Here is the thing: your neighborhood is only a very, very, very small portion of the United States. in 2014, 2% of the counties in the United States accounted for about 51% of the murders, and 54% of the counties had zero murders.
> in 2014, 2% of the counties in the United States accounted for about 51% of the murders,
But what percent of the population did those counties represent? "Counties" are fairly arbitrary divisions, after all. New York County, NY (better known as the burrough of Manhattan) has a population of around 1.6 million.
Kalawao County, HI has a population of 89.
It doesn't really make sense to compare homicide counts by county.
"It doesn't really make sense to compare homicide counts by county."
It does if you're a tourist needlessly worrying about getting gunned down while you're visiting the Grand Canyon, or a student needlessly worried that you're going to encounter open gang warfare in a small midwestern college town.
As it happens, the worst 1% of counties have about 19% of the population but about 37% of the murders, so it's not just that these counties are more heavily populated. They really are more dangerous.
Even within those counties, murders are heavily concentrated by neighborhood.
Edit: here's a map that lets you zoom down to the individual census block level, and which shows the rate (thus controlling for population).
Note how much of the country is in the 0-50 category.
> It does if you're a tourist needlessly worrying about getting gunned down while you're visiting the Grand Canyon
This kind of example is really stacking the deck. It's not like there are real people out there being tourists and getting scared of being involved in a drive-by at the Grand Canyon.
> As it happens, the worst 1% of counties have about 19% of the population but about 37% of the murders, so it's not just that these counties are more heavily populated. They really are more dangerous.
Urban areas with higher population densities have higher crime. Fact of life. Rub people together more often and they'll cross each other more often.
In any case, when 1% of the counties hold 1 in 5 members of the public, it's a gross mischaracterisation to call them 'a very, very, very small portion of the United States'
But a tourist visits cities and regions, not counties and census blocks. Differences between cities are rarely dramatic, while differences between safe and bad neighborhoods within a city are usually obvious and easily researched.
The linked map informs about land use, by precisely locating crime on the map; it isn't a valid guide for the tourist.
For example, look at New York: who would avoid Central Park because of the higher crime rate and prefer a "relaxing" walk through the almost crime-free dense city blocks surrounding it? Reasonable tourists are aware of what can happen in a park. Who would reserve an hotel out in the middle of Long Island because it's safer than in the city?
It appears not. Nor does it account for the severity of the crime among the included indexes.
ADDED:
I misread. Does seem to be a rate.
Not totally clear to me how per capita adds. On the one hand it captures the family member or neighbor known person assault. On the other hand, it's not terribly comforting to know that there are lots of murders somewhere but there are lots of people so you'll probably be OK.
It sounded like it was weighted by population (i.e. it compares the crime rate, not the total number of crimes), but it doesn't weight by the severity of the crime.
Colma has an index equal to or worse than most of Oakland, which only makes sense if there's some form of population-weighting, since Colma has only 1500 or so living inhabitants (and doesn't have a particularly bad reputation for crime, except for most "residents" being already dead when they get to Colma).
Just occurred to me that I've lived in the US for decades and have never heard gunfire (outside of a range), and have never seen any violent crime despite working in a few major cities.
Not disputing crime exists, but just, this place is vast, so there are lots of different experiences.
