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  #1  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 6:47 PM
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The Little-Studied Link Between So-Called 'Murder Capitals' and Population Decline

The Little-Studied Link Between So-Called 'Murder Capitals' and Population Decline


July 16th, 2014

By KRISTON CAPPS

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/07...ecline/374484/

Quote:
.....

Crowning a "murder capital" puts eyeball-grabbing numbers before more meaningful statistics. It also elides the complex demographic factors shared by cities with high homicide rates, like Detroit and Baltimore but also St. Louis and Birmingham. One such factor: These cities tend to have shrinking populations.

- Consider the six U.S. cities that have earned the dubious distinction of official "murder capital" over the last 30 years. (Specifically, these are the cities with the highest per capita homicide rates since 1985.) Of these cities—Flint, Detroit, New Orleans, Birmingham, Richmond, and Washington, D.C.—four were undergoing severe depopulation. One is holding steady. Only the population of D.C. has truly grown.

- Of these six cities, D.C. is the only one whose murder rate has dropped significantly—well below 20 per 100,000 residents, in fact. In Washington, and to a lesser extent, in Richmond, the increase in population has corresponded roughly with a decrease in crime. Richmond's 20.2 murders per 100,000 residents in 2012 is well below that of Birmingham (31.4), New Orleans (53.2), Detroit (54.6), or poor Flint (62.0)—all cities suffering decline. The figures come from the FBI's crime data for 2012, and while caveats abound, the general trend is plain.

- Large cities with high homicide rates that are also losing ground demographically include St. Louis, Montgomery, and Jackson. (All of which have higher homicide rates than Chicago, by the way). There are a few suffering cities whose populations are growing, such as Memphis and Newark. But by and large, the cities with the highest homicide rates are shedding residents.

- Nationwide, violent crime has dropped in two waves. Violence fell just about everywhere in the 1990s, with rates leveling off in the 2000s. Then, around 2007, violent crime dropped again—hugely—in several cities, among them D.C., New York, Dallas, and San Diego. What's working for these cities? Immigration. It's immigration, desegregation, and gentrification.

- If you look at the economic status of immigrant communities, and this is true almost everywhere, the amount of violence is far lower than you would expect given the poverty there," he says. "Immigration and desegregation make poor places less violent. All of a sudden, they look really attractive to gentrifiers.

- Chicago's plenty diverse, but the city's homicide rate remains high (18.5 murders per 100,000 residents). As it happens, Chicago is a demographic outlier in a lot of ways. It's the only major U.S. city that lost residents between 2000 and 2010, and did it ever: nearly 7 percent of its population left. Still, foreign-born residents make up 21 percent of the population. But at the neighborhood level, Chicago communities are highly segregated. According to the Center for Healthcare Equity at Northwestern University, in 68 of 77 Chicago communities, "50 percent of the population identifies with a single racial/ethnic group."

.....








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  #2  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 7:21 PM
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How much immigration did New York have in the 1980s?
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  #3  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 7:33 PM
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This is like, duh! Of course people are going to flee cities with high murder rates - which also tend to have high overall crime rates. Who wants to get shot or robbed? Not me. When I hear about a city with a declining population that's one of the first reasons I think of.
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Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 8:00 PM
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Miami was a "murder capital" in the 80's but I don't remember it ever having problems with population loss.
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Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 8:25 PM
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narrr, its more like severe economic decline, high concentrations of out of work/undereducated minority populations followed by years of disinvestment and corruption.....people have been leaving city centers around the country up until the last decade.
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Old Posted Jul 16, 2014, 11:42 PM
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Hmm, the San Diego area had many illegal aliens return to Mexico during the recession. Also the city's population growth has been flat for the last several years. Crime during that time went down. Right now, crime has been increasing, yet the economy is improving. Seems contrary to this study.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 12:57 AM
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"As it happens, Chicago is a demographic outlier in a lot of ways. It's the only major U.S. city that lost residents between 2000 and 2010, and did it ever: nearly 7 percent of its population left."

WTF?!!! This is piss poor inaccurate journalism. Unless of course only NYC, LA and Chicago are considered "major cities", otherwise the article almost contradicts itself in saying other cities like Detroit and Saint Louis. Chicago is the largest U.S. city to lose population between 2000 and 2010 yes, but the only large city, not by a long shot.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 3:54 AM
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This isn't exactly rocket science................who wants to move to a crime infested city?

Also, by it's very nature mobility is easier if you have more money. If people can they will leave high crime areas for lower crime ones and take their income, taxes, spending power, and political clout with them. That leaves the original city poorer requiring more social services with fewer tax dollars to do it including police services.

Detroit is the poster child of this kind of urban crime development made even worse by poor urban planning and corrupt incompetent city council.

It doesn't have to stay that way. People have a mob mentality and when everyone starts leaving it leads to more people leaving and the drip becomes a tsunami. Thru concerted efforts, good urban planning, and a positive attitude this can also work in reverse. If a city begins to turn around, word gets out and more people move back to that city bringing their tax dollars with them leading to better social services like policing. Cleveland is an example of this.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 7:45 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007 View Post
This is like, duh! Of course people are going to flee cities with high murder rates - which also tend to have high overall crime rates. Who wants to get shot or robbed? Not me. When I hear about a city with a declining population that's one of the first reasons I think of.
It's a cycle.

Economic decline causes population decline and higher crime. Higher crime causes further population decline (even people whose jobs remain flee the crime). And population decline causes higher crime rates because the people left behind (without the means and/or initiative to go elsewhere) represent the groups that commit most of the crimes, while those fleeing are less likely to be potential criminals.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 8:52 AM
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Did they really need to do a study to realize there was a correlation?
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  #11  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 11:11 AM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
Did they really need to do a study to realize there was a correlation?
More interesting than the correlation (which is obvious) would be to understand whether one leads to the other (i.e., if there is any causal relationship).

As noted above I think there are probably multiple relationships between population trends and homicide rates... both common causes (i.e., weakening economy) and related to population sample (the people that stay are more likely to commit murder than the people who left).
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 11:30 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
Did they really need to do a study to realize there was a correlation?
I think these studies are for the general population (aka low information). We here tend to have an idea of how things work. Its like the studies that tell us things that we would think others might know, but don't. Studies like drinking 10 Red Bulls per day might be bad for you or sitting all day with no exercise might be bad for you. Well.... yea....

You'd be surprised on things that people do not know. Its stunning sometimes.

While not every city with a high murder rate experiences population decline, a majority of them do. Especially in the U.S.. Globally, it might be different. I know that those Middle Eastern cities tend to gain population and even in Brazilian murder capitals.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 1:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
Miami was a "murder capital" in the 80's but I don't remember it ever having problems with population loss.
It was a time of great population turnover though. My own family being one of them. If people weren't outright leaving the metro, they were quickly depopulating the inner suburbs for Kendall and Broward Counties.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 2:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
I think these studies are for the general population (aka low information). We here tend to have an idea of how things work. Its like the studies that tell us things that we would think others might know, but don't. Studies like drinking 10 Red Bulls per day might be bad for you or sitting all day with no exercise might be bad for you. Well.... yea....

You'd be surprised on things that people do not know. Its stunning sometimes.

While not every city with a high murder rate experiences population decline, a majority of them do. Especially in the U.S.. Globally, it might be different. I know that those Middle Eastern cities tend to gain population and even in Brazilian murder capitals.
Do high crime cities in other parts of the world have high crime compared to other parts of the same country? How does the differential compare to the one that exists in the US?
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 4:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago103 View Post
"As it happens, Chicago is a demographic outlier in a lot of ways. It's the only major U.S. city that lost residents between 2000 and 2010, and did it ever: nearly 7 percent of its population left."

WTF?!!! This is piss poor inaccurate journalism. Unless of course only NYC, LA and Chicago are considered "major cities", otherwise the article almost contradicts itself in saying other cities like Detroit and Saint Louis. Chicago is the largest U.S. city to lose population between 2000 and 2010 yes, but the only large city, not by a long shot.

By "major cities" they probably mean those of >1 million inhabitants, in which case, yes, Chicago was the only city of that size to decline in population between 2000 and 2010.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 4:35 PM
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The segregation thing might be the key factor. More mixed income neighbourhoods would be more attractive for more people to move into and for gentrifiers.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 6:35 PM
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Is Memphis growing through natural population growth or annexation? If so, that would just leave Newark as the only high-murder rate city with a growing population... And considering its proximity to Manhattan, I don't think it makes sense to look at Newark as isolated from NYC.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 8:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Is Memphis growing through natural population growth or annexation? If so, that would just leave Newark as the only high-murder rate city with a growing population... And considering its proximity to Manhattan, I don't think it makes sense to look at Newark as isolated from NYC.
Oakland, California has a very high murder rate, and I believe it's growing.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 8:34 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthernDancer View Post
Oakland, California has a very high murder rate, and I believe it's growing.
But Oakland is in close proximity to another city, like Newark. I think this is most clear cut for primary cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc. It gets a little muddy for places like Newark, Oakland, DC-Bmore.
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Old Posted Jul 17, 2014, 9:09 PM
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Way too many confounding variables. Consequently the causal link has no theoretical basis, and can therefore be safely catalogued under anecdotal garbage.
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