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Is Boston America's safest big city? Maybe, maybe not
By adamg on Mon, 10/07/2024 - 5:35pm
GBH runs some numbers, finds we have some admirable crime stats, but that the mayor and the Economist might have, well, jumped the gun.
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For a while, the FBI numbers
For a while, the FBI numbers said that New York was the safest large city in the country. That sort of number may or may not mean anything, but it was handy to pull out when people said things like "but isn't it dangerous?" or that they didn't want to visit because it wasn't safe.
These things help advise visiting family/friends
Nothing substitutes for knowing an area. But sometimes it helps to ground our perceptions of safety to see some actual data.
I can't really think of many places in the area where I would be uncomfortable walking or cycling in daylight, and fewer where I'd be concerned about biking at night. But I've never bought into the social control messages aimed at controlling women with fear, so I know that I might be an outlier.
Having the data helps when talking to people I know traveling from other areas - I can confidently say "yes, you can walk between the hotels and businesses in the Seaport in the evening and it will probably be okay" or "taking a train to Harvard Square is fine at night".
Places I don't want to walk
There aren't many, but the Mass & Cass (Methadone Mile) area just south of Boston Medical Center is one of them. I'd rather not bike there either, but at least on a bike I can quickly get away from any trouble.
That’s where 2 homeless guys helped me when my chain …
…. got tangled with a jacket sleeve.
Drivers scare me there. The people on the street leave me alone. Except when I needed help.
I compare that with the time my chain came off on Memorial Drive when my wrist was messed up and I couldn’t turn my bike over. Not a single passerby could be bothered to help me.
Neat trick for future reference
If you have a bike with a rear derailleur you don't have to flip the bike.
Grab a tire iron or a stout stick. You can use your foot to push the derailleur arm (it will be like a flexed arm when the chain is off) toward the ground to loosen up the chain and hold it there with your foot while you use the stick to get the chain back around the crank. Then pedal the chain back onto the crank if it isn't already all the way on.
If you can lean the bike on something it is easier, but I've done it while holding the bike.
That still may have been a problem with your wrist, though. Sad that nobody helped - maybe they didn't know what to do? I nearly always ask if people need help, but I carry tools and can road repair most stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
I know this method.
Not useful when you don’t have derailleur.
It has been my lifelong experience that those who help out strangers are usually more likely to be downtrodden or close to it themselves. Or to have experienced misfortune themselves.
You are unusual in that you do stop to help especially in that spot. I got the impression that some considered stopping but busy lives took precedence.
Many years ago my radiator
Many years ago my radiator stopped working. The gas station guy refused to give me any water. But the homeless people nearby found me a plastic jug and water to fill it.
Places I don't want to bike
As for bicycle hazards, the single scariest place in the entire city is the McArdle drawbridge that carries Meridian Street between East Boston and Chelsea.
Used to bike McArdle several times a week
Yeah, that's really bad, especially if it's raining. That said, I find the side pedestrian path quite a bit easier to bike on than the roadway. The mesh is much finer and provides better traction.
only New York is legit competitive for safest big city
No one considers a big suburb like Mesa a "big city" regardless of its population. It is twice Boston's geography with 75% the population. Honolulu is similar geography to Boston but only 350,000 population. Boston's peers are NYC, Chicago, SF, Philly, Detroit, Miami and Atlanta. LA, Dallas, SD and Houston are enormous geographies so you'd have to trim out much of the suburban components to make a comparison. And Boston would handily outpace them on safety.
Big City
Boston’s status as a “big city“ seems to change, depending on the narrative.
Yes, of course
Compared to the population of Tokyo, Mexico City, or NYC, Boston is tiny.
Compared with the importance to the American economy and global R&D, Boston is a big city.
Is Zurich a big city? Boston is larger in terms of population.
Is Boston a big city?
Is Boston a big city?
By population? Yes.
650K people alone - but closer to a million within the space that most cities would have annexed long ago (think Boston and all it touches).
Population density is pretty high for a US city, too - Boston is #6 and Cambridge is #5.
Consider how many people are within rapid transit area and I think it qualifies.
Officially, Boston ranks #25 for population within city limits alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
I looked it up last week
It was 694K in 2019.
“Major?” Yes. “Big?” No.
A big city? On paper…maybe…in somebody’s book, but no one should mistake Boston for an actual big city. Boston is a great big medium-sized city, but there are too many physical constraints to prevent Boston becoming a big city. As population grows and reaches a certain point, the pain grows logarithmically (irrespective of housing) until movement and functioning is impossible. (Unless we resort to more bridges, tunnels and elevated roadways.)
How are city sizes defined?
Are there commonly used ranges to define city size? Small, medium, large, extra-large?
#25 without Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville ...
Big city.
Regional hub. Major International Air Port. etc.
Time to annex all those north-of-the-river "towns".
Manifest destiny! Pax Bostonia! Get those stats up where they should be!
Boston doesn’t feel big to me.
Except sometimes when I venture to the city limits and see how far beyond you have to go for open space.
When I lived in Rome near the city line, I had only to walk a few city blocks full of apartment buildings, shops and businesses to a sheep pasture. But Rome seemed enormous to me.
How big is a sheep pasture?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but isn't there a ton of open space within Boston's city limits, from small parks and squares to community gardens to the Emerald Necklace to the riverfront promenades to the Arboretum? Not sure we're comparable to Rome in that regard, but I think we're doing pretty well :-)
This was a big sheep pasture and beyond it more fields ….
… and pastures. Rome has some huge parks, the grounds of old villas and palazzi. The Forum and other Roman ruins.
Mesa as a comparison?
Nothing against Mesa, but let’s be clear, it’s a suburb of Phoenix.
Incorporate eastern Middlesex County and there’s Mesa. Give Boston the geography of Mesa and we’ve got the lowest murder rate in the nation (probably)
Mesa was Boston's top competitor...
...in a midyear Major Cities Chiefs Report that Mayor Wu cited to back up her "safest major city" claim. That's why we talked about it so much early on.
In the FBI's 2023 data, the lowest murder rates were: Honolulu, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Arlington (TX), New York City, Colorado Springs, El Paso, and Mesa. Huge range of populations and urban geographies.
FBI data are a huge pain to work with, but here are a couple of searchable, customizable sites that might be of interest:
https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2024-update/ (scroll down for a cool dashboard)
https://realtimecrimeindex.com/
treating violent crime as a monolith is stupid
At the very least separate out the gang-on-gang stuff from everything else.
There is no gang on gang stuff.
you have no idea what you are talking about.
Why? Are there different classes of …
…. violent crime?
Are they based on the social class of the perpetrators of victims? Or location?
Is business related violence a civil crime, as most landlord on tenant crime is viewed? Rather than criminal?
Institutional violence, where does that fit?
Boston is a safe, walkable,
Boston is a safe, walkable, well-to-do college town.
Not safe if you are counting constant motor vehicle…
… driver hazards, threats and physical assaults.
This is the scariest thing about Boston for me and my out of town guests. Resident friends as well.
Not Downtown Crossing or stabbings on the Common. Not porch pirates. Not shoplifting or child abduction.
Let me tell you
I've cycled long distances in about 35 states in every part of the country. Boston is far better than average. If you think Boston is bad, go to Florida or Phoenix. Even the Seattle area has far more lunatics who want to mess with cyclists.
I'm not going to say riding in Boston is "safe" or relaxing but I'd much rather ride here and in New England vs basically every other part of the country.
There are parts of the city I try to avoid riding and other parts I try to avoid walking, at least at certain times. They aren't the same places.
That may be true.
Most of my guests and friends are pedestrians and not cyclists.
Or if they cycle in their home city, they don’t want to here.
In any case, my point was about what crimes do people fear in Boston and motor vehicle related crimes seem to be number one.
Safe
How do you measure safe? Even in the article they bounce back and forth between Homicides and violent crime. I think for most people safety is a construct of how safe do you feel in a certain place. Are you likely to be assaulted or Robbed? Historically most of Boston's shooting violence has been isolated to targeted incidents in certain neighborhoods and when you include assaults, you also include domestics and incidents where the offender and victim are typically known to eachother. Robberies are the one violent crime where it is more likely to occur between strangers.
I have always felt safe in Boston regardless of the neighborhood I was in. That has not been the case in some of the other cities I have lived in or visited where I felt like they wouldn't just let a stranger pass.
So for tourists, it is extremely safe, except for the occasional incidents on the Common, or gang incidents spilling over from the South End, but again, these are typically isolated incidents and only rarely involve tourists or visitors. I'm not saying there are not innocent victims, just that in Boston it is in the extreme minority of cases.