We will just need to disagree here.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/robbery...172948663.html

To quote a portion of the article: More than 48,700 muggings took place in Rio last year, which was three times the number in New York City, which has 30 percent more residents.

Also, the article you reference (and you say the journalist has "perspective") says that the Brazilian economy is in the top 10 in the world in terms of GDP. This is technically correct however if you look at the GDP per capita, it is only $15,614 USD compared to an average of approximately $35,000 to $45,000 USD for other countries in the top 10. He also states that Brazilian life expectancy went up by 10.5 years to 74.4 years whereas in the US life expectancy only went up 4 years. However, what he fails to say is that life expectancy in the US is already at 79 years. So, as usual, people can choose which data they want to present and how they want to present it.