Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Oakland Crime Ranked Third Highest in US
Law Enforcement & Crime Nate Seltenrich — Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Oakland has reached number three on CQ Press' annual crime rankings for US cities with more than 75,000 residents, reported the Chron's inOakland blog today. This places Oakland behind Camden, NJ and St. Louis, MO — and ahead of Detroit MI, Flint, MI, and New Orleans, LA. It's two steps in the wrong direction from last year, when Oakland was ranked 5th, and one worse than 2007, when it was 4th. The new rankings are based on 2008 crime figures, while last year's were based on 2007. The new rankings also do not reflect the city's 13 percent drop in crime in 2009.
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Not that it helps in any way to mention it here, but CQ Press' methods for deciding these rankings is far from unimpeachable.
Not only that, but most demographic stats for American cities are pretty useless, because municipal borders aren't really what defines the boundary of a city. Population density differences are what defines where a city ends.
As far as personal experience goes, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Piedmont are actually one city. If you didn't see a sign telling you that you'd crossed from Oakland to Berkeley, you wouldn't know you were in another city. If CQ Press' stats reflected this reality, they would consider the Inner East Bay to be one city, and our crime ranking would drop like crazy.
That said, the bloodletting in the flats is the main reason we're now at #3, and it's gotta stop.
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