Disturbing news out of Kansas City on the eve of Passover. BBC top-three headline...
Three dead in Kansas City shootings
At least three people have been shot dead in attacks at a Jewish community site and a retirement home in Kansas City in the US Midwest.
roger wyoming II wrote:I just don't get the thinking behind comments like this, at least when it comes to homicide:
nextSTL.com @nextSTL · 18h
Crime is too high in St. Louis. Also too high in Indy, Omaha, Cincy, Nashville, Atlanta...but which one is labelled "most dangerous"?
Not to diminish the fact that some of these cities have troubles of their own, but if we can't acknowledge that we've had a particularly severe homicide crisis in Saint Louis in comparison to all but a few other cities things will continue like they've been.
But we can do both!
Internally we can work to solve the crime problem while also suggesting a fairer image nationally. Do you not think it would be a positive for the city of St. Louis to shed the title of "most dangerous" city and to stop appearing on the top ten of that altogether?
The better the perception becomes, the more willing people will be to live in St. Louis. The more crime-hating people that live in St. Louis, the less crime we will ultimately have.
Now, in addition to that, we should absolutely keep fighting the real crime. We have too many murders, so let's find a way to lower them. But let's also stop telling the world to avoid St. Louis because if you come here you'll get shot.
I continue to not understand the idea that it has to be one or the other.
^I completely agree with this. The fight needs to be 2-fold. We need to continue to work hard to reduce violent crime while also fighting to be compared fairly to other regions in the US. It isn't and shouldn't be an either/or situation.
The murders hurt and the unfair perceptions hurt. Both need to change.
I just don't understand how it is unfair to say that we are on the leaderboard of Most Dangerous Cities. We are; particularly with homicide. When nextstl puts up comparison with the likes of Cincy and Atlanta -- cities with similarly high poverty but far fewer homicides -- it is borderline embarrassing. Seems like the message we're sending out with seeking a different compilation of crime stats is something like, "Saint Louis: Sure the City is a Homicide Hot Spot, But Our Suburbs are Sweet!"
Again, I think it is certainly fine to combine City plus all of County to get a secondary crime index number for the core region, but taking just bits and pieces of the County, which is weighted towards unincorporated areas, is counter to good public data. And we have to face up to fact that we have a huge homicide, violent crime problem in the City.
Because our city has half the landmass of Atlanta. More than likely their murders are highly concentrated in the poorest areas as well. But the larger land with healthier areas allows them to have a lower murder rate, just as ours would if we were including Maplewood, Richmond Heights, U-City, Clayton, etc.
Now, do we still have more murders? Yes we do. It's a problem and we need to fix it. But we're still not being compared on equal footing.
Frankly, there's no equal way to compare this stuff. If we combine data, then we're making it unequal but in our favor. Here's the thing about that: good! That's what you do with marketing. You put a better spin on things.
Let's market ourselves positively to a national audience. And let's also get our stuff in order on the home front.
To make a mediocre comparison: we do a lot of complaining on here about the way the city functions, the way the city and county work or don't work together, the many buildings we've lost to unwarranted demo, etc. Because it's important to have real conversations to get those things fixed. But when I'm talking to outsiders, do I mention those things? No, I tell them how amazing this city is and about all of the great things we have.
There's no reason we can't do the same thing with crime. The numbers are fudged regardless, so let's push it back the other direction and get some positive (or less negative) PR. And then let's keep doing work at home to get things better.
I would like to see a new TV series where a young inner city lawyer or judge convinces gang members and druggies to take their enemies to civil court to get their grievances aired and possibly get some justice monetarily, rather than just shooting them.
Is it even possible to have an approachable court system that only attempts to settle perceived injustices among folks who may otherwise be less than model citizens, just to try to prevent them from resorting to shootings to get their justice?
^You can't only use Clayton, R Heights, U city, and Maplewood. You would need to add wellston, Jennings, pagedale, etc. St. Louis has a crime problem, the stats are unfair, but over 100 people are murdered every year in this city of 300,000. That is an unacceptable number and I don't care if it is because the city hasn't been allowed to grow. Minneapolis, Boston, and Miami are a few examples smaller cities by area and significantly less crime. I realize there alot of the factors, but st. louis should look to those cities as a model instead of just complaining about how the numbers are not reflective of the region.
jstriebel wrote:
Now, do we still have more murders? Yes we do. It's a problem and we need to fix it. But we're still not being compared on equal footing.
How many homicides do you think there are in Atlanta? How about Cincinnati? Pittsburgh? What about Boston? D.C.? Even Cleveland? Some of these cities are smaller than ours in land size and some have higher poverty rates; yet all have significantly fewer homicides. When we have just as many homicides last year (120) as Cincinnati (75) and Pittsburgh (46) combined its time to have had enough of our complaints of unfairness,,, let's tackle the problem and let the results speak for themselves.
Agreed on both points. I wasn't intentionally leaving out any municipalities, just listing a few off the top of my head. I'd use anything that's inner core to be as fair as possible, but in reality it may be all the county (or just the county) or nothing.
And yep. I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't think we have way too many murders.
You'll just find people who think that and also don't think it helps us fight that crime by frequently promoting ourselves as the most dangerous city.
We all agree that bringing more upstanding citizens that hate crime into the city would ultimately help to push crime out of the city (or more ideally, eradicate it), right? Does anybody think appearing on these top 10 lists—frequently as #1 or in the top 3—encourages anybody of that variety to move into our city?
Let's fight the perception problem and the real problem at the same time. Instead I feel like we spend a great deal of time and resources fighting the fight of the perception problem (meaning bickering over whether we should modify the numbers or not). Let's just do it and let's do the crime fighting too.
jstriebel wrote:
Now, do we still have more murders? Yes we do. It's a problem and we need to fix it. But we're still not being compared on equal footing.
How many homicides do you think there are in Atlanta? How about Cincinnati? Pittsburgh? What about Boston? D.C.? Even Cleveland? Some of these cities are smaller than ours in land size and some have higher poverty rates; yet all have significantly fewer homicides. When we have just as many homicides last year (120) as Cincinnati (75) and Pittsburgh (46) combined its time to have had enough of our complaints of unfairness,,, let's tackle the problem and let the results speak for themselves.
I believe creating a positive/less negative perception is one part of tackling the problem.
Certainly telling the world how dangerous we are for a decade hasn't helped.
our murder rate won't change significantly unless our economy improves and our population and median household income both increase. period. perhaps advertising ourselves as the most dangerous city in America won't necessarily prevent that, but it sure as hell doesn't help.
dmmonty1 wrote:Can anyone offer any insight on WHY our murder rate is so much higher than demographically similar cities like, say, Cincinnati or Pittsburgh?
I think part of it has to do with the fact that neither city had quite the same scale of abandonment of such a large section of the city than ours did.... they've been relatively more stable while we rose higher and fell harder. Also, I wonder to what extent topography has to do with some of Pittsburgh's indicators; e.g. I think sprawl and having second and third downtowns/office clusters, etc. is a bit harder.
Seems like every city is able to find ways and sources to combat crime but St.Louis doesn't.. Is the city cursed or something there has to be a way! Its a war zone out there with the level these people are just thrashing each other we need the army to intervene. Think i'll call Barack Obama for help! a world record S.O.S sign...
urban_dilettante wrote:^ judging from the article that quincunx posted it might be that other cities just find better ways to hide their crime problems.
Heaven forbid we try to change the perception of our city by adjusting the numbers, though.
What if the lower rates the last couple of years are just fudging the numbers like the Chicago article? That's a scary thought. With City control of the police department, it is even more likely to happen here as in Chicago.
pat wrote:What if the lower rates the last couple of years are just fudging the numbers like the Chicago article? That's a scary thought. With City control of the police department, it is even more likely to happen here as in Chicago.
Not sure why it's more likely to happen, but I could see it being also likely to happen. That said, we just got city control, so that doesn't account for the entire last couple of years.
