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By Melissa Brewer

Many residents of Rochester, NY claim that the city is one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. While crime rates have gone up since 2020, recent news sources find that this claim isn’t true.

A recent fact check by News10NBC’s Nikki Rudd shows that while Rochester’s crime rate has climbed in recent years, the Flower City isn’t as dangerous as rumors say.

Rochester Is Not Among Top 100 Violent Cities

In November 2020, CBS News released a report titled ‘The Most Dangerous Cities in America, Ranked‘, and this list remains the top result if you search for dangerous cities. This article, written by Elisha Fieldstadt, used statistics from 2019 and placed Rochester, New York in the 50th spot, stating that there were 728 violent crimes for every 100,000 people.

However, this doesn’t paint an accurate picture, and other websites, such as Neighborhood Scout don’t mention Rochester in their list of the ‘Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities’.

Some cities are ranked as more dangerous due to a disparity in population. For instance, this year, Rochester has had 20 homicides for every 100,000 people, whereas Chicago has had 16 for every 100,000. However, Chicago also has a population of 2.71 million (as of 2019), whereas Rochester only has 206,848. While this means that the per-capita total is higher in Rochester, this metric can be misleading.

According to Neighborhood Scout, your chances of being a victim of a violent crime are 1 in 105 in Chicago. However, your chances in Rochester are 1 in 132. Despite being ranked higher in homicides, the violent crimes in Chicago — 25,543 — are much greater than Rochester’s total of only 1,557.

What does this mean for Rochester? According to the Rochester Police Department, officials say that a majority of these reports are designed to be clickbait and have skewed or biased evidence to support their claims.

Additionally, there are types of violent crimes that aren’t individually taken into account. For instance, felonies can be charged against a person after three offenses in their lifetime, but the nature of violent crimes can vary. A domestic dispute between family members that turns physical can be labeled as a violent crime. It doesn’t mean that these people are running around targeting innocent people, but it does skew the ‘danger’ factor, despite not being a public danger.

Rochester Ranked Top 10 for Business

While clickbait titles may have you think that Rochester is dangerous, one thing that is true is that it has been ranked number nine out of ten for the best mid-sized cities for business. Ironically, Lubbock, Texas took the number six spot, despite ranking at number 24 on CBS’s Most Dangerous Cities list linked above. Further proving that these lists mean little in the grand scheme of things.

The reason that Rochester ranks so high is that it is a booming market that is constantly growing and innovating. Data transmission and secure storage, which are imperative for businesses, are being implemented in many places across Rochester, allowing businesses to flourish reliably in the modern market. Along with this, many large and medium-sized businesses are also taking advantage of cloud applications, up to 300 to 400 a day, in the city’s growing tech hub.

Additionally, businesses in Rochester are helping other businesses. Companies like NextCorp — formerly High Tech Rochester — have helped advance innovation by providing services and helpful programs to over 700 startups in the Rochester area.

Rochester is a growing city. Despite what some lists may say, Rochester remains a safe and desirable place for entrepreneurs and families alike.

Tags: crime, Rochester

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2021 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Rochester News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.