We're #1 - Detroit The Most Dangerous City

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/23/most-dangerous-cities-lifestyle-real-estate-dangerous-american-cities.html

America's Most Dangerous Cities

Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 04.23.09, 06:00 PM EDT Don't end up on the wrong side of the tracks in these troubled places.

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit.

Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

"Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the U.S.," says Megan Wolfram, an analyst at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, a Maryland-based risk-assessment firm. "They have a number of local crime syndicates there--a number of small gangs who tend to compete over territory."

Detroit was followed closely on the list by the greater Memphis, Tenn., and Miami, Fla., metropolitan areas. Those three were the only large cities in America with more than 950 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

Behind the Numbers

To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

Though nationwide crime was down 3.5% year over year in the first six months of 2008, the cities atop our list illustrate a disturbing trend: All 10 of the most dangerous cities were among those identified by the Department of Justice as transit points for Mexican drug cartels.

Run by crime lords like Joaquin Guzman Lorea, these gangs--and their violent turf wars--are spreading into the American Southwest and beyond. Places like Stockton, Calif., nearly 500 miles from Tijuana, have seen an uptick in related violent crime.

"Stockton is a major transit point along the I-5 corridor on the way to Seattle and Vancouver," says Wolfram. "A lot of it is similar to crime happening in the Southwest. For the most part, it's drug gang on drug gang."

Motown Blues

The situation in Mexico has escalated in recent years, but Detroit has been dealing with the same problems for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, the population of Detroit proper swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

Only half that number still lives within city limits. Starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency. Residents fled to the suburbs and to other regions of the country entirely, leaving behind a landscape littered with abandoned buildings.

"Factories that once provided tens of thousands of jobs now stand as hollow shells, windows broken, mute testimony to a lost industrial past," wrote Thomas J. Sugrue in his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis. "Whole sections of the city are eerily apocalyptic."

Detroit isn't the only city on the list that's suffering from abandonment issues.

In Las Vegas, Nev., for example, the housing boom created loads of excess inventory. When the market tanked, homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with. As a result, Sin City is even emptier than Detroit.

"Detroit has trouble showing improvement in its crime rate because dedicated, desperately needed and appropriate resources are not invested in public safety. Painfully, it is not a priority," says Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym L. Worthy. "I wish that those with the resources would view domestic terrorism like they do terrorism across the water. It used to be that we were keeping our head above water and treading quickly. Now we are drowning, and no one seems to really care. All they tell me to do is cut some more."

Few Signs of Improvement

Making matters more difficult, as municipal budgets shrink during this recession, crime-fighting funds are often among the first casualties.

"There's less public spending during downturns," says Wolfram. "Police departments and incarcerations systems are tough to fund."

The news has been bad for decades, but there may yet be hope for Detroit. The city's new mayor, Kenneth V. ****rel Jr., assumed office on Sept. 19, 2009--and hasn't committed a single felony.

[afosomf]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/23/most-dangerous-cities-lifestyle-real-estate-dangerous-american-cities.html

America's Most Dangerous Cities

Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 04.23.09, 06:00 PM EDT Don't end up on the wrong side of the tracks in these troubled places.

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit.

Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

"Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the U.S.," says Megan Wolfram, an analyst at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, a Maryland-based risk-assessment firm. "They have a number of local crime syndicates there--a number of small gangs who tend to compete over territory."

Detroit was followed closely on the list by the greater Memphis, Tenn., and Miami, Fla., metropolitan areas. Those three were the only large cities in America with more than 950 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

Behind the Numbers

To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

Though nationwide crime was down 3.5% year over year in the first six months of 2008, the cities atop our list illustrate a disturbing trend: All 10 of the most dangerous cities were among those identified by the Department of Justice as transit points for Mexican drug cartels.

Run by crime lords like Joaquin Guzman Lorea, these gangs--and their violent turf wars--are spreading into the American Southwest and beyond. Places like Stockton, Calif., nearly 500 miles from Tijuana, have seen an uptick in related violent crime.

"Stockton is a major transit point along the I-5 corridor on the way to Seattle and Vancouver," says Wolfram. "A lot of it is similar to crime happening in the Southwest. For the most part, it's drug gang on drug gang."

Motown Blues

The situation in Mexico has escalated in recent years, but Detroit has been dealing with the same problems for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, the population of Detroit proper swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

Only half that number still lives within city limits. Starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency. Residents fled to the suburbs and to other regions of the country entirely, leaving behind a landscape littered with abandoned buildings.

"Factories that once provided tens of thousands of jobs now stand as hollow shells, windows broken, mute testimony to a lost industrial past," wrote Thomas J. Sugrue in his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis. "Whole sections of the city are eerily apocalyptic."

Detroit isn't the only city on the list that's suffering from abandonment issues.

In Las Vegas, Nev., for example, the housing boom created loads of excess inventory. When the market tanked, homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with. As a result, Sin City is even emptier than Detroit.

"Detroit has trouble showing improvement in its crime rate because dedicated, desperately needed and appropriate resources are not invested in public safety. Painfully, it is not a priority," says Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym L. Worthy. "I wish that those with the resources would view domestic terrorism like they do terrorism across the water. It used to be that we were keeping our head above water and treading quickly. Now we are drowning, and no one seems to really care. All they tell me to do is cut some more."

Few Signs of Improvement

Making matters more difficult, as municipal budgets shrink during this recession, crime-fighting funds are often among the first casualties.

"There's less public spending during downturns," says Wolfram. "Police departments and incarcerations systems are tough to fund."

The news has been bad for decades, but there may yet be hope for Detroit. The city's new mayor, Kenneth V. ****rel Jr., assumed office on Sept. 19, 2009--and hasn't committed a single felony.

well deserved...congrats

[#27TheDominator]

[faba]

Watch you back out there GOB- ever been to Camden?

[PFSIKH]

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit.

Is this Marian Barry's long lost son?

[PatriotReign37]

Nothing like job security.

Batten down the hatches if GM files for Chapter 11.

[JohnnyHector]

If Detroit's finest only spent half as much energy fighting crime as they do posting on silly Internetz message boards, it could be a utopia.

[Mavrik]

I always tell people that Robocop is still the most accurate depiction of Detroit on film. Except for the half-human, half-cyborg cops and ED 209

[rillo]

Number 1 in the hood G!

[32green]

Sad man.

And its simply a matter of when the politicos and the hand wringers decide they have had enough.

You get a strong Mayor, Police COmmissioner, a cooperative DA and empower the Police to do their jobs, you can turn this crap around, ala NYC in the early 90's.

In the early 1990's NY's Homicide rate topped out at over 2200 a year.

Cops getting killed left and right.

I think its hovering around 500 or so now, and Cop shootings thankfully are fairly infrequent compared to then.

Love him or hate him, Guiliani brought in Bratton and he was unafraid of the press and handwringing libs. He gave Bratton a mandate to use the resources of the NYPD as effectivly as he could, with a concentration on being Pro-active vs. re-active.

Broken windows theory, no crime too small to address, no warrant too petty to enforce.

Of course there were some police mis-steps and the usual hue and cry, but the bottom line was that thousands of inner city kids got to grow up without the spectre of a violent death hanging over their heads.....for the first time in several generations.

And the middle class could walk through Time square without fear once more.

Detroit has to decide what it wants.

[Jet Moses]

Detroit is a hole.

[crashingjet]

Very Cosmopolitan

[JerryK]

Hey GOB, I need some advice.

My brother got laid off a couple weeks ago... Tool/Die... he's hosed because his trade is permanently hosed.

I know a friend in Jackson who has a 1yr old Bail Bonds business. With the economy in the crapper (putting crime on the RISE), do you think Bonds might be a "growth opportunity"? I'd pay for my brother's training/licensing and even give him capital if needed.

Are you seeing more Bondsmen showing up in your area?

I know it's a weird business, but you gotta go where the market goes.

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

Hey GOB, I need some advice.

My brother got laid off a couple weeks ago... Tool/Die... he's hosed because his trade is permanently hosed.

I know a friend in Jackson who has a 1yr old Bail Bonds business. With the economy in the crapper (putting crime on the RISE), do you think Bonds might be a "growth opportunity"? I'd pay for my brother's training/licensing and even give him capital if needed.

Are you seeing more Bondsmen showing up in your area?

I know it's a weird business, but you gotta go where the market goes.

The only time I see bail bondsman are on the weekends...when I'm on-call and dealing with the weekend in-custody cases. I can't say I know much about them other than that there seem to be 1000 of them around. Bondsman seem to have most of their contact with arrestees once they go to county jail so I don't have much interaction with them.

I will say that the amount of arrests that we have, a mere city of 65K+ is becoming insane. Lots of people getting arrested these days, I'm one of the few guys in Michigan with near solid job security.

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

Watch you back out there GOB- ever been to Camden?

I've been to Newark. Actually hung out in Newark Penn Station for 90 minutes waiting for Max to pick me up. Camden can't be worse that Newark, can it?

[Panzer Division Marduk]

The news has been bad for decades, but there may yet be hope for Detroit. The city's new mayor, Kenneth V. ****rel Jr., assumed office on Sept. 19, 2009--and hasn't committed a single felony.

They're building DeLoreans in Detroit now?

[faba]

I've been to Newark. Actually hung out in Newark Penn Station for 90 minutes waiting for Max to pick me up. Camden can't be worse that Newark, can it?

YES

[Jet Moses]

I've been to Newark. Actually hung out in Newark Penn Station for 90 minutes waiting for Max to pick me up. Camden can't be worse that Newark, can it?

Downtown Newark isn't bad at all. And one side of Penn Station borders Downeck, the "Ironbound Section" which is the safest neighborhood in Newark.

Once you get about 2 miles away from the Broad and Market intersection, in every other direction it's not a good idea to go sightseeing.

I know Black people who live in bad neighborhoods in Newark who say they are afraid to go into Camden. That's how bad Camden is.

[124]

Another shocker.

Big city with the worse money problems = biggest crime/murder.