City rankings and crime confusion
From Forbes.com’s recently published Best Places For Business And Careers special report:
One metro that made a big jump was Atlanta, which improved to sixth from 25th last year. Its ranking benefited from strong job and income growth and a big reduction in crime.
From this blog, yesterday:
Crime was up 11% city wide in 2007, according to statistics recently posted on the Atlanta Police Department web site.
So who’s right?
Both of us, possibly.
When Forbes says Atlanta, they’re talking about the entire metro area. They’re also considering data gathered over a five-year period. I don’t know exactly how many counties Forbes counted over how many years, so I don’t know precisely what they’re talking about when they say crime has dropped.
When CL says crime is up in Atlanta, we’re referring to the actual city of Atlanta, not the metro area.