The Most Dangerous Cities

Coming in at #3....wait a minute....is this right? Springfield, Illinois? What the hell:

• The capital city of Illinois, Springfield ranks third on our list because it had 855 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2010. The city also confounds analysts who try to interpret its relatively high crime rate. The unemployment rate was lower than the national average at 7% as of July, so the economy wouldn’t seem to play a major role in crime. And although meth usage saw a small spike in the mid-2000s, a law passed a few years ago making the necessary pharmaceutical ingredients harder to buy seems to have cut down on abuse. There are also poorer neighborhoods – literally on the other side of the railroad tracks – that tend to have higher rates of poverty and the higher rates of crime that accompany that, which contributes to the city’s overall higher rate of crime. Another factor could be Springfield’s relatively young population – 66% of the city is under the age of 44 – and relatively younger populations are historically correlated with higher rates of crime.

The other cities in the top 5 are:

• #5 - Anchorage, Alaska
• #4 - Flint, Michigan
• #2 - Memphis, Tennessee
• #1 - everyone's favorite - Detroit, Michigan

Rockford came in at #10. And Chicago?

Chicago doesn't appear to be in the FBI's statistical table that Forbes magazine used to determine the "most dangerous" cities. Maybe we're missing it. Or maybe Chicago doesn't keep statistics that the FBI can trust to actually determine crime rates.