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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

> it’s more dangerous than ever (while I lived here)

I agree that QoL in NYC is awful, but it's not "more dangerous than ever". Like in every other US city, the crime rate is near an all-time low[1]. Murders spiked during Covid, but they're still low compared to previous decades.

> Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting

Where do you get this attitude? I have never experienced that in the city.

In fact, it's one of the places where the rich seem to be the least scrutinized, because most of them pay lip service to liberal values while still being 100,000x richer than a middle-class person living a few neighborhoods away.

1. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-attac...

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I'd be interested to see the crime stats from the last year to today - from the sentiment I've seen on social media it appears violence has been increasing since the Jul 2 your source article was posted. Add to that they slashed the police budget on Jul 1[1] I think the OP may have a valid point.

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[1] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/new-york-budget-nypd-1-bil...

10 months of increases does not negate two decades of decreases. And that's even assuming there is an increase, since "the sentiment on social media" may very well be incorrect as is the comment purporting a more dangerous NYC.

Re crime, the parenthetical in my OP was my sloppy attempt to clarify it’s the most dangerous it’s been while I have lived here (18 years).

Re where I get the attitude, our mayor and local representatives (like AOC) have both said this. There’ve been numerous marches down 6th Ave and the West Side Highway as well.

> it’s the most dangerous it’s been while I have lived here (18 years)

It's not, though. Do you have any data to back it up?

All cause mortality has been very steady (with the exception of Sept 11 and Covid)[1]. Murders are near an all-time low[2] and are at nearly half of what they were when you moved to NYC.

Felonies are lower, muggings are lower, everything is lower. So what does "dangerous" mean to you and where can we see something to back up the idea that the entire city is more dangerous?

1. https://twitter.com/joe_pickrell/status/1248721149233713153/...

2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/NYC_murd...

Like in every other US city, the crime rate is near an all-time low[1]. Murders spiked during Covid, but they're still low compared to previous decades.

Those statistics focus on murder and 'major' crimes, and it's great that they are down. However as a city dweller the crimes that I actually worry about and the thing that makes a city feel "dangerous" are 'minor' crimes like pick pockets, muggings, vandalism and 'minor' assaults.

> the crimes that I actually worry about and the thing that makes a city feel "dangerous" are 'minor' crimes like pick pockets, muggings, vandalism and 'minor' assaults

Those are also down[1] in NYC, as they are across the country. If you can find any statistics that show otherwise, please share the link.

1. https://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/new-york/new-yor...

The stats are useless. The police need them to go down, so they go down. My partner and a friend came on a woman who was getting mugged and the guy ran off with her bag. They called 911 and the cops showed up, didn't get out of the car, blew cigarette smoke in their faces, and said, "You don't want to report this, do you?" My partner had to walk her home since they just drove away. If you do insist on reporting, they make you pay for it, you could be at the station for 5 hours, which happened to my mother after her car was broken into by a homeless man. They're encouraged to not report specific kinds of crimes.

> The stats are useless. The police need them to go down, so they go down.

How do you know there is more manipulation of the stats now than there was at any other point in the past?

If you're saying the official stats can't be trusted, you're just saying that no one knows how bad crime is. Or maybe you're saying no one knows except you?

Regardless, you can't argue that crime is going up based on anecdotes, regardless of whether the official stats are trustworthy or not.

> If you do insist on reporting, they make you pay for it, you could be at the station for 5 hours, which happened to my mother after her car was broken into by a homeless man. They're encouraged to not report specific kinds of crimes.

So you're saying that's true in every city in the US? There's no city that's trying to do honest crime reporting?

Because this isn't just a trend in NYC.

I'm not saying crime is going up. I'm saying the stats are useless. It could be going down, and they're still useless.

Yes, I am talking about NYC. I'm sure every other city is a relative statistical utopia. But I have no information on those cities, given I don't live there, except for the official stats.

They could be shaving off exactly 10% every year, and the trend lines are fine. Or they could shave off enough to make crime go down slightly every year, which is what I'd do if I were a chief who had to answer to a mayor, and didn't really care about statistical fidelity.

Just because you're looking at a chart, doesn't mean the chart reflects reality. And it doesn't matter if you don't have a nice other chart to look at. Sometimes you can't answer questions accurately from your chair 500 miles away.

> I'm not saying crime is going up. I'm saying the stats are useless.

Then why did you add an anecdote about crimes you heard about?

> Or they could shave off enough to make crime go down slightly every year, which is what I'd do if I were a chief who had to answer to a mayor, and didn't really care about statistical fidelity.

It seems implausible that thousands of chiefs and mayors are doing exactly this, all across the country. You would also expect to see downward jumps when new mayors came into office, which anyone fudging the numbers would do to make sure they stayed in office.

You're talking about, essentially, a conspiracy that runs from the bottom of local police departments all the way to the FBI (who also collect these stats).

The FBI largely collects the stats they are sent. I've made no claims about the rest of the country.

The story of this instance of crime is that they're not collecting data the way they should. The way they opted not to collect it shows that it's part of their standard MO. They could be making up crimes they're not solving, but there's no incentive for them to do that. And it's impossible to see that in action, it would just look like someone entering things into a spreadsheet.

You should respond to claims people are making, instead of responding to claims you want people to have made because they're easier to argue against. It makes discussion a waste of time.

Fox News and their siblings (NY Post, WSJ mainly editorial, etc) have been running with the NYC is over narrative for quite a while. Especially the 'more dangerous than ever' trope. And they always talk about moving to TX and FL where the large cities have a homicide rate 2 to 4x what NYC's is.

I honestly think the main culprit is local news. They're essentially non-journalists, so they basically cover violent crimes as sensationally as possible.

I have relatives in red states who ask me how I can live somewhere as dangerous as NYC. Meanwhile, they're living in a metro area with triple the homicide rate of NYC.

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