best compliment by anyone.

The fact remains that despite the ludicrous nature of "ratings," they do mean something. A few years ago, a good friend and well-respected businesswoman from Newark called me up a couple of days after the ratings came out and thanked me. I asked why, and she said that New Jersey appreciated the fact that St. Louis "replaced" Camden as the most-dangerous place in the country. I embarked on my 30-second explanation, but after hearing it, my friend replied, "Point taken, but St. Louis is still more-dangerous than Camden." Arrghhhhh!

Indianapolis cannot hold a candle to the STL Metro area, but our City and County could learn a lot from carefully studying the UniGov merger that occurred in the 1970's, in which the City of Indianapolis and the surrounding county (Marion County) came together. Indianapolis is now one of the larger cities in the nation, and it never appears high on crime ratings or similarly infamous surveys.

I realize that STL County does not want to inherit the City's problems--primarily the financial burden of taking on debts and repairing/building infrastructure. However, until something real and substantive occurs to bring the two closer together, we will continue to see beautiful new high-rise buildings dressing-up the Clayton skyline, while city officials and the Cardinals' owners tout the fact that an established City-based financial corporation (Stiffel) packs up and moves a few blocks to the South and comes to rest in the middle of a tax-subsidized empty-field-turned-softball-diamond. Seems like the functional equivalent to the the hat game on the screen during Cards' home games. I realize that the City is attempting, in a respectful and careful manner, to talk merger, but I don't see a lot of movement out of the County. I did not grow-up in this metro area, but nearly everyone I've talked to who has grown-up here tells me that a merger "won't happen" because the County residents would never agree to it.

So until the County decides that it's time to talk with the City more seriously about some type of combination, "we" (and the wealthy suburbs are included among us) will continue to be painted with a broad brush as the most dangerous place in America.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by DC-dupont-west end

I agree with the above poster, and I supect that if you took a geographic area in Kansas City Mo. of 61 sq. miles, you would likely find the majority of citizens of KCMO living there.

I'm not sure it would be the majority, but it would be a very sizeable chunk. And were you to compare KC's most urban 61 sq/mi (or other cities who get a break for having giant city limits like Indianapolis and others) you would find them to move up many many spots in those rankings.

That is exactly why we say the rankings are unfair.

[flynavyj]

Hey, another question...I was listening to Charlie Brennan (sp maybe) this morning when he made mention that St. Louis had somewhere in the 170ish murders last year, while the intire state of Minnesota only had something in the 70ish range...when i looked on here for the 09' stats, i saw that Minneapolis had like 40 or less murders in 09, while St. Louis was in the 140+ range....That does seem odd for a metro, but when you look at the confines of an entire state, i see that as odd as well...anyone else?

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

Hey, another question...I was listening to Charlie Brennan (sp maybe) this morning when he made mention that St. Louis had somewhere in the 170ish murders last year, while the intire state of Minnesota only had something in the 70ish range...when i looked on here for the 09' stats, i saw that Minneapolis had like 40 or less murders in 09, while St. Louis was in the 140+ range....That does seem odd for a metro, but when you look at the confines of an entire state, i see that as odd as well...anyone else?

I heard Brennan as well. I thought he said the whole state of Minnesota with a population of 5 million had only 75 murders while the city of St. Louis, with a population the faction of that, had 144 or something. Anyway, it was rather startling when he put it that way.

[DespicableMe]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

Hey, another question...I was listening to Charlie Brennan (sp maybe) this morning when he made mention that St. Louis had somewhere in the 170ish murders last year, while the intire state of Minnesota only had something in the 70ish range...when i looked on here for the 09' stats, i saw that Minneapolis had like 40 or less murders in 09, while St. Louis was in the 140+ range....That does seem odd for a metro, but when you look at the confines of an entire state, i see that as odd as well...anyone else?

Exactly the point I was referring to when I asked if there was a list ranking cities by total homicides in a calender year.

Its not a pretty picture no matter what statistic you look at.