So First We Win the World Series

[dirtdigger88]

now THIS (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15475741/?GT1=8618)

Jason

[Louis]

Jason knows why this is so, but for the rest of you:

This is purely an artifact of how the numbers are calculated. For those of you who don't know, St Louis County (suburbs) are distinct from the city when statistics are computed. This is because the two are different political entities. The population of the County is much larger (and wealthier and different in a number of demographic ways) than the city. If you were to look at the crime stats for nearly any inner city it too would be much worse than if you included the entire metropolitan area.

Louis

[72gmc]

If I had to guess based on purely unscientific assumptions and hearsay, I would not pick St. Louis as the more dangerous of the two World Series cities.

No offense, Ginger. Just lingering impressions of all that Devil's Night rioting and a dreary February week spent at Cobo.

[Jason E]

I heard the lead in for this story on my way in this morning, but parked and was off before the story ran.

Not being obtuse (the word, not the person) but is it partially some sort of Echo off of Katrina like Houston is experiencing?

Obviously you are much further upstream, but I do not know how far people have been dispersing.

Just curious

Jason

[ClutchCargo]

East St. Louis :D


The local news made it sound like the mayor's office in Camden, NJ was ecstatic that they have now successfully avoided the top (bottom?) spot in this survey for the second year in a row.

[dirtdigger88]

no Katrina affect here

like Louis said- its all in how the numbers are counted- there is St Louis County- then St Loius City-

the city has about 380,000 people- the county is near 1 million more- but when they tally the stats- they lump the crimes of nearly 1.4 million people into a city of 380,000 - so we look much wose than what we are-

Counting all the "burbs" there is 90 towns in St Louis County and 9 unincorporated "areas (?)" but St Louis City gets credit for all of the crimes- but not the population

Im not saying there are not spots of the city that I wouldnt go at night- but St Louis ISNT all that bad-

jason

[Louis]

but when they tally the stats- they lump the crimes of nearly 1.4 million people into a city of 380,000 - so we look much wose than what we are

Jason, I'm 99.9999999% sure that they don't add the County crimes in to the city crimes then divide by just the City population. That would truly be bad math.

They do take (city crime / city pop) and they do (county crime / county pop). However, "city" is not comparable to other cities, since others typically include much more of the surrounding metropolitan area. In St Louis, like nearly any other city in the US, city crime rate >> suburb crime rate (measuring crime as violent crime, which is typically how they measure "danger"). I'm sure that I could think of some types of crime rates that are more prevalent in the county than in the city, but I won't bother to mention them here.

As long as the boyz in the hood stay there, the folks out in the county don't really care about what they do to each other...

Louis

[dirtdigger88]

THAT may be true Louis-

I remember that is wasnt more than 10 years ago they finally got it to where the city could vote for its own issues without the issues being included on county ballots- you could never get anything passed in the city because we were so out numbered my the county folks like you - Home Rule- Rules

Jason

[bcm119]

You can come up with all sorts of startling geographic statistics if you start playing with the size/location of the areal units. Makes for good news stories though. :rolleyes:

[Waldo]

I went to law school at WashU in '85-'88 and couldn't wait to graduate so I could get out of St. Louis. Crime had nothing to do with it. The first thing they told us during orientation that St. Louis was a great place to raise kids. Maybe that was true then, but nothing could have been further from my 25-year old mind than raising kids. And having lived there for 3 years I'd agree that it was a good place to raise kids -- man was it boring. All the town had in those days was CARDINALS, CARDINALS, CARDINALS, CARDINALS, CARDINALS, CARDINALS and bad :beer: beer. And riding was pretty lousy too.

[Louis]

And riding was pretty lousy too.

Depends entirely on where you are riding. I think the areas where I ride are pretty awesome. Like the statistics issue, it depends on where the sample is drawn.

As far as the beer goes, there are plenty of brands other than AB...

Louis

[Kevin]

Jason,

If you move out of St. Louis the crime rate will go down :beer:

Kevin

[stevep]

the world series... i think they stole it.

[Ginger]

Im not saying there are not spots of the city that I wouldnt go at night- but St Louis ISNT all that bad-

jason

Welcome to Detroit.

Get the spotlight for something, *anything* and they point out all the worm holes....

I can't think of anywhere in Detroit that I haven't been at night...I wouldn't say I was always safe...I was usually moving pretty fast on skates or on a bike...

And it does seem to have improved in some ways, worse in others as the city government looses its grip. (And that is happening...) While there are good things happening in Detroit, the beligerant isolationist city government that doesn't provide the people with services, the support of the casinos is a joke, and with the economy in the dumpster especially with the Big 3 issues... more people are turning to crime. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

Fortunately, I don't live "IN" Detroit, I live in a town just across that storied 8 mile border. And we have a good police force in our town.

It is "angels night" in Detroit these days.

[Ken Robb]

now THIS (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15475741/?GT1=8618)

Jason
Yeah, well the Rams' performance should keep you from feeling too cocky. :)

[Serpico]

st. louis is okay, I just got back from downtown--and that's the problem here. stl's downtown is TOTALLY dead, and it's been that way for the 12 years I've been here. my brother lives in chicago and it's lit up 24/7.

granted, there's some decent nightlife like washingont st., south grand, central west end, clayton, etc--but downtown proper is a friggin ghost town, and every plan to "revitalize" is almost inadvertent gentrification. the folks who live downtown can't afford the "studio lofts" and the people who can afford them don't wanna live downtown. it's a bit of a joke.

thanks for cool areas like the west end, south city, maplewood etc. where people have actually built their own communities from the ground up. thanks for places like the hill and dogtown with such history.

I wish I was back more "north" (I'm from Wisconsin). stl ain't "southern", but it's a bit too southish for me.



imo^^

[edouard]

jersey jets
jersey giants
jersey yankees _ newark? camden?