Atlanta and crime in 2009

[pdxtex]

has violent crime in atlanta seen a spike in the last couple of years. i was talking with a friend of mine and she told me that car jacking and brazen in condo robberies are rampant right now. really??

[jnihiser]

rampant? Nah.

I live in Midtown, and while there have been a few high-profile muggings (around GA Tech and GA State U), anecdotally it seems the same as when I moved here in 2004.

As with probably most cities, a higher % of our crime actually happens in a specific area and is not spread out over the entire city.

[atl2phx]

it's perception.

a couple of things to consider:

1). atlanta city proper (150K sq. miles) added over 100K new residents since 2000.

2). almost every category of crime declined in atlanta over the same period.

what's happening is you have a new base of residents living in transitional areas who have (righly so) a lower tolerence for crime and an expectation of better protection. you have louder voices making just complaints about crime and demanding more protection and delivery of higher quality city services.

[smArTaLlone]

I agree with you on the traditional areas as well as residents not used to living in a place where they have to take precautions such as not leaving valuables in the car.

I think another factor is the brazen and confrontational nature of the most high profile crimes is what many people find troubling. People were just going about their daily business in what are considered to be reasonably safe areas and were still random victims of these crimes. It may be a statistical fact that the number of crimes are down but people shouldn't have to feel that they're taking a chance by leaving the house after dark.

[bnk]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/foru...php?forumid=36

[min-chi-cbus]

ATL2PDX:

Atlanta city proper increased in population by over 100K?? That is mind-bogglingly impressive considering the city's core population base historically has very little volatility compared to the surrounding metro (just like nearly all landlocked US cities)!

[L41A]

Originally Posted by min-chi-cbus

ATL2PDX:

Atlanta city proper increased in population by over 100K?? That is mind-bogglingly impressive considering the city's core population base historically has very little volatility compared to the surrounding metro (just like nearly all landlocked US cities)!

Population estimates do show that Atlanta proper population has grown by a significant amount - even over 100K depending on from when you are speaking. The population of the city of Atlanta does not have very little volatility. Atlanta like many US cities lost significant population in the 1970s through the 1980s. The city of Atlanta only started to add population in the 1990s and its started to grow even more in the 2000s. In fact, the population growth of the city of Atlanta is greater in the last year than any of surrounding metro counties.

[smArTaLlone]

The AJC has a report on crime statistics for the last six years.

crime stats

[ATLaffinity]

i forget whether it was in the NYT, but there was an article recently that said authorities/acadmics have absolutely no idea why crime goes up or down. they literally have no correlations and no theory holds up.

that AJC chart bears that out as violent crime rose during prosperity and has now decreased during hard times.

those Tech robberies were pretty disturbing. i kept thinking i was reading old stories but it was just multiple robberies.

[atl2phx]

granted the violence and property crime taking place for the past few years is unacceptable and needs to be addressed, there has been a remarkable drop in criminal activities when you compare statistics for 1999 to 2008.

remarkable considering the city gained 100K+ new residents over the same period.

the only categorical increase when comparing the two years is the increase in burglaries by 16.5%

here's 1999 stats compared to 2008 stats broken out by violent crime and property crimes including their sub categories.

[cybele]

atl2phx and smArTaLlone,

Those are some very astute observations. Thank you.

[popewiz]

Originally Posted by atl2phx

granted the violence and property crime taking place for the past few years is unacceptable and needs to be addressed, there has been a remarkable drop in criminal activities when you compare statistics for 1999 to 2008.

remarkable considering the city gained 100K+ new residents over the same period.

the only categorical increase when comparing the two years is the increase in burglaries by 16.5%

here's 1999 stats compared to 2008 stats broken out by violent crime and property crimes including their sub categories.

On top of the absolute numbers, crimes in every category have gone down on the basis of # of crimes/person. Even burglary has come down from 0.021 per person to 0.019 per person a decrease of almost 10% over the last 9 years.

[shivtim]

Originally Posted by popewiz

On top of the absolute numbers, crimes in every category have gone down on the basis of # of crimes/person. Even burglary has come down from 0.021 per person to 0.019 per person a decrease of almost 10% over the last 9 years.

And while it can be problematic to compare 1999 to 2008 directly, if you look at the yearly data from 2003 to 2008, you see a general downward trend in all categories of crime per capita.

It'll be interesting to see the 2009 data.

[echinatl]

Originally Posted by shivtim

And while it can be problematic to compare 1999 to 2008 directly, if you look at the yearly data from 2003 to 2008, you see a general downward trend in all categories of crime per capita.

It'll be interesting to see the 2009 data.

I read so far it's trending down about 10% this year.