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llanite wrote:So this discussion made me curious - I go back and forth between both towns a lot and I have my own opinions, but here are some facts:

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City:               Population:             Violent Crime:            Murder:         Rape:             Robbery:
=================================================================================================================
Houston           2,177,273                10,106 (.464%)         105 (.005%)    302 (.014%)      4,612 (.212%)
New Orleans        362,874                 1,433 (.385%)           77 (.021%)      78 (.021%)      523  (.144%)

These are from this site:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... y.xls/view

and are the preliminary numbers for 2013 from the FBI.

I calculated the % crime per total population (in parenthesis).

While definitely a mixed result, the New Orleans murder rate is more than 4 times Houston's, and the rape rate is 33% higher per capita. For me, NO will retain its title of Mean Old Town in the south....

llanite wrote:So, from the same source, here is the "Katrina Effect" on Houston's murder rate:

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		       Pop:	 Murder_Rate   Murder Rate as a % of Population
	2003	 2,041,081 	 278 	0.014%
	2004	 2,043,446 	 272 	0.013%
	2005	 2,045,732 	 334 	0.016%  Katrina
	2006	 2,073,729 	 377 	0.018%
	2007	 2,169,544 	 351 	0.016%
	2008	 2,238,895 	 294 	0.013%
	2009	 2,273,771 	 287 	0.013%
	2010	 2,280,859 	 269 	0.012%
	2011	 2,143,628 	 198 	0.009%
	2012	 2,177,273 	 217 	0.010%

You can see that the first full year after the hurricane saw a 28% jump in homicides, and the effect took about 3 years to fall back to the mean for the decade.

Note - these numbers are 2x the 2013 numbers in my previous posting because these are for the full year, where the 2013 report is only the first 6 months of the year.

Ok, thanks for helping me kill my lunch hour!

Scott in Houston wrote:

jmra wrote:

Scott in Houston wrote:

jmra wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:If you don't know your way around, the wards can be extremely bad news and a regular killbox for outsiders. Nothing to New Orleans or east LA areas though.

I would totally disagree about New Orleans. I spent 30 years there. My father spent 20 years pastoring an intercity mission church. There isn't an underbelly of New Orleans I haven't seen.
For a number of years I managed offices in New Orleans and Houston in ares that would be very similar in description. I never had a single issue at my New Orleans office. I eventually had to close down the Houston office due to theft, vandalism, and threats to the safety of my employees. I wouldn't hesitate to go anywhere in New Orleans - I refuse to so much as drive through Houston.

Ironic, because post-Katrina, Houston's crime shot up.
One of my best friends works for HPD in west Houston and his neighborhoods went to heck fast. He said, "These people are a special kind of mean and angry. Their gangs are nothing like what I've seen before."

Not far from nice homes in Memorial are Katrina evacuees, still getting subsidized by our taxes, and I see them weekly... and agree with his analysis.

As is your choice but it would be based on a very small sampling and would suggest that now I am even more correct as the worst of what lived in New Orleans before Katrina now lives in Houston.

That last part is definitely true. My personal sample set may be small, but buddy who patrols a large area in some 'gang task force' type organization of HPD, has agreed on a much wider level. He says he's not alone in his sentiments either.

Scott in Houston wrote:

jmra wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:If you don't know your way around, the wards can be extremely bad news and a regular killbox for outsiders. Nothing to New Orleans or east LA areas though.

I would totally disagree about New Orleans. I spent 30 years there. My father spent 20 years pastoring an intercity mission church. There isn't an underbelly of New Orleans I haven't seen.
For a number of years I managed offices in New Orleans and Houston in ares that would be very similar in description. I never had a single issue at my New Orleans office. I eventually had to close down the Houston office due to theft, vandalism, and threats to the safety of my employees. I wouldn't hesitate to go anywhere in New Orleans - I refuse to so much as drive through Houston.

Ironic, because post-Katrina, Houston's crime shot up.
One of my best friends works for HPD in west Houston and his neighborhoods went to heck fast. He said, "These people are a special kind of mean and angry. Their gangs are nothing like what I've seen before."

Not far from nice homes in Memorial are Katrina evacuees, still getting subsidized by our taxes, and I see them weekly... and agree with his analysis.

Cedar Park Dad wrote:If you don't know your way around, the wards can be extremely bad news and a regular killbox for outsiders. Nothing to New Orleans or east LA areas though.