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Notes -
I think this is a bit misleading. First, absolute crime levels matter somewhat. You could have a town of 100 we with a murder or a town of 1m 95 murders. The first is more deadly on a per capita basis but is subject to a small change in the numerator. It wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to think maybe the second is more dangerous.
Second, a lot comes down to watering down the fraction by increasing the denominator with non violent persons in the city but in a different area (eg the BX is much more dangerous compared to the UWS). Some of these small cities in the Midwest simply don’t have the denominator because their non violent population is located in suburbs that arent included in the denominator.
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