urbanSTL

^Definitely knock on wood, jinx has been in everytime theres been a post about it across social media

I actually never looked at how “rankings” came out last year, but an infographic has been going around social media today. I guess we still finished first in per capita which surprised me a little bit. I thought we would have moved down. So we got labeled the “murder capital” along with Chicago on the infographic.

And we were pretty high above the rest of the top 10 which is unfortunate. It looks impossible to leave the #1 spot too without everyone else jumping up in numbers. And it was discouraging to see many cities take way bigger reductions than we did.

Obviously with city-county merger, we would almost drop out of the top 20 (would go up more than I would’ve thought though in raw numbers). Im sure it would help a lot of the other general crime states a lot too. Which is frankly the saving grace we need. There would be negatives but nothing that would outweigh getting off some these lists and association with StL.

It is amazing how many outsiders considering visiting and moving here would now just see the 10th biggest city, 1.3 million population, and pretty normal big city crime stats at worst. People really don’t dig that deep. It would completely change perception for generations to come and definitely lead to population growth, more tourism, more money, more business, and more efficiency.

Or I suppose we can fall out of the top 75 largest cities that got measured for the rankings I saw (we happen to be 75) and just be irrelevant. Kind of crazy and ridiculous we have fallen that far - another shocker to me today. Didn’t realize census estimates got us all the way down in the 280Ks

I have no idea how county numbers have been looking this year. Seems like north county has had a bit of a rough go but not sure if that’s just the quantity of reporting I’m seeing on it.

What about murders per capita? I believe we’re a resounding #1 in the country. I realize the city/county divide kills us here but those are the stats people will see.

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

I actually never looked at how “rankings” came out last year, but an infographic has been going around social media today. I guess we still finished first in per capita which surprised me a little bit. I thought we would have moved down. So we got labeled the “murder capital” along with Chicago on the infographic.

And we were pretty high above the rest of the top 10 which is unfortunate. It looks impossible to leave the #1 spot too without everyone else jumping up in numbers. And it was discouraging to see many cities take way bigger reductions than we did.

Obviously with city-county merger, we would almost drop out of the top 20 (would go up more than I would’ve thought though in raw numbers). Im sure it would help a lot of the other general crime states a lot too. Which is frankly the saving grace we need. There would be negatives but nothing that would outweigh getting off some these lists and association with StL.

It is amazing how many outsiders considering visiting and moving here would now just see the 10th biggest city, 1.3 million population, and pretty normal big city crime stats at worst. People really don’t dig that deep. It would completely change perception for generations to come and definitely lead to population growth, more tourism, more money, more business, and more efficiency.

Or I suppose we can fall out of the top 75 largest cities that got measured for the rankings I saw (we happen to be 75) and just be irrelevant. Kind of crazy and ridiculous we have fallen that far - another shocker to me today. Didn’t realize census estimates got us all the way down in the 280Ks

I have no idea how county numbers have been looking this year. Seems like north county has had a bit of a rough go but not sure if that’s just the quantity of reporting I’m seeing on it.

I've seen the same list i think you're talking about.

In the top 20 list, the other 19 cities have an average land area of just over 193 square miles. If St. Louis was that average, we'd have around 700,000 people and our murder rate would be between 25 and 30/100k or very similar to Kansas City's.

The only two cities physically smaller than St. Louis are Minneapolis and Stockton, both of which are in blue states that have serious approaches to crime prevention and reducing the effects of poverty.

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

I actually never looked at how “rankings” came out last year, but an infographic has been going around social media today. I guess we still finished first in per capita which surprised me a little bit. I thought we would have moved down. So we got labeled the “murder capital” along with Chicago on the infographic.

And we were pretty high above the rest of the top 10 which is unfortunate. It looks impossible to leave the #1 spot too without everyone else jumping up in numbers. And it was discouraging to see many cities take way bigger reductions than we did.

Obviously with city-county merger, we would almost drop out of the top 20 (would go up more than I would’ve thought though in raw numbers). Im sure it would help a lot of the other general crime states a lot too. Which is frankly the saving grace we need. There would be negatives but nothing that would outweigh getting off some these lists and association with StL.

It is amazing how many outsiders considering visiting and moving here would now just see the 10th biggest city, 1.3 million population, and pretty normal big city crime stats at worst. People really don’t dig that deep. It would completely change perception for generations to come and definitely lead to population growth, more tourism, more money, more business, and more efficiency.

Or I suppose we can fall out of the top 75 largest cities that got measured for the rankings I saw (we happen to be 75) and just be irrelevant. Kind of crazy and ridiculous we have fallen that far - another shocker to me today. Didn’t realize census estimates got us all the way down in the 280Ks

I have no idea how county numbers have been looking this year. Seems like north county has had a bit of a rough go but not sure if that’s just the quantity of reporting I’m seeing on it.

I could not agree more, get us off these stupid most dangerous lists and the national perception of STL changes. Not sure how long that takes but I don't think there's any question that they do impact how we are perceived.

pdm_ad wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

I actually never looked at how “rankings” came out last year, but an infographic has been going around social media today. I guess we still finished first in per capita which surprised me a little bit. I thought we would have moved down. So we got labeled the “murder capital” along with Chicago on the infographic.

And we were pretty high above the rest of the top 10 which is unfortunate. It looks impossible to leave the #1 spot too without everyone else jumping up in numbers. And it was discouraging to see many cities take way bigger reductions than we did.

Obviously with city-county merger, we would almost drop out of the top 20 (would go up more than I would’ve thought though in raw numbers). Im sure it would help a lot of the other general crime states a lot too. Which is frankly the saving grace we need. There would be negatives but nothing that would outweigh getting off some these lists and association with StL.

It is amazing how many outsiders considering visiting and moving here would now just see the 10th biggest city, 1.3 million population, and pretty normal big city crime stats at worst. People really don’t dig that deep. It would completely change perception for generations to come and definitely lead to population growth, more tourism, more money, more business, and more efficiency.

Or I suppose we can fall out of the top 75 largest cities that got measured for the rankings I saw (we happen to be 75) and just be irrelevant. Kind of crazy and ridiculous we have fallen that far - another shocker to me today. Didn’t realize census estimates got us all the way down in the 280Ks

I have no idea how county numbers have been looking this year. Seems like north county has had a bit of a rough go but not sure if that’s just the quantity of reporting I’m seeing on it.

I could not agree more, get us off these stupid most dangerous lists and the national perception of STL changes. Not sure how long that takes but I don't think there's any question that they do impact how we are perceived.

100%. When I worked in Indianapolis, I was always hearing about STL crime and "what it's like". This was my first experience in a situation like this. All I could say is that it's not anywhere near as bad as the headlines say.

The funny thing is that Indianapolis and Marion County are merged and their murder rate is higher than what STL's would be if our city and county merged. But no one looks at that.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

What about murders per capita? I believe we’re a resounding #1 in the country. I realize the city/county divide kills us here but those are the stats people will see.

That’s literally what my post was about, yes.

Sadly it’s very difficult to prevent these types of crimes Does it make downtown less safe no however you know how our local media likes to paint the entire downtown as dangerous unsafe & not worthy of investment. I wish stuff like this didn’t happen but these types of things happen in lots of downtowns just St.Louis seems to perpetuate the idea that downtown is very unsafe. Worse now this latest crime will motivate Missouri to get the votes it needs to finalize the state take over of the police department.


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PlatinumBlues wrote: ↑

Mar 12, 2025

Sadly it’s very difficult to prevent these types of crimes Does it make downtown less safe no however you know how our local media likes to paint the entire downtown as dangerous unsafe & not worthy of investment. I wish stuff like this didn’t happen but these types of things happen in lots of downtowns just St.Louis seems to perpetuate the idea that downtown is very unsafe. Worse now this latest crime will motivate Missouri to get the votes it needs to finalize the state take over of the police department.


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It's not as hard as you think. Actual gun laws would go a long way in getting guns off the street and keeping repeat gun offenders locked away. Additionally, expanded social welfare programs to help reduce the effects of poverty would go a long way in helping break the broken culture that makes people think it's okay to shoot other people over often small things.

None of this can be done on a large scale without support from the state. So crime in KC and STL will remain high. There's nothing the police can do about it.

I think the people that yell about “StL defunded police” and “StL hates cops, that’s their problem” and “StL doesnt have enough officers” are bogus.

I will say though that we need to use our small boundaries that kill us in these stats to our advantage. It’s hard to keep patrol on all sides of a 300 sq mile city. We have a 62 mile city, and so much of the crime happens in about 20 square miles on the north side and 5 square miles on the southeast side. Then you have a few square miles downtown/downtown west that you need to be safe and can’t afford pretty much any violent crime that is preventable.

So do hire as many as we can and keep patrol on that 30 square miles constantly, block by block with visible lights. Take the european approach - just visible present law enforcement. Simple deterrence. We have a small amount of terrain to control - use it to our advantage. Get as many out there to prevent these things that people just aren’t going to do in the presence of officers very often.

Downtown at 7 pm - patrol should be everywhere

If STL maintains current rate, 17 homicides over 20% of year, it will end 2025 with 85 homicides. Locally, a fantastic improvement.

Nationally, it would still rank 5th.

Getting off the lists will not happen in any of our lifetimes unless there is legitimate turnaround in population:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Mar 12, 2025

If STL maintains current rate, 17 homicides over 20% of year, it will end 2025 with 85 homicides. Locally, a fantastic improvement.

Nationally, it would still rank 5th.

Getting off the lists will not happen in any of our lifetimes unless there is legitimate turnaround in population:

Yes, that was my disappointment/discouragement with seeing that yesterday. We won’t get off the top of the lists without a merger. There’s been a growing discourse that “the city doesn’t need the county” and “city has no reason to merge”. As a city promoter, I still have to admit that the city absolutely needs a merger if it ever wants to grow significantly because these stats will be too hard to overcome for us, amongst some other positives.

I am hoping that some movement gets going on the issue.

addxb2 wrote:If STL maintains current rate, 17 homicides over 20% of year, it will end 2025 with 85 homicides. Locally, a fantastic improvement.

Nationally, it would still rank 5th.

Getting off the lists will not happen in any of our lifetimes unless there is legitimate turnaround in population:

I would also assume that if our homicide rate keeps trending down, other cities on the list will do the same. We may not get to 5th at 85 homicides, but that would be a huge accomplishment nonetheless.

Crime in STL will always look high because it is high and it will always be high until the state takes a serious approach to enacting basic gun laws and making serious efforts to reduce the effects of poverty. Until then, there is absolutely nothing the city can do to make its numbers look better.

And as normal, all of these deep systemic issues comes down to racism and that's also why it won't be fixed by the current government.

The County has nothing to gain, and only to lose, in the short run by reporting crime data with the city. It’s not going to happen.

Depends what you’re trying to accomplish, if it’s to change the national narrative then the county has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Right, I said short term.

Yeah I think there’s essentially no downside for the county in the short or long term. Even in the short term, their trends over the last 2 years would improve.

Clayton office towers are filling up with former DT firms in part due to fears of crime in the city. It tangibly benefits the county for the city to have a negative crime reputation