5 ms·

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhap

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhaps this is not what you meant by "violent crime"? I know the output of these reports is difficult to interpret but see [1]. The top decile of per-capita violent deaths are rural counties, not urban ones. 1: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m5886273.png https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m5886273...

parsnips 7y ago
Great, now run the numbers on per capita per square mile and get back to us.
- persistent 7y ago
  Why?
  - parsnips 7y ago
    because your narrative is false when accounting for land area/population density.
- twic 7y ago
  What on earth does "per capita square mile" mean?
  - parsnips 7y ago
    Comparing urban and rural and using per-capita numbers is a fallacious argument. You must control for land area. For example a square mile that is labeled “urban” vs square mile labeled “rural” the numbers per-capita tilt homicides way in favor of urban areas... and its not even close. https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/ https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
    - jcwilde 7y ago
      I fail to see how "per capita per square mile" is a useful measure. _Anything_ measured in that way would show densely populated area vastly outnumbering rural areas, perhaps with the exclusion of things that essentially don't exist in cites, such as "number of farms per capita per square mile". The measure appears to be concocted specifically for Lying With Statistics™.
      - parsnips 7y ago
        Should proximity to potential assailants not be taken into account?
        csande17 7y ago
        The "murders per capita per square mile" metric really gets to the heart of the question on every American's mind: what percentage of face-to-face interactions are murders?
        fenomas 7y ago
        If you wanted to track that you'd need to do the opposite of what GP is suggesting. That is, a dense urban area would have more face-to-face interactions than a sparse rural one. Given two areas with equal levels of per-capita violence, it would then follow that the more sparsely populated one would have more violence per face-to-face interaction, not less.
        csande17 7y ago
        Right, I guess you'd actually want a measurement like "murders per population density" or "murders per (person per square mile)". Or, as it's more commonly known, murder-hectares per capita. Murder-hectares per square capita? Murder-capitas per hectare? I'm not actually sure how the dimensional analysis works out.
        7y ago
  - tom_ 7y ago
    Per capita per square mile.
  - nickpsecurity 7y ago
    Although I don't know, I do know that distance or location matters a lot. Statistically, one can avoid murder easily just by location. Sometimes not even very far away from hotspots. https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/ https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
jcims 7y ago
It could be a bias of mine, but if averaged out over an entire county I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I'm talking about the 'rough parts of town' that are typically dominated by a minority population. Try this: Go find a crime map site, pick a big city and show homicides over the last year. Then go to the racial dot map and see how it compares to the census of that locale. http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/ http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/
- its_the_future 7y ago
  Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?
  - codyb 7y ago
    I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit. I have a feeling if you did the same test but instead of “crime” you did “wealth percentile” you’d probably end up with the same results in the United States though unfortunately. Not a lot of well off minority neighborhoods throughout the country and the wealth disparity even with all the poor white people is very real.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit. Believe it or not, this exact question has been studied pretty intensively for decades. The predictive value of race is much higher than the predictive value of socioeconomic status.
      - floe 7y ago
        Ah, then you should be able to provide some sources.
        nkurz 7y ago
        I think this is an excellent analysis with sources: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/ https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe... His conclusion is that on a county-by-county level in the US, race is the strongest predictor of homicide rates, with rates of single-motherhood being next strongest. Poverty is a reasonable predictor, but weaker than these and several others. I read this closely a couple years ago, but only skimmed it now to remind myself of the conclusions. I'd be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on whether his statistical techniques are appropriately applied. I recall it was was convincing to me at the time.
Causality1 7y ago
Considering he referred to minority concentrations in urban cities compared to the rest of the city, I believe the bias would be on your part since he didn't bring up rural areas at all.
hinkley 7y ago
Americans have a real problem with proportions. If you put a million people in a city and 100 of them die of a flu, everyone screams epidemic. You spread those same people out over all the small towns in a state, and 200 of them die, it's just fine. Because, I suspect, we often associate statistics with a location rather than a cross section of society. We think "someone in my town was murdered", not "the murder rate is 1/250,000".
- fastball 7y ago
  I think this is a problem of humanity, not a problem of Americans.
mcbits 7y ago
What is the definition of "violence" for that chart? Specifically, does it include self-inflicted violence (suicide) and vehicular homicide (drunk driving)? If so, it is much less surprising.
- tptacek 7y ago
  From CDC: a violent death is defined as a death resulting from the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community
  - ravar 7y ago
    Against oneself, so it includes suicide.
    - persistent 7y ago
      I believe it does, yes. "All Causes". The problem with excluding it is there's not enough underlying data to get WISQARS to cough up a county-level breakdown. Explore it yourself by starting at https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/ https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/

parsnips 7y ago

Great, now run the numbers on per capita per square mile and get back to us.

persistent 7y ago
Why?
- parsnips 7y ago
  because your narrative is false when accounting for land area/population density.
twic 7y ago
What on earth does "per capita square mile" mean?
- parsnips 7y ago
  Comparing urban and rural and using per-capita numbers is a fallacious argument. You must control for land area. For example a square mile that is labeled “urban” vs square mile labeled “rural” the numbers per-capita tilt homicides way in favor of urban areas... and its not even close. https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/ https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
  - jcwilde 7y ago
    I fail to see how "per capita per square mile" is a useful measure. _Anything_ measured in that way would show densely populated area vastly outnumbering rural areas, perhaps with the exclusion of things that essentially don't exist in cites, such as "number of farms per capita per square mile". The measure appears to be concocted specifically for Lying With Statistics™.
    - parsnips 7y ago
      Should proximity to potential assailants not be taken into account?
      - csande17 7y ago
        The "murders per capita per square mile" metric really gets to the heart of the question on every American's mind: what percentage of face-to-face interactions are murders?
        fenomas 7y ago
        If you wanted to track that you'd need to do the opposite of what GP is suggesting. That is, a dense urban area would have more face-to-face interactions than a sparse rural one. Given two areas with equal levels of per-capita violence, it would then follow that the more sparsely populated one would have more violence per face-to-face interaction, not less.
        csande17 7y ago
        Right, I guess you'd actually want a measurement like "murders per population density" or "murders per (person per square mile)". Or, as it's more commonly known, murder-hectares per capita. Murder-hectares per square capita? Murder-capitas per hectare? I'm not actually sure how the dimensional analysis works out.
        7y ago
- tom_ 7y ago
  Per capita per square mile.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  Although I don't know, I do know that distance or location matters a lot. Statistically, one can avoid murder easily just by location. Sometimes not even very far away from hotspots. https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/ https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...

jcims 7y ago

It could be a bias of mine, but if averaged out over an entire county I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I'm talking about the 'rough parts of town' that are typically dominated by a minority population. Try this: Go find a crime map site, pick a big city and show homicides over the last year. Then go to the racial dot map and see how it compares to the census of that locale. http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/ http://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/

its_the_future 7y ago
Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?
- codyb 7y ago
  I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit. I have a feeling if you did the same test but instead of “crime” you did “wealth percentile” you’d probably end up with the same results in the United States though unfortunately. Not a lot of well off minority neighborhoods throughout the country and the wealth disparity even with all the poor white people is very real.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit. Believe it or not, this exact question has been studied pretty intensively for decades. The predictive value of race is much higher than the predictive value of socioeconomic status.
    - floe 7y ago
      Ah, then you should be able to provide some sources.
      - nkurz 7y ago
        I think this is an excellent analysis with sources: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/ https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe... His conclusion is that on a county-by-county level in the US, race is the strongest predictor of homicide rates, with rates of single-motherhood being next strongest. Poverty is a reasonable predictor, but weaker than these and several others. I read this closely a couple years ago, but only skimmed it now to remind myself of the conclusions. I'd be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on whether his statistical techniques are appropriately applied. I recall it was was convincing to me at the time.

Causality1 7y ago

Considering he referred to minority concentrations in urban cities compared to the rest of the city, I believe the bias would be on your part since he didn't bring up rural areas at all.

hinkley 7y ago

Americans have a real problem with proportions. If you put a million people in a city and 100 of them die of a flu, everyone screams epidemic. You spread those same people out over all the small towns in a state, and 200 of them die, it's just fine. Because, I suspect, we often associate statistics with a location rather than a cross section of society. We think "someone in my town was murdered", not "the murder rate is 1/250,000".

fastball 7y ago
I think this is a problem of humanity, not a problem of Americans.

mcbits 7y ago

What is the definition of "violence" for that chart? Specifically, does it include self-inflicted violence (suicide) and vehicular homicide (drunk driving)? If so, it is much less surprising.

tptacek 7y ago
From CDC: a violent death is defined as a death resulting from the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community
- ravar 7y ago
  Against oneself, so it includes suicide.
  - persistent 7y ago
    I believe it does, yes. "All Causes". The problem with excluding it is there's not enough underlying data to get WISQARS to cough up a county-level breakdown. Explore it yourself by starting at https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/ https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/