Something Interesting

I just read an interesting article about the safest cities (pop. 500,000+). The safest big city in the country is New York City. This surprised me, mainly because the only interaction I have with NYC is through ficticious TV shows like Law & Order. Some other "safest cities" surprised me as well, namely: Los Angeles, San Diego, El Paso, Las Vegas, and Denver.

Some of the least safe cities also surprised me, these included Memphis, Milwaukee, and Detroit. Now I'm not surprised these cities are considered less safe (except for Memphis that is kind of perplexing). I'm more impressed in the differences between the most safe and the least safe cities. It seems LA and NYC get a lot of press for some of the crimes that are committed there, however they are the safest cities in the country.

Something else also hit me when I looked at these cities. Illegal Immigration. One of the biggest arguments against illegal immigration is that it causes crime rates to go up where it occurs. Well lets look at that list of "safest cities again. El Paso and San Diego are border towns, sort of a port of entry for many illegal immigrants. Yet these are two of the safest cities in the country. NYC and LA each have more than 3 million illegal immigrants each. In fact California in general has over a third of the illegal immigrant population. Yet it's cities are the safest.

On the other hand Detroit, Memphis, and Milwaukee...not exactly the hotspots of illegal immigrant territory are the least safe big cities in the country. I find it interesting that when we want to look for something negative we usually find it. I don't know what to think about illegal immigration, but I do try to keep an open mind. Hopefully everybody else can too.