This weekend I was reading an article in the Economist about the rise in murder rates in mid-sized American cities. The article compared Minneapolis to New York, so I decided to see how my favorite mid-sized city (Cincinnati) did in 2005. With a population of 308,728, Cincinnati had 79 murders. That works out to about 25.6 murders per 100,000 people. San Francisco had 739,426 people and 96 murders (12.8 murders per 100,000). New York City had 528 murders, but their population is 8,104,079, so they only had 6.5 murders per 100,000. The national average is 5.5 per 100,000. Now just because Cincinnati had a murder rate four times higher than New York City doesn’t mean it’s the most dangerous place to live in America. That honor goes to Philadelphia suburb of Camden, New Jersey. “Most dangerous” is a composite of six crime statistics (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft) and I only have 2004 numbers for that. Cincinnati is #20 on that list (more dangerous that Oakland, but less dangerous than Compton). 25 Most Dangerous U.S. Cities
- Camden N.J.
- Detroit, Mich.
- St. Louis, Mo.
- Flint, Mich.
- Richmond, Va.
- Baltimore, Md.
- Atlanta, Ga.
- New Orleans, La.
- Gary, Ind.
- Birmingham, Ala.
- Richmond, Calif.
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Washington, DC
- West Palm Beach, Fla.
- Compton, Calif.
- Memphis, Tenn.
- Dayton, Ohio
- San Bernardino, Calif.
- Springfield, Mass.
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Oakland, Calif.
- Dallas, Tex.
- Newark, N.J.
- Hartford, Conn.
- Little Rock, Ark.