In general crime is down across the board big time. Violent crime especially. If you go back 20 years it's pretty crazy how much crime is down. It's even more startling if you go back further.
Americans believe in a lot of weird stuff that isn't backed by real world evidence. Newt Gingrich said it years ago, facts don't matter if people can be made to believe something. It's all relative and Americans have grown up with ridiculous privilege, which makes most people think immigrants are eating dogs or they go buy TP in bulk cuz of reasons.
People are horrible at understanding statistics. An American is more likely to die falling down a set of stairs than they are from a foodborn illness, for example. Or the average gun owner is more likely to take their own life with their gun than they ever are to use it against a criminal. Heck, that gun is more likely to be stolen and used in a murder somewhere else than a person is to use it in self defense. But most Americans believe they absolutely need a gun because of how dangerous the country is. Meanwhile, they're more likely to choke on a pen or get killed by a dog than to ever use that gun.
Yes, but people are also horrible at defining how a person "should feel" about statistics. A ton of statistics are apples and oranges in practice (e.g. falling down stairs vs food poisoning), because humans intrinsically care about more variables than statistics express (which is why we willingly drive cars, for the most obvious example).
Does NYC have a hell-hole stereotype? Other cities do, and 80's NYC does, and some people throw that shade at all metros, but I wasn't aware of NYC being specifically mis-characterized as being worse than average.
Regardless, this usage of statistics is an excellent example of one of the disconnects between Americans (and I assume other groups of people).
NYC is wonderful, and very safe as far as major cities go. Driving is much less safe, but is safe-ish. We live in a safe world, statistically speaking.
But it's critical to accept that people don't only care about statistics. Humans have emotions. If in town A your chance of being beaten in the street is higher than your chance of being injured in a car accident, and in town B the odds are equal and reversed, people are going to be more angry and critical of town A, especially if the car accidents are not perceived as being of unusually negligent origin (i.e. it's not because everybody there is drunk all the time).
Now if you slide the statistics to counteract the perceived negativity of the two things, at some point they equal out, theoretically, but in practice, it's apples and oranges. In other words, behavior and intention matter. Dignity and civilization matter - a lot. Autonomy and responsibility matter. Crime and deliberate carelessness are not the same as, e.g., a pure accident.
It's the same reason people are more outraged about being hurt by a robot than by a human-driven vehicle.
We have to accept that this side of human nature is intrinsic, and not by itself irrational, even though it is sometimes the source of irrational decision making, when people get too swept up in it.
Factually, it does seem like the parent is probably wrong. I'm not a statistics genius and don't know where to find the best data, but it looks like your chances of being killed by a vehicle as a pedestrian in suburbs is somewhere just south of 2.3 per 100k annually (in 2022).
Your chances of being subject to violence in NYC are harder to say. When most people are making a comparison like this, they usually mean as a visitor, on the streets and in the businesses, probably including day and night. But e.g. probably not including territorial crime or other flavors of locals picking fights with their neighbors. And also not including crimes that occur in residences. But maybe including terrorizing, e.g. being robbed under implied threat of violence? It also varies a lot by borough and neighborhood, so it depends on whether you want to represent a scenario where you might be anywhere in NYC, or just the places a normal person might reasonably be.
All that said, the violent crime numbers are high enough that it seems like they couldn't possibly get qualified all the way down to less than 2.3 per 100k annually. But that intuition could be wrong.
Sometimes I think it's the only way to make people really think about the apparently ridiculous things they say. It's not personal.
>Your chances of being subject to violence in NYC are harder to say.
Not that much harder, I would say. If you want to make a serious comparison, that is... Here's a list of per 100k rates for various crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... All of those crimes are WAY higher than 2.3 per 100k annually. Anyone visiting NYC is probably at much more risk because they will be more likely to go places and do things that are unsafe, and the locals can spot them from a mile away.
>All that said, the violent crime numbers are high enough that it seems like they couldn't possibly get qualified all the way down to less than 2.3 per 100k annually. But that intuition could be wrong.
I agree. Now you know why I consider the original comment absurd. There are also some people who are so anti-car that they want to make arguments like that, seriously. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that you are one of those. If you just made a bad guess and aren't arguing that NYC is safe or that cars are wildly unsafe, then I think we're in agreement now.
for all of those downplaying this... NYC has 8 million people and is the most diverse city in the US... millions more visit every day for work or tourism... that it functions as well as it does is remarkable if you think about it... it's a lot less violent there than its reputation would have you think
The story is 5 days without a single shooting and a 25.6% reduction in shootings for the month compared to last year. The streak breaking was inevitable and less important.
In relative population terms it's like saying there wasn't a single shooting in Louisiana and Mississippi for 5 days. Those two states have a combined population slightly smaller than NYC but have the highest rates of gun violence in the country.
>Those two states have a combined population slightly smaller than NYC but have the highest rates of gun violence in the country.
They are also poorer than NYC and much more spread out, so enforcing the law is somewhat harder. Also, if you plotted out "shootings per gun" and "self-defense incidents involving a gun" I'm sure you would find it's not as bad as you think. Guns in the hands of normal people prevent crime.
I'm sure socio-economics plays a role but cities like New York have residents at all levels of the socio-economic strata, thought admittedly north eastern cities like Boston and New York have been strongly trending upward.
Population density is often cited as a reason for higher rates of gun violence. I'm not sure about you "spread out" theory of law enforcement. Those are not the most "spread out" states in the country, nor are they the states with the highest levels of self-defense associated gun violence.
If you read the story, the incident that broke the 5 day streak in NY was an individual attempting to stop a hit and run driver that had crashed into a neighbors parked car.
>Population density is often cited as a reason for higher rates of gun violence.
That's not exactly what I was trying to say. All crime is more prevalent in NYC, and it is one of the hardest places to legally purchase a gun. So criminals who disregard the law can have guns and normal people can't, effectively. The laws are such that if you use a gun in self-defense, you are very likely to be charged with murder. The few gun crimes that do happen in NYC are committed by criminals who would have likely been violent anyway.
Depriving people of guns is not a reasonable answer to gun crime, any more than depriving people of knives because of knife crime or cars because of car crime. Gun crime is unfortunate, but so is getting jumped by 5 dudes, robbed in your home or business, or gang-raped because you have no way to defend yourself. No amount of police will save you from that. The police also won't save you from government tyranny.
Note: you and your children are more likely to be killed by a car in an American suburb than even be remotely harmed in any way by a stranger in NYC.