City Murder Rates

[Crawford]

DC will be interesting this year. Their 2023 homicide rate is just outrageous. It's almost unbelievable.

[Steely Dan]

° yeah, something doesn't seem to add up there.

I mean, DC had a homicide rate nearly double that of Chicago last year.

Fucking Chicago!!

And Chicago's rate was atrociously high to begin with (as it always is).

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Crawford

DC will be interesting this year. Their 2023 homicide rate is just outrageous. It's almost unbelievable.

It’s the capital of capital offenses.

[The North One]

IDK why anybody would find it so surprising. DC has always been basically Baltimore but with politicians.

[jtown,man]

Memphis ended 2023 with 398 murders. The last killing was of a 3 year old hit by a stray bullet NYE night.

This brings Memphis' murder rate per 100k to around 66.



The new mayor held a press conference yesterday to address crime. Half the questions were about new laws aimed at police reform.

The city has no hope.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Overall U.S. crime index and violent crime index is now below the pre-pandemic numbers. It's now safer than 2019.

This is something you'll never hear on many of our most viewed "news outlets", with the hysterical nonstop "crime wave" narrative.

What a weird way to look at things.

Why 2019? Why not 2010?

Why are you ok just being better than our worst year in decades?

This doesn't mean we are safer, it just means crime is going down from extremely elevated levels.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK why anybody would find it so surprising. DC has always been basically Baltimore but with politicians.

Demographically, DC is nothing like Baltimore. It's likely the most gentrified major city in the U.S., and doesn't have any bombed-out areas. Baltimore is one of the most troubled city propers in the U.S., with huge swaths of really terrible neighborhoods.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

What a weird way to look at things.

Why 2019? Why not 2010?

Wait, what? The pandemic was in 2020. Crime rose beginning in the pandemic, in 2020.

Why would we compare to 2010?

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Why are you ok just being better than our worst year in decades?

Huh? 2019 was one of the safest years in modern history, and safer than 2010.

Originally Posted by jtown,man

This doesn't mean we are safer, it just means crime is going down from extremely elevated levels.

No, it means we're safer. Crime is lower right now, than in 2019, which was one of the safest years in modern history. The U.S., as a whole, is near record-low crime in modern times. And there were no "extremely elevated levels" of crime nationally. That was always exaggerated. Crime rose in 2020 and 2021, but was still well below crime numbers during most of the post-1960 period.

The crime narrative, as least nationally, is a total fabrication.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK why anybody would find it so surprising. DC has always been basically Baltimore but with politicians.

It's surprising because DC has no abandonment at this point and average incomes are very very high compared to other US cities.

If you walk or drive around DC it is very hard to find any area that feels "sketchy".

[meh]

St. Louis official crime stats 2023 vs 2022:

Murders: -21%
Shootings: -24%
Gunshot victims: -23%
Juvenile shootings: -47%
Juvenile gunshot victims: -50%
Violent crimes and car thefts: -22%
Felony theft: -39%
Auto theft: -19%
Burglaries: -12%
Robberies: -11%
Aggravated assaults: -6%

source: https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/lo...1-95d6dd01a85f

Homicides 2020 through 2023:

-22.5% vs 2022
-26% vs 2021
-42% vs 2020

via dbInSouthCity on UrbanSTL: https://urbanstl.com/crime-thread-t6571-s9525.html

Not sure why the small discrepancy between Murders/Homicides (-21% and -22.5% for 2023 vs 2022). The -22.5% figure was calculated by an UrbanSTL user. Anyway, hope this trend continues.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

It's surprising because DC has no abandonment at this point and average incomes are very very high compared to other US cities.

If you walk or drive around DC it is very hard to find any area that feels "sketchy".

Right. Even the worst, most violent areas in DC generally look rather middle class and decent. It's a big difference from say Baltimore, or Philly, where bad areas generally have obvious tell-tale signs. And DC has high incomes, high college attainment and comparatively vast resources.

This is Anacostia, in SE DC. It's the most violent part of town. Looks like a real dystopian hellhole, right?

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8720...8192?entry=ttu

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8694...8192?entry=ttu

Except for some a few scattered crappy apartment blocks, SE DC is remarkably middle-class looking and very well maintained. Outside of the fact it's entirely black, it looks like a solidly middle class inner suburb of any older Eastern city. It could pass for West Hartford, CT. Looks nothing like Strawberry Mansion in Philly, or much of West Baltimore.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right. Even the worst, most violent areas in DC generally look rather middle class and decent. It's a big difference from say Baltimore, or Philly, where bad areas generally have obvious tell-tale signs. And DC has high incomes, high college attainment and comparatively vast resources.

This is Anacostia, in SE DC. It's the most violent part of town. Looks like a real dystopian hellhole, right?

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8720...8192?entry=ttu

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8694...8192?entry=ttu

Except for some a few scattered crappy apartment blocks, SE DC is remarkably middle-class looking and very well maintained. Outside of the fact it's entirely black, it looks like a solidly middle class inner suburb of any older Eastern city.

It's pretty insane how quickly DC has changed. When I was living there around 2008, you didn't have to look hard to find pretty obviously ghetto areas. Not just in NE and SE DC, but even in significant portions of NW. Back then, Logan Circle was still really rough and had few open businesses. I remember going into a Popeyes over that way, and they had a full plexiglass barrier between the customers and the cashiers, which is something I've only seen at gas stations in really bad neighborhoods. Lots of guys just hanging around on the street, litter everywhere, etc. Now, it's a yuppie paradise and 100% gentrified. Columbia Heights was just starting to turn around as the big new infill project with the Target had just opened, though anything past there (i.e. Petworth) was a no-go zone. Shaw and the area around the Convention Center was pretty iffy. U Street was just starting to become hip, but was still definitely in transition. All of these places are in Northwest DC, and now are expensive, fully gentrified neighborhoods.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by edale

It's pretty insane how quickly DC has changed.

Here's an illustration of the changes - when I was in college (late 90's/early 2000's), I was a summer intern for a Congressman. One of my fellow interns was subletting a room in Logan Circle - from a prostitute. She used the rest of the apartment to turn tricks. She was a nice lady and parent but ran a whorehouse blocks from the city center.

Also, I remember a convenience store near 14th Street that later got busted as a bigtime heroin operation, and I remember nonstop nighttime hooker activity in the heart of downtown around 14th & K Street. Also there was a gayborhood on P Street where gay guys kept getting jumped. It was such a big problem that my undergrad college, which had a DC center near P Street, gave warnings to avoid P Street.

IMO, DC is the most gentrified/radically transformed older major U.S. city. That's why the crime stats are so crazy.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK why anybody would find it so surprising. DC has always been basically Baltimore but with politicians.

You're not at least a tiny bit surprised that DC, one of the most all-out gentrified major US cities, had a murder rate roughly double that of Chicago, America's favorite violent crime whipping boy, last year?

Even if you're not, you can't even understand how some people might be?

[Chisouthside]

I think it also mirrors Chicago in the distribution of murders. if you compare maps of chicago showing murders from the 1990s to now, its way more concentrated in two clusters on the south and west side. Even though those clusters were there in the 1990s, murders were also more distributed throughout the rest of the city. It seems that murders then became more concentrated as Chicago gentrified throughout the 90s. I can imagine murder becoming more concentrated in areas of dc not yet gentrified.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

You're not at least a tiny bit surprised that DC, one of the most all-out gentrified major US cities, had a murder rate roughly double that of Chicago, America's favorite violent crime whipping boy, last year?

Even if you're not, you can't even understand how some people might be?

The way I understand it is that even if Washington DC has been highly gentrified, the rates were so high in the past that even a partial spike is a very very high rate.




The high crime parts of Chicago haven’t gentrified at all, so the usual neighborhoods have just been pingponging in recent years.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

It's surprising because DC has no abandonment at this point and average incomes are very very high compared to other US cities.

If you walk or drive around DC it is very hard to find any area that feels "sketchy".

Abandonment has nothing to do with murder rates. Urban prairies and blight don't kill people.

A lot of very rich people live in DC. Which skews averages. But DC has always had a giant underclass just like Baltimore. But it's the capital so a bunch of well paid people are mixed in.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wait, what? The pandemic was in 2020. Crime rose beginning in the pandemic, in 2020.

Why would we compare to 2010?


Huh? 2019 was one of the safest years in modern history, and safer than 2010.

I
No, it means we're safer. Crime is lower right now, than in 2019, which was one of the safest years in modern history. The U.S., as a whole, is near record-low crime in modern times. And there were no "extremely elevated levels" of crime nationally. That was always exaggerated. Crime rose in 2020 and 2021, but was still well below crime numbers during most of the post-1960 period.





The crime narrative, as least nationally, is a total fabrication.

Still, in straight, unvarnished, and emotionally detached numbers is totally fucktup.

[edale]

Originally Posted by The North One

Abandonment has nothing to do with murder rates. Urban prairies and blight don't kill people.

A lot of very rich people live in DC. Which skews averages. But DC has always had a giant underclass just like Baltimore. But it's the capital so a bunch of well paid people are mixed in.

Of course abandonment and blight don't kill people, but they are signs of economically and socially dysfunctional areas, which is where crime tends to occur most often. More simply, crime happens most in poor, run down, undesirable neighborhoods. Abandonment and blight are common features in these types of neighborhoods. So it's natural to associate abandonment and blight with crime of all types. The fact that DC doesn't have much abandonment or blight, but still has an astounding murder rate is pretty interesting and unique. Driving or walking around the city would not give you an impression that it's a particularly violent or dangerous place when, in fact, it is.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by The North One

But DC has always had a giant underclass just like Baltimore.

Except it doesn't, though. Baltimore has much higher poverty rates than DC. There aren't many poor/underclass households in DC anymore. DC is likely one of the richest city propers on the planet.

And yeah, neighborhood distress usually correlates with crime. It's very odd to see a beautifully maintained, fairly expensive, manicured neighborhood of homeowners with murders and chaos every night. That's the reality in parts of DC. Townhouses in the Petworth area are $1 million+, luxury condos are going up, retail is upscale, streets look clean, and that area had crazy bloodshed in 2023. That isn't normal in the U.S. context.

Where, in say, Detroit, Chicago, Philly, etc. do you have $1 million+ homes and upscale stores on the same blocks as nighttime shooting galleries and chaos?