4 ms·

San Francisco is a pit, go south into the Bay Area. Much Better. I pick my locales by homicide rates. Chicago and Sf both suck.

CalChris 10y ago
San Francisco was 45 homicides per 100,000 for 2014. San Jose was 32. Kansas City was 78. Denver was 31. Dallas was 116. These were picked kinda randomly.
- ohhnoodont 10y ago
  I think you're reading your numbers wrong - San Francisco had 5.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2014 (45 in total [1]). [1] http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-California.html http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californi...
  - CalChris 10y ago
    Doh. Thank you.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  Are you sure that isn't per million? Because Wikipedia says that the rate for the USA as a whole is 3.9/100,000
toomanybeersies 10y ago
If you pick your locales by homicide rate, you should perhaps consider emigrating.
hermitdev 10y ago
Areas of Chicago suck. The majority of Chicago is great, and generally very safe. (It also doesn't reek of garbage and urine like Manhattan). You're pretty safe, maybe safer than national metropolitan cities in Chicago if you don't go to certain areas, such as the generalized west and south sides. Even then, the violence is even more localized than those generalizations. Yes, homicides in the city limit are the worst in the US. Work in the loop? Probably will never have a problem (I think homicides in the Loop are like 1% or less of the city total). Last I can think of that wasn't at a festival in Grant Park was a murder/suicide where a white-collar employee shot his boss then offed his self a few years back). I worked in the Loop between 2004 and February of this year and I never had a single time where I even felt threatened. I never even got mugged, even while stumbling obviously drunk to the Metra. The Loop is very heavily patrolled. The real homicide problems are in the very poor neighborhoods on the west and south sides well away from the financial district/Loop. Gentrification in the last 15-20 years has pushed those neighborhoods even further away from the Loop. In short, homicide's not the big problem it seems in Chicago (yes, it's a problem - but not a city-wide problem - it's a neighborhood issue).
- tptacek 10y ago
  Homicides in Chicago are not "the worst in the US". We should be more numerate than this. Chicago has a lot of murders --- it's fair to point this out in comparing cities, because the city management needs to be accountable for the human rights catastrophe occurring on the south and west sides. But the number that matters experientially is the per capita rate, and on that scale, Chicago proper doesn't even rank in the top 20. It's a huge city, more than 3x larger than SF.
  - areyousure 10y ago
    The Brennan center projection for Chicago's 2016 per capita rate is 26.6 per 100,000 people per year. I believe that is well within the top 20. Do you reason differently? My understanding is that you live in Chicago.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      It's in the top 5 for large cities, depending on how you define that (ie: is STL included?). It's not in the top 20 for cities period. I don't know if it shoots back up to the top for metro statistical areas (the Chicago MSA captures a lot of populous, virtually-no-crime suburbs, and then 4-5 of the worst places in the country, like Gary).

CalChris 10y ago

San Francisco was 45 homicides per 100,000 for 2014. San Jose was 32. Kansas City was 78. Denver was 31. Dallas was 116. These were picked kinda randomly.

ohhnoodont 10y ago
I think you're reading your numbers wrong - San Francisco had 5.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2014 (45 in total [1]). [1] http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-California.html http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californi...
- CalChris 10y ago
  Doh. Thank you.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
Are you sure that isn't per million? Because Wikipedia says that the rate for the USA as a whole is 3.9/100,000

toomanybeersies 10y ago

If you pick your locales by homicide rate, you should perhaps consider emigrating.

hermitdev 10y ago

Areas of Chicago suck. The majority of Chicago is great, and generally very safe. (It also doesn't reek of garbage and urine like Manhattan). You're pretty safe, maybe safer than national metropolitan cities in Chicago if you don't go to certain areas, such as the generalized west and south sides. Even then, the violence is even more localized than those generalizations. Yes, homicides in the city limit are the worst in the US. Work in the loop? Probably will never have a problem (I think homicides in the Loop are like 1% or less of the city total). Last I can think of that wasn't at a festival in Grant Park was a murder/suicide where a white-collar employee shot his boss then offed his self a few years back). I worked in the Loop between 2004 and February of this year and I never had a single time where I even felt threatened. I never even got mugged, even while stumbling obviously drunk to the Metra. The Loop is very heavily patrolled. The real homicide problems are in the very poor neighborhoods on the west and south sides well away from the financial district/Loop. Gentrification in the last 15-20 years has pushed those neighborhoods even further away from the Loop. In short, homicide's not the big problem it seems in Chicago (yes, it's a problem - but not a city-wide problem - it's a neighborhood issue).

tptacek 10y ago
Homicides in Chicago are not "the worst in the US". We should be more numerate than this. Chicago has a lot of murders --- it's fair to point this out in comparing cities, because the city management needs to be accountable for the human rights catastrophe occurring on the south and west sides. But the number that matters experientially is the per capita rate, and on that scale, Chicago proper doesn't even rank in the top 20. It's a huge city, more than 3x larger than SF.
- areyousure 10y ago
  The Brennan center projection for Chicago's 2016 per capita rate is 26.6 per 100,000 people per year. I believe that is well within the top 20. Do you reason differently? My understanding is that you live in Chicago.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It's in the top 5 for large cities, depending on how you define that (ie: is STL included?). It's not in the top 20 for cities period. I don't know if it shoots back up to the top for metro statistical areas (the Chicago MSA captures a lot of populous, virtually-no-crime suburbs, and then 4-5 of the worst places in the country, like Gary).