I can't help but rant about this again. Comparing cities using city proper per capita/population statistics is almost always inaccurate and a mistake (which is exactly what the least livable cities ranking does). Salt Lake topped the list of most hipster cities for the same reason: the city proper population very poorly reflects the population the city serves. Crime rates almost always increase the closer you get to downtown. Look at crime rate maps for almost any city and this is true. For cities whose boundaries extend well outside downtown and into the distant suburbs (such as Austin), city proper per capita statistics will be heavily skewed toward what is more typical in the suburbs. For cities where the opposite is true and city boundaries don’t extend far beyond the its center (such as Salt Lake) the statistics will be skewed toward what’s typical in the urban center.
On top of that, crime rate comparisons are not very accurate. These statistics are compiled by the FBI every year, but they rely on reporting from local agencies throughout the country, which all differ as to how and when crimes are reported. There is no federal requirement for how and when crimes are reported, other than murder. As a result, the murder rate is really the only reliable statistic. The statistics can be useful and tell a story, but not the whole story and often not a huge chunk of it.
That being said, if anyone was curious, here’s some rankings (per capita) of Salt Lake as a metro compared to others.
Of the
50 most populous metros in 2016, Salt Lake ranked:
- 26th in violent crime:
- 37th in murder
- 2nd in rape
- 34th in robbery,
- 24th in aggravated assault
Of the
100 most populous metros in 2016 Salt Lake ranked:
- 44th in violent crime:
- 64th in murder
- 5th in rape
- 48th in robbery
- 52nd in aggravated assault
Interestingly, Provo ranks 100th and Ogden ranks 98th (the 1st and 3rd lowest violent crime rate, respectively).
So Salt Lake, when it comes to violent crime, is very middle of the road. The rape number is concerning, but rape is the crime that tends to vary the most in how it is defined and when it is reported, so I’m not sure how much we can rely on the number for comparison. Take San Juan, Puerto Rico, for example. It has by far the highest rate of murder of the top 50 metro areas, yet it has the lowest rate, by far, of rape (San Juan reports a rate of 4.9 per 100,000, New York has the second lowest at 19.6 per 100,000). There is a difference in reporting there. No way San Juan would be so low if all reporting was equal. And while the differences in reporting might not be as stark between agencies on the mainland, San Juan proves they exist.
Now, where Salt Lake really shines is property crime. Of the top 50 metros, it has the 2nd highest rate of property crime. And I don’t think reporting is the issue here.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s...tables/table-4