me: did you read the Times article Saturday about Ft Myers, Florida? Florida gun dealers say they can't keep bullets in stock read that today...... me: did you read the Times article Saturday about Ft Myers, Florida?
Florida gun dealers say they can't keep bullets in stock
read that today...
Jim: Yuck. No, I'd not heard this.
sounds like California
it is so FRIGGING violent here it turns my stomach
me:really?
Jim: a judge has ordered 58,000 inmates be released from state prisons because of overcrowding
me: in Stockton?
Jim: I'm beginning to feel like 'meltdown' in the US
Yes, Stockton is one of the most violent towns in the US
a thug mindset here
me: didn't know that
Jim: and gangs.....
I'd never been around gangs like this
being downtown is like being in an armed camp.

The chat above is one illustration of at least the perception of rising urban crime. In visiting the web page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a read a lead story that reported the crime rate had gone up significantly in the region with 2008 ranked as the second worst-ever year in terms of homicides.

I think many of us who think about urban issues and the impact on them from influencers such as the price (and availability) of oil, global warming and changing demographics may have to add increasing crime rate to that list.

In a New York Times article this morning titled Economists’ Forecast: Chance of Change 100% John Tepper Marlin Former Chief Economist New York City Comptroller’s Office said the current downturn could, in its full affect, be worse than the Great depression and added “I’m concerned about people being so desperate that they lose the fear of losing their own lives and they become so desperate that they’re willing to endanger other people’s lives.”

If the bad economic times continue to spiral downward, and crime continues an upward trend, the impact on urban renewal and general trend toward urban revival could hit a bump or two. Safety is Maslow’s second in our hierarchy of needs. Sure, crimes happen in the suburbs too, but I live in Brooklyn and know the perception of urban areas as unsafe continues to persist.

Any increase in the crime rate may play out differently in different cities. The most recent analysis I could find shows a national decline in homicide rates of 2.7 percent with that decrease coming from major cities like New York (down 20 percent) and Los Angeles (down 19 percent). Among cities with populations more than 1 million, murder rates dropped 9.8 percent. That is a stark contrast to medium-size cities. Those with populations of 100,000 to 249,999 saw a 1.9 percent rise in murder rates. For cities with 50,000 to 99,999 residents, the increase was even greater: 3.7 percent.

It also appears crime is actually on a downward trend in other east coast cities including Philadelphia, Newark and Baltimore. The same article has the murder rate in New York up in 2008, but over-all crime down.

Increasing crime isn’t a good thing anywhere, but what if increased crime, or even an increased perception of crime creeps into factors that determine the future of cities? It will take more thought and analysis to come up with an answer, but on the surface, here are some thoughts.

If the trend upward is short-lived, recent suburban transplants will not move, but rather resort to using the car more often. In many cases the car is still an option for new arrivals and is often in an indoor space. If increased crime becomes a trend, some may seek to move. Even in those cases, I think demographics and a rising cost of oil will put them into some sort of a “new-urban” environment such as a transit village rather than back to suburbia. As the move continues, suburbia will acquire its own set of problems with crime and blight, and some of that is occurring now. In many cases, with declining property values, the choice to return to the suburbs won’t be attractive and won’t make economic sense.