Most Dangerous Cities

The Atlantic posted this map about two weeks ago that compares gun homicide rates in several U.S. cities to those of countries around the world. Here are some of their takeaways.

• If it were a country, New Orleans (with a rate 62.1 gun murders per 100,000 people) would rank second in the world.
• Detroit's gun homicide rate (35.9) is just a bit less than El Salvador (39.9).
• Baltimore's rate (29.7) is not too far off that of Guatemala (34.8).
• Gun murder in Newark (25.4) and Miami (23.7) is comparable to Colombia (27.1).
• Washington D.C. (19) has a higher rate of gun homicide than Brazil (18.1).
• Cleveland (17.4) has a higher rate than the Dominican Republic (16.3).
• Gun murder in Buffalo (16.5) is similar to Panama (16.2).
• Houston's rate (12.9) is slightly higher than Ecuador's (12.7).
• Gun homicide in Chicago (11.6) is similar to Guyana (11.5).
• Phoenix's rate (10.6) is slightly higher than Mexico (10).
• Boston rate (6.2) is higher than Nicaragua (5.9).
• New York, where gun murders have declined to just four per 100,000, is still higher than Argentina (3).

Remember, these are gun homicide statistics but not homicide statistics. Obviously, they are highly correlated. And the comparison is between U.S. cities and states around the world. There's a lot of variation within U.S. cities and within the countries to which they are compared. See Guatemala here and here.

Now, Security, Peace and Justice released its annual list of the world's most dangerous cities. Four cities have homicide rates over 100 per 100,000 people: San Pedro Sula, Acapulco, Caracas, and Tegucigalpa.

Ciudad Juarez and San Salvador saw significant decreases in homicide.

Durango, Mazatlán, Tepic, and Veracruz, México and Panama City dropped out of the top 50.

Guatemala City came in at number 12 on the list with 67 per 100,000.

New Orleans, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Oakland make the top 50 from the United States.

Neither Scranton, Pennsylvania where I work nor South Abington Township where I live experienced a murder in 2012.