JT4104

May 26th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^

Whats important is us up here in Sagnasty found a way to earn our way off the top 10 and If I'm not mistaken we even dropped out of the top 30 as well.

We movin up in the state. Pretty soon we'll be just an average city.

WolvinLA2

May 26th, 2011 at 6:55 PM ^

Piece of advice:  Don't apply stereotypes to all members of any group.  Maybe don't apply stereotypes at all, but sometimes they're pretty accurate.  However, they're never 100% accurate.

Stereotype example:  It's always sunny in Los Angeles.  This is a stereotype.  It's sunny in LA a high percentage of the time, more than most cities.  However, if someone says, "I'm surprised to hear it rained in LA because I heard stereotypes about Los Angeles that it was always sunny there."  See how that sounds a little ridiculous?  About as ridiculous as you believing that everyone in Connecticut is rich simply because it's one of the wealthiest states in the country. Even the nice states have their bad areas.

MAgoBLUE

May 26th, 2011 at 6:59 PM ^

CT is the richest state in the country but the high cost of living in the affluent towns pushes all the poor people into the cities which are crowded, decaying, and dangerous. I'm actually surprised that Bridgeport isn't on the the list. At one point in the early 90's they were the murder capital of America. Hartford, Waterbury, New Britain, those places are no picnic. Far from the image everyone has of Connecticut as a J-Crew catalog come to life.

mdoc

May 26th, 2011 at 5:59 PM ^

The city has one of the ten highest rates for three of the four types of violent crime identified by the FBI.

You can say a lot of things about Detroit, but at least they're not rapists.

MGoAndy

May 26th, 2011 at 6:03 PM ^

Posted yesterday, but the stats for Detroit are really quite dated... population is about 200,000 lower and the unemployment is far higher.  

maznbluwolverine

May 26th, 2011 at 6:09 PM ^

I grew up just outside Flint and when G.M. left, it destroyed everything.  Now, the city can't afford to pay police and it's a law-less town.  Hell, the city police won't even go to the north end at night unless it's a murder, they just blow it off until morning.

ngroves

May 26th, 2011 at 6:23 PM ^

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a lawless town.  I live in the city and the police have come every time I've called.  (It's still ridiculous how many times I've had to call... about 5 times in 5 years for various things)  However, I live in one of the last decent neighborhoods.  I wouldn't doubt your claim about not going into the north end at all.  

maznbluwolverine

May 26th, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^

Let me re-phrase that, certain parts of Flint are lawless, and I know because I've been there at night.  I have a friend who's a police officer( or was) and he started out on 3rd shift in the East Side (training), and when he was assigned to the north end, he quit.  He told me some stories that I didn't even think were possible.

Beavis

May 26th, 2011 at 6:11 PM ^

suck it flint and detroit, st. louis has gone from first to third!  haha!

In all seriousness - these studies are always skewed.  For one, I have seen the wire.  So I know how policing bodies can skew the stats. 

Second - measurements such as "crime per 1,000 residents" hurts cities like St. Louis.  In our fine city, there is population of about 300K.  But the sourround area ("MSA" - Metro Stat Area) is one of the five largest in the midwest (believe it's around 3 million people.  So because we have densely populated suburbs that are easily accessible to the crime ridden, loosely populated downtown - we always get fucked.

That being said, some kid was shot and killed outside of my loft last year.  So.... yeah... still not safe.

WolvinLA2

May 26th, 2011 at 6:35 PM ^

Detroit is similar to St. Louis, just on a larger scale.  Both cities don't have any nice parts of town to bring the stats down, because all the decent-to-nice parts of town aren't technically in the city. 

Compare this to Los Angeles - LA has far more murders than Detroit, and if you used the MSA data, would possibly be on this list since high crime areas like Compton, Inglewood, Carson, Long Beach, and about 10 more, aren't technically in Los Angeles proper, and City of LA actually includes a number of nice areas like Century City, Westwood, Bel Air, Brentwood, a number of nice areas of the Valley (Sherman Oaks, Encino, Studio City, etc) that bring up the population a lot but don't contribute to the crime. 

That's why these lists are worthless, because how a city's lines are drawn make more difference than anything else.   

MGoAndy

May 27th, 2011 at 2:44 AM ^

The "don't have any nice parts of town" is being used in a general sense, I hope.  Because I live in Detroit.  In a large community that hasn't experienced a murder in years.  It's quite nice.

I'm saving my indignation and giving you the benefit of the doubt.

jmblue

May 26th, 2011 at 6:44 PM ^

In all seriousness - these studies are always skewed. For one, I have seen the wire. So I know how policing bodies can skew the stats.

Watching The Wire to gleam insight into how our nation's police forces operate is a rather questionable strategy.  

Naked Bootlegger

May 26th, 2011 at 7:47 PM ^

I tend to disagree.  The Wire is one show that I would actually believe.  It's not based on Hollywood hype.  If you don't believe how damned real The Wire is/was, please immediately grab David Simon's book "Homicide:  A Year on the Killing Streets" and digest it.  Or "The Corner".   David Simon was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun.  He knows Baltimore.   HBO's The Wire and The Corner - as well as NBC's Homicide series (some of the best network TV I have ever witnessed in the mid-90's) are all largely based on Simon's books/reporting.  He has real Baltimore police working as consultants, writers, and actors on his shows.   I'm sure they took creative liberties at times, but I also trust that many of themes portrayed on Simon's shows are based in sad reality.   Big city politics are ugly, messy, and depressing, and David Simon knows how to portray it better than anyone.

coastal blue

May 26th, 2011 at 9:10 PM ^

with Simon, where either he or the interviewer mentions how criminals were caught on wire taps talking about strategies from the show and some of them had adapted the idea of tossing "burners"?

ngroves

May 26th, 2011 at 6:12 PM ^

I live in Flint.  We made the top of the list this time around.  A big part of that, though, was the serial stabber from last year.  That guy stabbed a ton of people.  Not saying the rest of the crime in the city isn't terrible and out of control.  I'm jealous of Thomas Rawls now for getting out!  

bronxblue

May 26th, 2011 at 6:33 PM ^

Sometimes I forget just how racist people can be when it is anonymous - those comments on the Yahoo article are scary considering at least some of those people are gainfully employed and probably rather "nice" people in public.

All that said, the numbers don't surprise me.  I do think some of the rankings are skewed by perception - Detroit isn't great by any means, but I also think it is better than the perception articles like this paint of it.  

Giff4484

May 26th, 2011 at 6:53 PM ^

Camden , NJ is a down right scary place at day or night. It reminds me of the movie Judgement Night .

Also you can pretty much add any city in NJ to the list. My friend has a shirt that has a handgun on the front and on the back it says " Welcome to Trenton " DUCK!

WolvinLA2

May 26th, 2011 at 6:59 PM ^

Any city in NJ?  No doubt there are some rough areas of Jersey, but there are also some extremely nice areas as well.  Most of my friends at UM from NJ - not from high crime cities.  I'm not from NJ, but I'm guessing cities like Keyport, Morristown and Rockaway aren't very high in violent crime, only because I know kids from those cities.

CaliUMfan

May 27th, 2011 at 10:09 AM ^

Morristown is actually only about 10 minuntes from Camden and is one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Camden is one of the poorest and the most dangerous. There was a 60 minutes about it a few years back (actually about a non profit I worked for in Camden). New Jersey has seemingly given up on Camden and the common feeling among the surrounding communities is that it is a lost cause. It is very sad because that city has so much potential,

Rupert Pupkin

May 27th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^

The majority, 90%, of NJ. Is beautiful. The bad areas are in pockets like Camden and Newark. Parts of jersey city and Elizabeth and such. I grew up there and from 1964-1989 when I left, we never locked our doors on our houses or cars. The schools are great and it has great history dating to before the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately the perception is that it sucks. It's made fun of in movies and TV by people who don't know better and those views have become reality.

BlueVoix

May 26th, 2011 at 7:17 PM ^

Rockford at number 9 is bizzare.  I mean, I get why since there is absolutely nothing to do in that town, but it doesn't feel like it belongs on a list with St. Louis and Detroit.

joeyb

May 26th, 2011 at 7:55 PM ^

I went to Kettering for 9 semesters. Not one of those went by without someone getting mugged, most of the time at gunpoint. It was only a matter of time before that city got the recognition it deserves.

JimLahey

May 26th, 2011 at 8:03 PM ^

I've been to Detroit many times and it's such a shame that's it's in the shape it's in because I like it there. So much history and character, the architecture is stunning. It's due for a comeback and I'll be rooting for the D. The only other bad area I've been is Newark, New Jersey. I have a client in the Devils system and I went up there with him and got lost trying to find the arena. It was not pretty. We were driving a decently nice car and I was afraid to stop at stop signs. There were groups of 10-15 people just sitting on couches on street corners nowhere near any houses drinking liquor. All I can say is that it looked bad, but I can't judge it beyond that since I've only been twice so it would be unfair. Plus I watched the Sopranos series, so that didn't help my perception of Newark.

mdoc

May 26th, 2011 at 8:43 PM ^

The architecture is what sticks out to me, too. The older skyscrapers and churches are awesome, but it extends all the way down to the residential areas. Just driving past some of those neighborhoods, you know they used to be gorgeous back in the day.