urbanSTL

Now we just need the population numbers to go the other direction and we can make an even more meaningful dent in our per capita murder rate

It is mainly about the denominator.  It's funny how folks seem to assume crime rankings are for the whole metro area.  And if you point out that metro area rankings tell a more accurate story, they claim you're cheating.  But our low denominator central city works the other way too on a few things.  Such as, per skyscraper web site, St. Louis has more skyscrapers per resident than Chicago.  And St Louis sells more major league sports tickets per resident than any city in North America.  But of course they say measuring that way is cheating.  Even AI, when asked about metro area crime rankings, often says it doesn't have that data, so answers about city limits crime instead,  Or falls back to conventional wisdom that St. Louis is the worst.  Frustrating.  

By the way, Here is AIs list of Smallest Primary Cities in the top 30 MSAs.  Not crime, just central city size.

Rank (by City Pop)	Primary Named Central City	MSA Title (Approx. Rank)	Approximate City Population (2020-2024 Est.)
1	St. Louis, MO	St. Louis, MO-IL MSA (21-23)	≈281,754−301,578
2	Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh, PA MSA (28-30)	≈302,971−303,255
3	Cincinnati, OH	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN MSA (30-31)	≈311,097−314,000
4	Cleveland, OH	Cleveland, OH MSA (34)	≈372,624
5	Tampa, FL	Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, FL MSA (17-18)	≈387,924−408,510
6	Miami, FL	Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL MSA (6-8)	≈442,827−460,289
7	Atlanta, GA	Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell, GA MSA (7-9)	≈499,896−514,465
8	Kansas City, MO	Kansas City, MO-KS MSA (31)	≈508,090−511,532
9	Sacramento, CA	Sacramento–Roseville–Folsom, CA MSA (25-28)	≈526,384−526,669
10	Baltimore, MD	Baltimore–Columbia–Towson, MD MSA (21-22)	≈559,266−585,708
11	Las Vegas, NV	Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas, NV MSA (25-29)	≈641,903−678,922
12	Boston, MA	Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA-NH MSA (11-12)	≈646,622−675,647
13	Portland, OR	Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR-WA MSA (24-26)	≈622,882−653,344
14	Washington, D.C.	Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA (6-7)	≈670,839−702,250
15	Denver, CO	Denver–Aurora–Centennial, CO MSA (19)	≈716,234−729,019
16	Seattle, WA	Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA MSA (15)	≈740,565−780,995
17	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont, CA MSA (12-13)	≈788,478−873,965
18	Indianapolis, IN	Indianapolis–Carmel–Greenwood, IN MSA (29)	≈876,665−897,041
19	Columbus, OH	Columbus, OH MSA (29-34)	≈905,748−933,263
20	Charlotte, NC	Charlotte–Concord–Gastonia, NC-SC MSA (22-24)	≈874,579−943,476
21	Austin, TX	Austin–Round Rock–Georgetown, TX MSA (24-27)	≈961,855−993,588
22	San Jose, CA	San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara, CA MSA (30)	≈956,433−1,013,240
23	Dallas, TX	Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX MSA (4-5)	≈1,302,753−1,326,087
24	San Diego, CA	San Diego–Chula Vista–Carlsbad, CA MSA (17)	≈1,386,932−1,404,452
25	San Antonio, TX	San Antonio–New Braunfels, TX MSA (20-24)	≈1,434,625−1,526,656
26	Philadelphia, PA	Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA (8-9)	≈1,533,828−1,603,797
27	Phoenix, AZ	Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ MSA (5-10)	≈1,608,139−1,673,164
28	Houston, TX	Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, TX MSA (4-5)	≈2,304,580−2,390,125
29	Chicago, IL	Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL-IN MSA (3)	≈2,638,159−2,746,388
30	Los Angeles, CA	Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, CA MSA (2)	≈3,795,936−3,898,747
31	New York City, NY	New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY-NJ MSA (1)	≈8,097,282−8,804,190

Total crime in St. Louis City through November is down 9% in 2025 vs 2024. Violent crime is down 11.46% 2024. Total violent crime is on pace to be the lowest going back to the 1960s

It seems logical that as the population decreases that crime would also decrease. At some point the County will outpace the City in homicides based solely on the population shift. Could this be the year? There was a double in North County just last night!

Homicide trend in stl county has followed the same trend in stl city 

The Effect of Medicaid on Crime: 
https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/doi/10.1162/REST.a.1625/133739/The-Effect-of-Medicaid-on-Crime-Evidence-from-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Chief Tracy on new contract through 2029. Good news!

I'm glad he is staying as well, unfortunately it looks like he will have to pickup another job to make up the difference in pay. Some have been saying there might be a teaching job at a local university in the mix. However I feel like he should be able to only focus on the Chiefs position and not have his time taken up elsewhere. I can't see why we can't pull an extra $100K from our budget so he can have his full attention on one of the most important issue our city faces. I know the argument against this is that we will have to raise the Fire Chiefs as well but $200K is just a drop in the our spending bucket.

If the city and county homicides were combined, the rate per 100,000 would be about 12.8-13.5. That would be in about the middle of the pack of the largest 50 cities. Dallas, Phoenix, Houston are in the 11-15 per 100k range. NYC is around 5 per 100k.

It’s really unclear to me how this legislatively and administratively would be possible. I’m not convinced. If it were, I’d think every large metropolitan area would have at least an example of this. If STL is the first, it won’t be long until every region does the same.

Also, I thought homicides were only reported by St. Louis County if within unincorporated areas otherwise included in whichever local jurisdictions. Is that wrong?

399K under St. Louis County, 32 in 2024
280K under St. Louis City, 150 in 2024
679k total, 182 in 2024, 27 per 100,000
About 5th

STL county data includes wildwood, Jennings, and a few other places that the county patrols via contract.  The rest of the county had a less than 10 homicides ytd in 2025

Neighborhood breakdown through November 2024 v November 2025.

Big increases in Walnut Park, Wells Goodfellow, Greater Ville, Ville, and Carondelet Park. Dutchtown with a staggering 11 homicides alone.

Big decreases in JeffVanderLou, Downtown/Downtown West.



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There is a typo in the data, downtown is still at zero in the daily homicide

Chief’s Kingdom is officially poof!


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Buh bye doofus!

Judge ousts St. Louis Sheriff Alfred Montgomery from office

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 34885.html

DB sure called that one.

Now can we get a serious, non-corrupt person for this job?

John Hayden has been doing it since big Al went to prison. I think the idea now is to make it permanent

I hope so. It'd be cool if all three parties (Mayor, BOA, State Attorney) could just agree to keep Hayden and mediate behind closed doors for future policy updates. It's a story that will eat up so much time if not. Darlene Green received a check by mistake and the Post is still writing about it. I read each article and all I get is that a weird employment circumstance created a clerical error. 

Bring in the National Guard!

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/major ... el-center/

Bit of a disappointing last week, a few domestic homicides with multiple victims pushed it to 139. Were on a 133 pace

Yeah, terrible end of the year. North Patrol has to be the focus going into 2026.

Can you determine pre-tornado? Theoretically, a natural disaster would exasperate socioeconomic conditions which result in more crimes.

North Patrol
Through May 2024: 33
Through May 2025: 28

Total 2024: 64
Total 2025: 82

Seems to be some correlation