St. Louis is 3rd most dangerous city, study says

[Thom Little]

By Tim Rowden
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005


St. Louis isn't the most dangerous city in which you can live, but it's close, according to a report released today by a private research firm.

The city ranks third in "City Crime Rankings," an annual report published by Morgan Quitno Press of Lawrence, Kan. St. Louis trails Detroit in the No. 2 spot and Camden, N.J., which was named the most dangerous city for the second year in a row.

.......

Morgan Quitno's assessment is based on a given city's rates last year in six crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft, as reported to the FBI. The firm scores cities against national averages in each category and adds the scores, weighing each crime the same.



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/0D1170CBA78D0F6F862570C0001BE022?OpenDocument

[AllegroRondo]

1. a bit misleading

as they only count St Louis City, and not St Louis County (which is a separate county). If they included the entire metro area, the ranking would be much lower.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Well that would be true of any metro area

Since St. Louis (and every city, for that matter) has a separate police force and separate government, it makes perfect sense that only the city is considered for this ranking.

[AllegroRondo]

3. St Louis city is a separate county from St Louis County

bizarre, yes. They made the city a separate county many years ago for some reason, I think it was money related. But it meant the city could no longer grow, and we ended up with tons of small 'cities' which in any other area would have been annexed and made part of the main city.

If St Louis had not done that, and been allowed to annex, we would have a population of close to 2 million. Instead, its 'officially' around 350,000.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Lots and lots of cities are 'locked in'

And we have lots of small 'cities' in the KC area also.

St. Louis is not alone or unique.

[nickinSTL]

4. yes, but the way St. Louis has developed

the city has much less in the way of population and area than most equivalent metropolitan areas. This leads to a higher per-capita crime rate, as the majority of the crime is in the city, but the majority of the metropolitan population is outside the city.

It would be much more fair to St. Louis to compare crime rates in metropolitan areas rather than only within city boundaries.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. I don't agree with that at all

Because the same is true here in KC. And metro St. Louis is bigger. Those magical boundary lines between cities don't cause criminals to go back to the city and commit their crimes there.

[nickinSTL]

9. no...they don't

but the crime rate in St. Louis is higher within the city limits.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. It's higher in KC too

than in any of the surrounding cities.

[AllegroRondo]

7. Its very odd in some places

you can cross the street and literally be in a different city.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I can do that where I live too

I live across the street from one city and two blocks away from another.

[AllegroRondo]

11. Do you change counties at the same time?

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. No

but the county line isn't far away.