The St. Louis Metropolitan Region: Safer than Santa Fe (and 101 other MSAs)

The St. Louis, MO/IL metropolitan area hasn't made the CQ Press "most dangerous" list since 2010. Why? It's unclear, but likely a result of the region not producing uniform crime reporting statistics. But the City of St. Louis continues to get ink as the second most dangerous city in the nation (after Detroit). This ranking applies to a geographic area that is home to 11.3% of the metro population.

Pointing out that a significant majority of crime in the city occurs in just a handful of neighborhoods has proved to be something of a political liability, but it remains true that many city neighborhoods have less crime than some inner ring suburbs. At nextSTL we have covered the issue of crime statistics extensively, the latest being Understanding St. Louis: Total Crime Index and Crime-Ridden Neighborhoods and Total Crime Index, Violent Crimes and Property Crimes in City Neighborhoods. The point isn't to validate or invalidate any particular report, but to gain context and a better understanding of what crime statistics tell us and what they don't tell us.