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Looks like St. Louis beat Detroit again.
St. Louis has become the nation's most dangerous city, snapping Detroit's three-year run with that inau ious label
St. Louis named most dangerous U.S. city By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 30, 4:53 AM ET
A surge in violence made St. Louis the most dangerous city in the country, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to an annual list.
The city has long fared poorly in the rankings of the safest and most dangerous American cities compiled by Morgan Quitno Press. Violent crime surged nearly 20 percent in St. Louis from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose most dramatically in the Midwest, according to FBI figures released in June.
"It's just sad the way this city is," resident Sam Dawson said. "On the news you hear killings, someone's been shot."
The ranking, being released Monday, came as the city was still celebrating Friday's World Series victory at the new Busch Stadium. St. Louis has been spending millions of dollars on urban renewal even as the crime rate climbs.
Mayor Francis Slay did not return calls to his office seeking comment Sunday.
Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press, a private research and publishing company specializing in state and city reference books, said he was not surprised to see St. Louis top the list, since it has been among the 10 most dangerous cities for years.
The study looks at crime only within St. Louis city limits, with a population of about 330,000, Morgan said. It doesn't take into account the suburbs in St. Louis County, which has roughly 980,000 residents.
Visiting St. Louis on Thursday, FBI director Robert Mueller said it was too early to tell why some types of crime were rising faster in the Midwest.
Mueller said the FBI is working harder to form partnerships with police departments to launch programs like St. Louis' Safe Streets task force, which focuses police efforts on problematic neighborhoods.
The safest city in 2005 was Brick, N.J., with a population about 78,000, followed by Amherst, N.Y., and Mission Viejo, Calif. The second most dangerous city was Detroit, followed by Flint, Mich., and Compton, Calif.
The bad news for St. Louis was good for Camden, N.J., which in 2005 was named the most dangerous city for the second year in a row.
Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison said Sunday she was thrilled to learn that her city no longer topped the most-dangerous list.
"You made my day!" said Faison, who has served since 2000. "There's a new hope and a new spirit."
Cities are ranked based on more than just their crime rate, Morgan said. Individual crimes such as rape or burglary are measured separately, compared to national averages and then compiled to give a city its ranking. Crimes are weighted based on their level of danger.
The national FBI figures released in June showed the murder rate in St. Louis jumped 16 percent from 2004 to 2005, compared with 4.8 percent nationally. The overall violent crime rate increased nearly 20 percent, compared with 2.5 percent nationally.
While crime increased in all regions last year, the 5.7 percent rise in the 12 Midwestern states was at least three times higher than any other region, according to the FBI.
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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay: http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/mayor
Morgan Quitno Press: http://www.morganquitno.com
Looks like St. Louis beat Detroit again.
St. Louis has become the nation's most dangerous city, snapping Detroit's three-year run with that inau ious label
St. Louis has gotten bad.
But, some background is needed to understand why.
Back in the 19th century, in an extremely short-sighted move, the city of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County. As a result, the city was never able to annex any territory beyond its 19th-c. city limits. If you look at the map of the metro area, it is a jigsaw puzzle of tiny hamlets that have incorporated in the past 100+ years out in the county.
So the city of St. Louis consists of the barren inner city, and a certain number of ethnic neighborhoods like the Italian neighborhood known as "The Hill."
The city has been in decay for a while as most of the affluent population either lives in old-money towns like Clayton, or out in "West County." There have been attempts to get people to settle back downtown as in other cities, but there is a chicken-and-egg dilemma where people don't want to live down there without businesses like groceries and pharmacies, and businesses don't want to open without patrons.
But even with all that, though St. Louis was not a bundle of roses, it was not the most dangerous city in America.
But across the river is a truly miserable place called East St. Louis, Illinois, a completely failed urban en y. East St. Louis was once a vibrant blue-collar town that was ripped apart by the installation of the Interstate Highway System right through it. It turned into a collection zone for disenfranchised and unemployed blacks, as blue-collar whites either fled to Missouri or up over the bluffs to towns like Collinsville. Factories were abandoned in place, existing even today as overgrown ruins, putting most of the remaining black population out of work. Unemployment soared over 50%. Of course, crime soared too. Fast forward to 2004 or so, and the only functioning businesses in ESL were the drug trade and strip clubs.
Now, the local officials in ESL were all wrapped up in the drug trade too, and not really interested in controlling crime to any degree, so gangs ran unchecked. The Illinois State Police would attempt to investigate crimes, but neither local officials nor the populace were interested in cooperating.
ESL was so bad that the first thing a resident would do upon finding a job was move the out of there, usually to Belleville or Granite City. However, as black folks moved out there, the criminals that preyed on them followed, and the crime problem spilled out further into Illinois.
So the folks out in what is called "Metro East" raised a ruckus to Springfield (the state capital of IL) to do something about this. What the state elected to do was have the Illinois State Police take over patrols from the useless and corrupt East St. Louis Police Department.
This has been working pretty well, as crime is down in ESL. The flip side is that the criminal element simply jumped across the river into the north side of St. Louis, MO to ply their trade. So, the long-standing ESL crime problem is more and more the problem of St. Louis, proper.
And this is in the Clubhouse for what reason?
LMAO @ this story in the baseball forum. One bitter mother er.
Bull !
Signed,
Camden, NJ
Should I live in St. Louis since I'm the most dangerous person on the planet?
poor ducks, still ovulating over the WS loss.
Suck it up and pull the pearl out a little more chump.
Ovulating?
The reference is too opaque for me.
The cardinals winning the WS has become the heaviest of flow days for the bitter asshole that is Ducks.
The word you are looking for is menstruating.
You need a girlfriend.
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