Claim: Certain parts of cities are very dangerous even just to visit

Question

Whenever I go to a new city I always get told to avoid the "dangerous areas" of said city. For example this happened when I went to Chicago, New York City, and Denver.  Usually it is my friends or family saying this but when I ask people who have been to said areas, they always say that it is not as bad as it seems (and they have been right for these 3 cities). Granted I am from a rural town, but this has always bugged me. Does anyone have some hard evidence or a viewpoint that I can show my friends and family? Linked below is a page that gives the same examples that my family says.

Answer 1

Although it is very hard to objectify what danger means with respect to city conditions, studies have, nevertheless, found that their are cities that are considerably "dangerous" compared to others. According to a Forbes article (link attached below), they cited a study that took a measure of per-capita crime for US cities that had a population above 100,000. From what they found, they stated cities such as St.Louis, Missouri, and Jackson, Mississippi are amongst the most dangerous cities, with the highest cost of crimes in the United States. Although this does not directly answer if specific parts of US metropolis are safer than others, it does answer there are safer and unsafer geographies in the US.

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2022/02/23/crime-in-america-study-reveals-the-10-most-dangerous-cities-its-not-where-you-think/?sh=13835a3a7710

Answer 2

When looking at cities in the United States, each one has particular areas that are labeled as "dangerous." According to Forbes, the most dangerous cities in the US are ranked by their crime per capita. Crime per capita is a significant measure, as it deals with the amount of crime related to a population and how severe these crimes are. Forbes ranked St. Louis, Missouri, Mobile, Alabama, and Birmingham, Alabama to be the top 3 most dangerous cities in the US due to their high crime per capita.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2023/01/31/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-us-crime-in-america/?sh=7227a1054b25

Answer 3

Every city has a crime rate, more or less. I agree that every place has some areas of danger. According to the source below I found that there is a relationship between crime rate and population. Some places have fewer people so the crime rate is higher, which is the point of the crime rate per capita. “Our analysis finds the single most dangerous American city is East St. Louis, Illinois, just on the other side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri, which is No. 5 on our list.” But New York City, USA is ranked as one of the lowest crime cities in the country. This no doubt also has a lot to do with the population.

https://www.security.org/resources/most-dangerous-cities/