Originally Posted by
onobond
New York the safest city in the world?
Certainly not the safest city in the world, but much safer than it used to be. There are many cities that the average US citizen would likely guess are much safer than NYC, but are in fact much more dangerous.
All the statistics below are in terms of violent crimes per 100,000 people, thus normalizing for varying populations (and based on 2012 data)
data link:
In terms of violent crime, New York is only the 39th most dangerous city in the USA (among cities with a population over 250,000), ranking less dangerous than more-benign-sounding cities such as Nashville, Toledo, Tucson, St. Paul, and Anchorage.
With regard to murder, New York is about 50th on the list. You're about twice as likely to be murdered in Tulsa or Fresno than in NYC; about three times as likely to be murdered in Milwaukee or Oklahoma City than in NYC, etc., etc.
NYC is near the bottom of the list for rape risk--there are about 7x more rapes in Minneapolis per 100,000 people than in NYC.