Quote:
Originally Posted by dc_denizen
regarding London, it would be fairer to compare DC and its low-crime suburbs to the greater london.
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The
’Greater’ in Greater London isn’t synonymous with the use of
’Greater’ in the North American context. The Washington D.C. city area is to a degree undersized relative to other cities on the continent, but a quick look online search shows that whilst the surrounding counties of Virginia and Maryland do have lower death rates, they are still high.
Of the top five London boroughs with the highest and lowest homicide count, four and three are respectively Outer London boroughs. I suspect the more mixed urban morphology of London relative to North American city development plays a part in the distribution and concentration of crime.
It is far too convenient to blame specific ethnic groups for the murder rate in many US cities when the reasons behind crime rates (not just in the US) surpasses skin colour. London has a black/black-mixed population of circa 1.4mn (double the population of Washington D.C.), but the murder rate isn’t out of control. That isn’t to dismiss concerns of failings in London, the UK and in other developed countries, but the US has failed vast swathes of its population for a variety of reasons.
The other day I watched a video of the Kensington Avenue neighbourhood of Philadelphia and was outright shocked; addicts passed out on the pavement or getting their fix in public, rubbish piling up on the streets, homeless people dominating street scenes, crumbling buildings. It should not come a surprise then that many parts of the US resemble countries which are borderline lawless, and that many of the very public officials charged with maintaining the law are out of control.