3 ms·

Yup. Saying that there aren't many homicides per square mile in St Louis or Chicago is equivalent to saying that Palestine OH is a safe place because the town i

Yup. Saying that there aren't many homicides per square mile in St Louis or Chicago is equivalent to saying that Palestine OH is a safe place because the town is really sparse and so the cancer per sq. mile is acceptable. SF's (6.35)¹ rate of homicides is below the national average (7.8)². St Louis (66.07)¹, which is listed as a city of comparison, has about 10x more homicides per 100k. This may be counter to naive expectations where one might say that proximity has a causal effect on homicides, since proximity means opportunity. --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... [2]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

crazygringo 4y ago
Holy crap, I was wondering what the heck is going on in St. Louis. I can't find any super clear authoritative answers with a quick Google search, but did find one comment suggesting it's at least partly a statistical artifact based on city borders: > Some of it is a statistical anomaly. Most cities in this weight class annexed their counties, and thus averaged in a whole lot of white upper class good schools suburbs. If you look at st Louis city and county together, the crime stats drop to the middle of the pack with other metros this size. [1] This has always been a problem in comparing statistics between urban areas, because the administrative boundaries are entirely arbitrary. I've long wished for some kind of algorithm that could define metropolitan areas in some kind of objective way for statistical comparison, based solely on population maps, but I'm not aware of anything that exists. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/9pfu4l/what_are_the_reasons_for_the_high_crime_rates_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/9pfu4l/what_are_th...
- object-a 4y ago
  Yeah administrative areas are very arbitrary, and based on historical factors. If you really wanted to compare, I think comparing MSA's might get you closer. But either way this is a terrible metric
- yencabulator 4y ago
  Maybe one of the anti-gerrymandering projects would be useful? For example, http://autoredistrict.org/ http://autoredistrict.org/

crazygringo 4y ago

Holy crap, I was wondering what the heck is going on in St. Louis. I can't find any super clear authoritative answers with a quick Google search, but did find one comment suggesting it's at least partly a statistical artifact based on city borders: > Some of it is a statistical anomaly. Most cities in this weight class annexed their counties, and thus averaged in a whole lot of white upper class good schools suburbs. If you look at st Louis city and county together, the crime stats drop to the middle of the pack with other metros this size. [1] This has always been a problem in comparing statistics between urban areas, because the administrative boundaries are entirely arbitrary. I've long wished for some kind of algorithm that could define metropolitan areas in some kind of objective way for statistical comparison, based solely on population maps, but I'm not aware of anything that exists. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/9pfu4l/what_are_the_reasons_for_the_high_crime_rates_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/9pfu4l/what_are_th...

object-a 4y ago
Yeah administrative areas are very arbitrary, and based on historical factors. If you really wanted to compare, I think comparing MSA's might get you closer. But either way this is a terrible metric
yencabulator 4y ago
Maybe one of the anti-gerrymandering projects would be useful? For example, http://autoredistrict.org/ http://autoredistrict.org/