“Most Dangerous Cities in New York,” in the Only in Your State online publication
Every weekday morning an email from the Only in New York pops into my mailbox. It's an online promotional thing, pointing to state parks, beautiful drives, restaurants (some of them good), and other information whose purpose is generally to get you to patronize somebody or some region of the state. I enjoy looking at it.
This morning (3 April 2022), though it has this somewhat interesting ranking of the most violent cities in New York that I think is worth sharing. FBI statistics are cited, and the wording appears to reference “violent crime” rather than property crime, although some of the notes mentioned in the summary statements do reference property crimes.
Anyway, It’s axiomatic that when most people – I think even most New Yorkers – think of crime in New York, they think of New York City. For a long time now, though, that’s just kind of a prime time detective and lawyer show myth that doesn’t reflect reality. Because not only is the Big Apple a low-ranker among other national cities, it also doesn’t make the list for high crime sites in the state. And what are the highest violent crime cities in New York:
- Buffalo (up from 2nd place last year)
- Niagara Falls (which is arguably more a neighborhood of Buffalo than a culturally independent city, was the most dangerous city last year)
- Binghamton (holding steady at 3rd place from last year)
- Schenectady (up from 11th place last year)
- Rochester (same ranking as last year)
- Watertown (ranked 10th last year)
- Albany (lower crime than last year, but still same ranking)
- Johnson City (where?: Broome County. Down from 5th place last year. Still 3rd for property crime)
- Utica (was ranked 16th most dangerous city last year)
- Syracuse (ranked 9th most dangerous last year, with steadily decreasing violent crime)