Facts over time change

This is old, but I find it interesting.

In "Memphis's unruly Suburbs" ( via Cherry Blossom via Half baked, who is doing some guest blogging at Say Uncle's, gives an interesting account of the history of Memphis and it's relation to the towns that have formed around it.) I come across this gem.

Source: "The residents [of Memphis] cite the usual complaints and fears about living in a large city. Memphis's property taxes are twice as high, its schools are inferior, and the city is unsafe. Of these arguments, only the last one is fallacious; the idea that criminals--read: black criminals--care about municipal delineations is based more on historical racism than on geographical or statistical fact."

I disagree. I will provide "geographical statistical facts" that cannot be argued with. Admitidly, this article was written 8 years ago and I probably would have agreed with this writer’s theory at that point in time. In retrospect, the data does not support his theory.

Present day Memphis has expanded to the borders of many of the towns talked about in this article and we have many test cases to examine to see of crooks care about "municipal delineations".

I present you to the memphis crime mapper.

Lets look at an area just out side of an extremely nice part of town. The part of town is "RIVERDALE RD & WINCHESTER RD, Memphis". When you drive though this area it looks just like any other regular safe area of town, but when you do a mile search radius for burglary, you get 24 crimes in the last month.

Now lets look at an area just inside the nice part of town. The part of town is "FOREST HILL IRENE RD & POPLAR AVE, Germantown". When you drive though this area it looks just like the other area except for that there are more houses and less businesses, but when you do a mile search radius for burglary, you get 0 crimes in the last month.

cube