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There are (at least) three things to understand about those numbers: 1. The City of St. Louis occupies a very small portion of what any reasonable person would

There are (at least) three things to understand about those numbers: 1. The City of St. Louis occupies a very small portion of what any reasonable person would call "St. Louis." And those numbers include only the City portion. The rest of the area is much safer. St. Louis County, which surrounds St. Louis on three sides and contains three times as many people (over 1 million), had 15 homicides in 2014 for a homicide rate of 1.5 (lower than Toronto) [0]. Most people living in the St. Louis area are living in very safe places. 2. Not all cities occupy such a small portion of their region. Toronto, to keep your example, is 243.33 sq mi. St. Louis is 66 sq mi. If St. Louis's borders were extended to match Toronto's reach, then it would include a whole bunch of the safe areas in St. Louis County, which would considerably soften the numbers. (Note that nothing on the ground would actually change.) This is why reasonable regional comparisons should be done at the level of the MSA. Arbitrary borders are, well, arbitrary and produce misleading comparisons. 3. Even when looking only at the City of St. Louis, you have to understand that many neighborhoods have 1 or 2 or 0 homicides each year. [1] Most of the violence is concentrated on the city's Northside and in the Southeast. Extreme violence is not a part of the everyday lived experience for most citizens. The way outsiders talk about crime in places like St. Louis very sloppy. (Bonus #4: Crime and safety and law and order aren't the only metric by which to choose where to live.) [0] This number is almost certainly too low, because of how crime is reported in the County. I got that number here: http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-st-louis-county http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-... Some other sources suggest it may be around twice that for the entire County, meaning the rate is likely closer to 3.0 per 100,000 (which is still considerably lower than in the City). [1] https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides-2005-2012/ https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides...

Bartweiss 10y ago
This is a very good list, and I'd like to expand on point four: even among city-life-specific dangers, murder generally ranks fairly low. Where I live, the annual pedestrian and bicyclist death count is is comparable to the St. Louis murder rate. And, of course, far more evenly distributed across neighborhoods. Add in car crashes and I'm probably at far more risk here than I would be in St. Louis. I'm at more risk from smog and water pollution just by living in a city, and to fight that I should move not to Toronto but to a ritzy suburb. But dense populations mean good emergency response times, which argues for city again! The list continues - you're absolutely right that safety isn't the only goal, but even on that basis it's not clear that murder is the statistic to observe.

Bartweiss 10y ago

This is a very good list, and I'd like to expand on point four: even among city-life-specific dangers, murder generally ranks fairly low. Where I live, the annual pedestrian and bicyclist death count is is comparable to the St. Louis murder rate. And, of course, far more evenly distributed across neighborhoods. Add in car crashes and I'm probably at far more risk here than I would be in St. Louis. I'm at more risk from smog and water pollution just by living in a city, and to fight that I should move not to Toronto but to a ritzy suburb. But dense populations mean good emergency response times, which argues for city again! The list continues - you're absolutely right that safety isn't the only goal, but even on that basis it's not clear that murder is the statistic to observe.