The following is a guest post by Collin Palkovitz and Jason Latshaw of Elany Arts, creators of an iPhone app called LETHAL that tells you what dangerous things are lurking just around the corner, or in any given location in the United States.
We scoured government databases and academic publications to find crime rates, disease rates, disaster occurrences, and deadly wildlife ranges. We then compiled our findings into one centralized database that pulls those stats, combines the score into four categories, and gives you an overall “LETHAL Index” for hundreds of locations.
The research for this project was both captivating and terrifying. It was fascinating to learn about the different dangers that various locations pose. Below are the most dangerous locations in each of our four categories.
Wildlife
Photo: King
Power Cinema [Flickr] (Yes, in Mobile, AL)
We were all surprised to discover the location in the United States with the greatest number of deadly animals.
One might think that somewhere in Alaska with polar bears, grizzly bears, AND great white sharks would take the prize, but no. (Even though the possibility of meeting up with all three of those fearsome beasts does make Alaska pretty exciting. But you’ll read later what keeps Alaska from being all around completely awesome.)
Or maybe the Everglades, the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators are both native (in addition to bears, panthers, and poisonous snakes! Seriously, think about that, they’re one tiger away from being able to say “Oh my!”)? But again, no. The Everglades aren’t it either.
Instead, welcome to Mobile, Alabama, the home of 19 – yes, nineteen - deadly animal species. It’s like the Baskin Robbins of blood-thirsty predators. Whether you are on the land or the sea, something here can kill you. The sheer number of creatures you have to watch out for is impressive. A day at the beach near Mobile may sound pleasant, but you should be prepared to wind up fleeing the shark infested waters only to find yourself in a land crawling with more kinds of poisonous snakes and spiders than anywhere else in the country.
But I’m sure you’re wondering what the most BORING place is when it comes to Wildlife? I know we were. Well, if you don’t like the idea of being offed by something that you thought was lower on the food chain, make immediate plans to move to North or South Dakota or Nebraska. There, the only thing you’d have to watch out for would be a couple of lame standbys that are just about everywhere else, too – Dogs, Hornets, Black Widow Spiders, and Mosquitoes. Yawn!
Crime
The St. Louis Arch is there to distract tourists from the city's dangers.
Photo: Storm
Crypt [Flickr]
When it comes to crime in the U.S. you may think that New York or Los Angeles sound like scary places, but compared to Detroit and St. Louis, those cities are delightful locations for Sunday-school picnics.
St. Louis and Detroit battle it out for the title of “Which City is More Likely to Annihilate You With Its Crime,” and quite honestly this contest is going into extra innings with no end in sight.
St. Louis comes out of the gate and scores some quick points because of its insanely high violent crime rate – 2,480 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens. But the Motor City comes right back – nearly tying the match with its own hefty rate of 2419 per 100,000.
Maybe the Lions went 0-16 because they couldn't focus on the game – they were too busy looking over their shoulders to make sure they weren't going to get mugged or killed!
Speaking of getting killed, if you do decide to ignore the fear of being mugged, stabbed, or beaten and decide to brave these Midtown Detroit streets, you run the risk of being one of many yearly murder victims there – people are killed at the gaudy rate of 61 per every 100,000 citizens. When you realize that the national rate is a mere 7, you see how dangerous this area is.
But before you fall out of your chair and start hyperventilating know this: Downtown St. Louis has that rate beat – by a mile – because 93 out of every 100,00 are murdered there. All of a sudden, Midtown Detroit might be looking safe. But it isn’t.
Because St. Louis has one thing going for it in the crime department – at least when it comes to Forcible Rape, it’s not Midtown Detroit.
Detroit is not safe enough even for the Department of Public Safety.
The building has been abandoned ...
Photo: Derek
Farr (Detroit Derek) [Flickr]
We’ll let you know just how bad Midtown Detroit is in the rape department, but first a discussion about the stats we found for rape in the US: When we were doing our research, we were horrified by Juneau, Alaska. I don’t know what they’re drinking there, but 102.3 out of every 100,000 people are getting raped in the land of “Whatever It Is People Do In Juneau,” Since the US average is a mere 33.1, clearly they have a serious problem. (And actually, it’s kind of widespread to the whole state of Alaska! That place has an unbelievably high rate of 76 – that’s for the state on average. Sarah Palin, what in the world is going on up there?).
Truly it can’t get worse than Juneau, right? Wrong. Sleepy little beach communities Ocean City, Maryland and Key West, Florida made a baffling and troublesome attempt to hang with the major cities by weighing in with rates of 123.3 and 127.3, respectively. Think about that for a second. If you had a NFL Football game in Ocean City, Maryland, about 127 people in that crowd would be raped that year, on average. What’s going on, Ocean City? Considering that New York City’s Rape rate is a mere 13 per 100,000, one has to wonder if NBC should move the Special Victim’s Unit to Ocean City, Maryland! Benson and Stabler, head to the Shore!
Actually, no. If we’re going to be calling Benson and Stabler anywhere, it should be to Midtown Detroit. While we were scandalized and terrified by Key West, Ocean City, and Jeneau – we were absolutely left in a state of disbelief by Midtown Detroits numbers. 181 rapes per 100,000 people. Yes, 181. Just about six times the national average.
So it looks like Midtown Detroit is more likely to rape you while Downtown St. Louis will more likely just kill you. We can’t pick a winner. But we know two areas we’ll be avoiding for the near future. (This would be the time to point out that both Detroit and St. Louis have areas that are very safe and lovely. But really, don’t go to Midtown or Downtown without body armor and some pepper spray.)
Disasters
We were shocked to learn which location ranked the highest for disasters. Memphis, TN!
The Mississippi River has a nasty habit of flooding in Memphis.
Photo: jeb
simpson [Flickr]
As it turns out, this unsuspecting town sits in the path of tornadoes and is located in an area geologically prone to earthquakes, floods, and landslides. There is also significant potential for wildfires in this area. In addition to natural disasters, motor vehicle deaths, accidental firearm deaths, and suicides are all above average.
But if you’re headed to the nation's capital, you might want to follow Obama’s lead and drive in a bullet proof SUV, because Washington DC has the most gun related deaths per year – by far. A full 21% more deaths than the runner up in this inglorious category, New Orleans.
And if you’re feeling a little down, you may want to steer clear of Montana. There’s something about all that ranching and wheat farming that must make you want to just up and end it all, because Montana has the worst suicide rate in the nation. 22 out of every 100,000 Montanians (I have no idea if they’re called that or not, but what’s the alternative really… Montanites?) kill themselves every year.
Disease
US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy docked in San Diego in 2006.
Coincidence? I don't think so ... Photo: Jim
Frazier [Flickr]
San Diego takes the cake (ew, what kind of cake would that be? Pro tip: don’t eat it) for the most disease-ridden location in the United States. It is a good thing that cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s are non-communicable; otherwise the entire city would have to be quarantined.
But it’s a city on the other side of the continent that takes the unfortunate status of being the “AIDS capital of America.” That would be Baltimore, with 37.7 AIDS related deaths per 100,000 citizens. Its sister city Washington DC isn’t much better off in that department at 37.1. Compare that to a mere 3.7 AIDS deaths per 100,000 in Oakland, California or the very impressive virtual ZERO in Salt Lake City, Utah and you’ll see that Baltimore and DC have to change something up.
Win a Free Download!
If you’d like to score yourself a free copy of LETHAL for your iPhone or iPod touch , be the first to answer ONE of the following questions in the comments. We’re giving out 5 freebies here.
- Can you guess what location has the highest overall LETHAL
Index?
Hint: it is none of the locations listed above. It is a city where a moderately high score in all four categories reveals that it has the most cumulative danger.
- Can you guess what location has the least overall LETHAL
Index?
Hint: It also wasn’t mentioned.
- Can you tell us which city comes in 3rd behind Detroit and
St. Louis with the Crime Index?
- Which state should probably have its collective Drivers License
taken away because it has the highest automobile death rate?
- What state has the highest rate of Occupational Fatality?
Yep, a whole lot of people seem to die on the job here… over 40% more than the second most dangerous area in this category!
Please login and use your Neatorama username (if you don't have one, please register). Place your guess in the comment. One answer per comment, though you may enter as many guesses as you'd like. One free download per person.
Be sure to check out LETHAL App for more information (or get one at iTunes now!)
2. Plymouth
3. Las vegas
4. Detroit
5. Chicago
Oh, and it's "Montanans".
It really was fascinating to do this research. We learned a lot of things that surprised us.
We are in the process of adding more dangers (more wildlife, more disasters, etc...) and a few hundred more locations to our database for an update that we will be releasing soon. We continue to be shocked by what we find. The suicide rates all across northern canada is truly alarming!
2. Seattle
3. Los Angeles
4. California
5. Texas
Camden, NJ
2. Can you guess what location has the least overall LETHAL Index?
Newton, MA
3. Can you tell us which city comes in 3rd behind Detroit and St. Louis with the Crime Index?
Flint, MI
4. Which state should probably have its collective Drivers License taken away because it has the highest automobile death rate?
Maine
5. What state has the highest rate of Occupational Fatality?
Alabama
Great story guys!
Ted Nugent- 1978
New Orleans would have been much higher if all the criminals hadn't left town after that hurricane.
The Downtown St Louis stats are derived by FBI numbers for the specific zip code that make up Downtown, so it is taking a smaller population into account, which will boost the rate. But we did the same for other smaller areas in other major cities and Downtown St Louis still comes out on top. Other parts of St Louis that ranked high were Wells-Goodfella, Dutchtown, and Jeff Vanderlou.
And yes, for both St. Louis and Detroit, there are parts that are safe as anywhere in the country, really.
Overall, I bet it's Miami FL that has worst rating.
So far only one of the questions has been answered correctly. Several of you have guessed the answer to this question (probably thanks in part to Michael Moore).
The city with the third highest crime index is Flint, Michigan.
Congrats to Blackdragon for being the first person to win a copy of LETHAL!!!
#5 has got to be Texas, with all the oil rigs and drug lords. Not that drug lords and oil rigs are connected. Except by Texas.
2. Bangor, Maine
3. Baltimore
4. Florida
5. West Virginia
But as a person who lives in the "most lethal city in the country," and also vacations every summer in the "rape capital of the east coast" and loves to visit "the AIDS capital of America," I can tell you that the stats are one thing, but actually being in those places can be a very different experience.
Congratulations to Mark! Los Angeles has the highest "LETHAL Index" of any of our locations. It has a moderately high score in every category. When all of the scores are combined, it tops the list.
When you live in a city with a lot of gang violence and that city is prone to earthquakes and landslides AND is in the range of mountain lions, poisonous snakes, and sharks, you need to sleep with one eye open.
For example, I did a search of the Downtown neighborhood from 1/1/2007 through today, and found that there were no murders downtown, two sexual assaults, 36 robberies, 435 thefts, 22 stolen autos, and three serious assaults.
I recommend checking out the interactive map. You might learn a thing or two:
http://safecity.slmpd.org/MapMain.htm
Also, you are correct -- JeffVanderLou and the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhoods in north city and the Dutchtown neighborhood on the south side are rough areas.
Ocean City's rate is probably closer to 25 per 100,000 if you take the vacationing population into account. And although this adjusted rate is significantly higher than the national average, it is probably as a result of a large amount of drunken revelers from the D.C., Baltimore, Philly, and Pittsburgh metro areas.
There are lies, damn lies then there are statistics.
STL_Bob – Thanks for the insight. We're always working to improve our data, so maps like that help. One issue we deal with with maps like that is actually deriving a rate from it. For a standardized rate we have to rely on the latest FBI Crime Statistics, and they say for downtown St. Louis that the murder rates are:
63102 (where Busch Stadium is): 77 per 100k
63103 (Union Station, etc): 37 per 100k
63101 (Market Street / Jefferson): 93 per 100k
When you see that the rate for the nation is 7 per 100k and NYC as a whole is 13 per 100k you can see that, at least according to the FBI stats, these areas in Downtown St. Louis are, by the numbers, comparatively dangerous. Now in the article we probably should have said "sections of Downtown St. Louis" since we quoted the highest rate, that of 63101, now that I think about it.
Thanks again for you help, and if you want to email us any other suggestions for improvement, you can contact us through our website.
PS. I still fully intend to visit St. Louis, I know it's a beautiful city.
4. Florida
5. California
One other thought. Downtown St. Louis might also be a victim of a similar skew like we were discussing with Key West and Ocean City, MD. Since it's a tourist area (think of how many people visit for a football or baseball game) it often has a lot more people than its official population would indicate. That may be skewing it upwards.
Nobody -
For us, this application grew out of a desire to know what to look out for. Before we get into a river, we want to know if there could be a gator in there. Before we go out at night, we'd like to know the crime rates. That's it really for us, it's good to be aware.
Both Detroit and St. Louis suffered dramatically from the ol' white flight and suburb boom. No one really 'lives' in these cities anymore; they live just outside the cities. The crime however, still happens downtown as that's where people go to work/play/gamble etc. So the population numbers do not include the greater St. Louis area, as Mayor Francis Slay has tried to have changed.
so the rate is ridiculously high because the population data is unrealistically low. Not to say there isn't a lot of crime in the city, but these numbers aren't really accurate to just how much there is.
We have another winner!!! Triggerfury, you got it with your second guess. Wyoming has the highest occupational fatality rate.
I would have guessed Alaska, but then again, I don't know what people do for a living in Wyoming.
We are still looking for answers to the following:
• Lowest "LETHAL index"
• Highest automobile related death rate.
On the other hand, you forgot to mention derechos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Summer_Storm_of_2003
So I guess it evens out.
For an easy tool to look up zip codes, you can go here:
http://www.homefair.com/real-estate/city-profile/index.asp
What that does it tells you the amount over or less than the national average the area is. 100 would be average. 300 would be three times. The national average for murders is 7 per 100k, and for rape it's 33 per 100k.
By Mid-town Detroit we mean the area whose boundaries are the Ford, Chrysler, Fisher, and Lodge Freeways - it includes Brush Park, Brewster-Douglass housing projects. For this specific crime report, you can use zip code 48201, which is the zip code where those housing projects are (so more residential, less commercial.)
read THIS article, and find me some NICE things to say about detroit! [st louis too, for that matter!] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/the_bonus/01/07/detroit/
Who did this research?
They are based on potentials, according to US Geological Surveys and such. They are risks, not necessarily common occurrences. As you have yourself testified with the tornadoes ad the earthquake, they are possibilities in Memphis.
Behind the wheel of your car.
Typing "fatality" repeatedly like this makes me want to play Mortal Kombat.
Congratulations to:
• Blackdragon
• Triggerfury
• Insomniactive
• Mark
Nobody has guessed the least lethal location yet. Anyone want to take a shot?
No medical screening for those entering uhhh... not legally.
As for areas with lots of crime, I fear the reality of the situation is that despite the desire for political correctness the lower the percentage of Caucasians in an area the higher the violent crime rate.
Kinda' hard to debate statistics and data and my own personal observations from constant travel to every major and most minor cities within 46 of the 48 contiguous states.
The mantra of embracing diversity and multi-culturalism always left me cold. Without at least a semblance of shared mores, beliefs, modes of behavior etcetera I fear Abe Lincoln's warning may come about... "A house divided can not stand."
I fear the Founder's Great Experiment is headed for a fall; that the Union faces inevitable disintegration.
But, that's okay. As long as warm fuzzy political correctness makes everybody feel good.
Thanks!
But I also visited Kansas City, Missouri I think? Or Kansas
And they were much worse than what I thought. I'm still dramatized from that trip because I actually saw somebody get shot with my own two eyes. When I turned on the local nightly news all that they really showed was murders, 3 kidnappings, and robberies where they didn't even catch the burglur's. They even had the police cheif talking about how they will need outside help because of all the high powered guns and drugs they've found lying next to most of the dead victums. I'ts really sad if you ask me, I thought Kansas City was FARMLAND!!!! I really cant get ova the fact that KC police kicked in a dope house with 37 dead bodies in the basement!!! Y don't I hear about this kind of stuff on the national news! But I told myself I will never visit that place again (unless i have a registered gun) because it was fun there!! LOL
The home of Gang Banging!!!!!
Did you know that the WTC area of New York is the most dangerous place in the US because 3000 out of every 50,000 people who worked there died on a single day in 2001? Where is WTC New York on that list? Heck, there probably aren't 50,000 people in "Midtown" Detroit.
FYI, I live in "Midtown" Detroit, I walk to work every day and haven't been killed or raped yet. Yeah, I watch my back. XD
To sum it up, take the neighborhoods off the list and deal only with whole cities and towns. Thank you very much.
UNFORTUNATELY, idiots like to OVER GENERALIZE that st.louis (as a whole) is one of the most dangerous cities. WRONG. NORTH st.louis is WHY my hometown is labeled as super dangerous. STL is made up of different sections.
I happen to live in South City, in about a 2 mile radius i can still say i can walk around late at night and not have to worry. Yes, once you go deeper in south stl over by downtown is where the white trash and gangbangers are...west county is fine. south city closer to the south county border (where i live) is safe as it is any other place in the u.s.
it's just north county. i remember i heard on the news last year someone shot someone over a freaking arby's or hardees burger. so yes. THAT place is one of the dangerous city in the u.s.
so to tourists who want to see STL, DO IT! there's SO much to do that are in SAFE places.
"Notice the high BLACK and MEXICAN population as Common Denominators?"
Did it ever occur to you that THE MAIN REASON that blacks and mexicans are likely to be involved in violent crimes is that they have a much larger percentage of their demographic living far below the poverty line? If you think the reason they commit these crimes is their race, and not their desperate poverty, then think again.
I have thought again and have done so for decades.
I doubt you have done little, if any, reading regarding the subject.
Ponder the possibility that it is the culture carried within the sub-groups you mention vice skin pigmentation levels and income level that results in those two groups commiting such high crime rates.
North St Louis is equivalently run-down and ghetto, if not more, than Detroit. A lot of South St Louis, especially south of downtown, are very ghetto and dangerous too.
Still, BY FAR the worst part of St. Louis is "Baden" in North St. Louis city. It is extremely deep in North St Louis and is probably the most dangerous place in America. Whenever you think of the ghetto with hearing gunshots and seeing dead bodies on the street all the time, you're thinking of Baden. Especially the part between N Broadway and Hall St.
Going up anywhere in North St Louis is like suicide though, especially for a white man. My advice: If you go to St. Louis, Missouri stay in and only visit the county, and not NORTH COUNTY. Other than that, prepare to get into some trouble of possibly killed in the city.
why is not happens where white and asian live?
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Brush fires are a problem in the fall, but they're confined to hillside communities in the suburbs. Pollution is a big problem, and even the move toward ecologically-friendly autos and such have had a limited effect on air quality.