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Columbia making gains in cutting crime


krazeeboi

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Two comments I have:

Regarding the comparison between Richland Co. and N. Charleston, it's apples and oranges. One encompases large, diverse swaths of unincorporated areas ranging from urban to suburban to rural, while the other is a "midopolitan" city/town that is mostly urban/suburban. If you would to incorporate everything along the northern arc of Columbia from Irmo to Spring Valley, then possibly you could compare that region to N. Charleston (and in fact, most of the crimes in unincorporated Richland are probably in that northern arc).

Also, this phenomenon of increasing crime in urban/suburban/midopolitan areas of unincorporated Richland County parallels a broader trend in many areas of the nation where the center city is improving and propsering: crime and other underclass problems are being pushed out beyond core city limits. In the Washington, DC area, many parts of the city proper have been gentrified and "cleaned up". Well, the urban problems these developments "replaced" don't just vaporize into thin air - they move to where rents haven't climed up and where ersthewhile middle class neighborhoods aren't "fashionable" any more. Of particular note is the inside-the-beltway portion of Prince Georges County, MD, just east of DC. I would dare say this area is more dangerous than many if not most parts of DC itself, to the point where it is unfortunately a "code word" for an area many people wish to avoid. The middle class has long fled to further parts of suburban Maryland east of DC (outer Prince Georges County to towns like Bowie, and once-rural areas like Charles County and Calvert County). In Columbia, a similar phenomenon is taking place in some unincorporated Richland County areas adjacent to the City of Columbia - exactly the areas where The State article mentions: along Percival Road, the Decker Blvd. cooridor, inner Two Notch Rd corridor, and Broad River Road corridor. Middle class and other upwardly-mobile folks have headed to Irmo/Ballentine, Lexington, and NE Richland/Blythewood and even Kershaw County.

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This is another reason why I think the annexation laws need to be changed in this state. A similar situation is also happening in Greenville County: relatively low crime in the city, escalating crime in the surrounding areas.

In the Washington, DC area, many parts of the city proper have been gentrified and "cleaned up". Well, the urban problems these developments "replaced" don't just vaporize into thin air - they move to where rents haven't climed up and where ersthewhile middle class neighborhoods aren't "fashionable" any more. Of particular note is the inside-the-beltway portion of Prince Georges County, MD, just east of DC. I would dare say this area is more dangerous than many if not most parts of DC itself, to the point where it is unfortunately a "code word" for an area many people wish to avoid. The middle class has long fled to further parts of suburban Maryland east of DC (outer Prince Georges County to towns like Bowie, and once-rural areas like Charles County and Calvert County).
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  • 9 months later...

Here's another chart on the new metro crime rankings. The title of this chart is wrong. They have it mixed up with the title of another chart. This chart compares each city's current crime ranking with last year's ranking.

http://www.cqpress.com/docs/City%207%20-%2...0Change_14E.pdf

Columbia fell off of the top 100 most dangerous metros list, coming in at #116. That compares to a ranking of #77 last year. Charleston moved from the 132nd most dangerous metro to #97.

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  • 1 month later...

If you consider it a fluke that last year the city of Columbia had only 8 murders and that the usual number of 12 to 16 is to be expected, then you would have to agree that the Capital City is holding the line in general on murders, since we have had 15 year-to-date for 2007 (tied with the city of Charleston). Our three-county (Richland, Lexington and Kershaw) area has seen a slight decline in the number of murders compared to last year. Unfortunately, a jump from 8 to 15 murders for the city will eventually show up on paper in some article or on some chart at some point and will look bad.

http://www.thestate.com/local/story/269407.html

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