In line with Lee's comment, you also have to consider who exactly is being put at risk. Assuming your math is right (and I have no reason to doubt it), it would be safer for Mr. Jones to live in the 440100 tract than it would be for him to commute 50 miles from the suburbs. Statistically-speaking, I'll give you that.

However, if you assume that Mr. Jones has a wife and kid, you also have to figure out their respective risk factors to make it work out. While the analysis you presented works if, for whatever reason, Mrs. Jones and Baby Jones join Mr. Jones on his commute every day, that is probably not the case, and so putting them in a dangerous neighborhood creates a wholly unnecessary level of risk.

While the author of this article may be correct statistically, the quality of life in the high crime areas are terrible. Walking to a nice restaurant on a nice summer evening is impossible because their are no nice restaurants. Movies? No good. Local banks? maybe not. In my experience, finding a local doctor or dentist is difficult. Sending your child to a local school; forget it! In short life in a high crime area SUCKS!

@Philip

I fully understand what your analysis was comparing, my concern is what you excluded. You excluded far too many variables for this article to be credible...for your own sake you should yank the article.

A couple examples of what you forgot...
Since you didn't note it specifically, and I don't have the time to verify your statistics, I'll assume that your traffic stats were for the entire country. Your crime stats for 440100 are looking at only 9324 people. I don't want to make any grand assumptions...but here I'll assume that the Chicago area mentioned is most likely ethnically/racially homogeneous and probably poverty stricken.

Another big factor you missed is that not everyone drives alike. I pride myself on being a good driver. With no accidents, I feel that the probability of myself getting into an accident is far less than say Joe down the street who drives like a maniac.

Personal story:
A number of years ago I went with a group of people on a missions trip to inner city Chicago...long story short, I wouldn't want to live there no matter how close to work I was. Fact of the matter is that the gangsters that flooded the streets wanted what they thought I had...even though I brought nothing with me but the clothes on my back...and a toothbrush.

I wish I had the time and resources to truly analyze this, but my guess is that commuting is still far safer when all the facts are presented and all the variables are taken into account.

I have tried to remain respectful, but for the record, I am disgusted at the irresponsibility you have shown in this article. Lord willing, no one will heed your advice.

i'm not even going to pretend that i understand the stats in this article. i'm not even sure i care to. i find statistics obnoxious and these particular statistics distract from the main gist of the article because they provide people a silly minor detail to argue over.

often these so called "dangerous" areas aren't so dangerous that developers can't bulldoze and throw up ridiculously expensive condos or warehouse lofts. i live in a city that has a lot of row housing and old warehouses, and many developers and amateur house flippers/ real estate investors, are doing that very thing. the value of the surrounding property shoots up, and hip trendy restaurants and many other amenities clamor for space, until it's time to move on to the next trendy area. i'm sure it's nothing that isn't happening elsewhere in the country. most of these areas are areas people wouldn't have dreamed of walking around in 10 years ago. in fact, someone who grew up with me in the suburbs who would often make ignorant references towards "the ghetto" now lives in such an area and has discovered that the people there(the original neighbors, not just the hipsters)are just hard working people trying to live life.

my point is be ahead of the curve. in addition to the immediate benefits such as living closer to work, it may pay off in the long run when you're ready to sell your house and it's in the neighborhood that has become the hippest in town.

the commenters are comparing living in an extremely dangerous neighborhood to living in the perfect one, and saying you'd rather live in the perfect one than the very dangerous one even if the risk of getting into a minor accident going to work is higher.

i believe the writer is trying to say that our "perceived" risk of a violent crime is simply much higher than our perceived risk of a major traffic accident. it's like people who are terrified of flying because they are afraid of crashing, but the risk of crashing in an airplane is so much lower than getting killed in a car accident. but those same people get into a car with no qualms, but refuse to fly.

he said there are "1.5 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles" whereas in the most dangerous neighborhood, the rate of violent crimes is 225 out of a population of 9324. he's not comparing getting whiplash from a minor collision to a violent crime. he's comparing DEATH to violent crime.

there is no advocation of living in the most dangerous neighborhood to save on commute. he's just pointing out that because our perceived risk of violent crime is so much higher than the real risk of DYING in a car accident, we often end up putting ourselves at a higher risk of a major traffic accident because we think we're avoiding the risk of a violent crime.

guinness416 said it well that people are riled up because they feel personally attacked for the choices they made for their families.

i'm really happy to see that for the most part everyone is calm and reasonable still. thank you for that.

Short commutes are safer; that is fairly intuitive. However, I don't think it is fair to gloss over many of the other problems with inner city living. That daily hassles of more people, noise, fear of crime, et cetera can be detrimental to health in a far more profound manner than any one stressor in the long run.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great idea to encourage middle-class families to return to the city. One middle or upper class family is a poor community greatly can greatly impact the health of the entire community.

Is to find the 'sweet spot' of where your commute is not long but the neighborhood is not bad.

I lived in poor neighborhoods for years - getting cat-called by men while I walked to laundromats, being stared down while walking past convenience stores, pawn shops, liquor stores, dollar stores on the way to the grocery store. Being woken up at 3am by violent argument outside my door in the parking lot including threats of stabbing. Rental apartments where cockroaches run over your hand while you sleep.

We're quite happy now with our 20 min. commute from a treed, nice neighborhood where kids ride bicycles, thank you very much. Especially now that we have a child.

This is a great analysis, but it is true that there are a lot of other factors that would need to be factored in (amenities in the area, other crimes such as robbery, etc.), as some commenters have pointed out. It's amazing how few people are able to tell the difference between REAL and PERCEIVED risk. I don't think most Americans realize just how dangerous driving is, probably because it's an activity we engage in so often.

A great example of how this lack of understanding and the clouding of the mind by emotions occurs is the reaction to the events on 9/11. How many people died on 9/11? About 3000 or so? Well, over 3500 *innocent people* die EVERY YEAR due to drunk drivers. Yet most people, especially our lawmakers, thought that the appropriate response was to spend billions of dollars to fight wars, establish a Department of Homeland Security, erode our rights as citizens via the PATRIOT Act, and so on. If these people are so affected by the loss of 3000 strangers' lives, why aren't they rallying for things to be done to catch these drunk drivers? How about forming a Department of DUI? How about requiring breathalyzers in every vehicle? How about stationing our troops outside of bars to catch those "terrorist" drunk drivers before they kill more Americans. Why aren't we spying on our citizens by monitoring liquor-store video to see who's engaging in suspicious alcohol purchasing activities? Where's the war on drunk driving?

Or is a foreigner killing an American somehow worse than an American killing an American? It's sad that some deaths are deemed "worse" than others. Further evidence of this bias can be found when the media makes a big issue out of some pretty, young, blond girl goes missing in Aruba, while many other people go missing each year without getting such an outcry and outlay of resources.

If protecting American's lives and quality of lives is supposed to be such a priority, how about spending those billions of dollars on issues that are REALLY a threat, like fighting heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes?

Very sad.

and that his point is to stimulate discussion, so there's no need for anyone to get offended. Nobody really brought up how horribly bad suburban sprawl and commuting to work in pretentious, larger-than-necessary vehicles is for all of us?

Also, why don't more employers allow at least part-time telecommuting?

Admittedly it's a very complicated problem, which has yet to be solved effectively.

-Billy Bathgates Protection Services Inc.

I'm going to try to keep this short (but not sweet) because it is clear that the author has never worked with children or schools in these areas.

I grew up with my grandparents in a beautiful old home in a neighborhood that had gone "down" after the Watts riots in Los Angeles. It was a perfectly safe neighborhood when my mother grew up there, but by the time I was a girl in middle school there were racially provoked fights on and off campus before, during and after school hours that were no respecters of "how nice a person you were". If you happened to be in the wrong place on your walk home, you would be hurt. (One startled mother experienced the reverse of "Guess who's Coming for Dinner" when her children insisted I stay at their home because they knew a particurly bad fight was planned on my usual route home from school. I overheard her say to her husband "I never thought I'd live to see the day a white child would be sitting in MY kitchen!" My friends were a "rainbow coalition" but we all new the hazards of racial tension around us. Knife fights regularly broke out between boys and razor blades were the choice of girls. The police were on our campus weekly. Sexual harrassment, verbal and bodily were everyday occurences. No friends could protect anybody from that and rapes often went unreported because of the social stigma and the fear of reprisal from the boy's family and friends. Fast forward to today and it still hasn't changed except there are now more guns.

How do I know? Because I am a music teacher that chooses to go back there and work with "high risk" kids as well as my regular students in a "safe" part of Orange County. Yes, I know that there are some drugs used in the "safe" school district, but the kids there aren't taking them to get the adrenaline rush they need to pull out their gun to rob someone. These kids aren't worrying about being caught in the routine cross fire of a drug deal gone bad.

In my high risk school district EVERYONE knows at least one innocent child who was killed in cross fire. Everyone knows girls who have been raped. Most parents are afraid to have their kids go outside for fear of being bullied, having there nice jackets stolen. I could go on and on.

Oh yes, the affluent children go to a public school which is on par with the private school my grandparents finally had to pay to send me to for me to get a decent education. The school district where we lived was so bad that eventually it was the first that the state of California had to take over.

I go back and teach "high risk" kids daily because music is one of the few things that lifts them from this misery. They don't have the money to afford private lessons and music has been dropped in their public school. It's still not far from my home but I would not walk, cycle or take a bus because my students and I know it is still too dangerous. I do all of the above to my schools in nearby Orange County. In the short distance I drive in the unsafe neighborhood I have been a victim of "hit and run" twice and uninsured driver is the norm.

These neighborhoods are not that far apart. The prices of homes are worlds apart. Which neighborhood would I choose to live with children? You guess.

Your math does not involve common sense. Someone with a good status, or nice things becomes a target in an area without targets making it impossible to get from the burglar barred front door to the car without wheels on it in the driveway when you have to go grocery shopping or to work. Work? What's that? in that neighborhood.

the numbers may say that its safer but its not.. i used to live in
the hood and i've lived in quite a few ghettos and then i moved to a really bad ghetto on the outskirts of city i will not name, it was extemely scary, having two young kids(girls) and riding the bus and walking down roads without street lights, in one neigborhood i lived down the street from a half way house that housed sex offenders and one night we were almost grabbed. after that i had to cab the two blocks to and from the bus stop. it was way to dangerous to cross that small area day or night...then we moved into a not really better place. it was all i could afford, i had no relatives to help me, i was working 16 hours a day 6 days a week and just barely making it for me and my girls.my porch light was constantly getting busted, my slum landlord refused to clean up all his 20 rental properties that became overrun with rats and termites( i lived in one of these equisite properties for 3 years) i'd have panic attacks because of frequent break ins. i had no family and welfare couldnt help me there was a huge waiting list for section 8 and the temporary shelters were no better than where i was living, and i was doing the best i could and had no choice..this was all i could afford...so i was forced to live in this ghetto with the rats termites and the break ins. over a three year span i spent a small fortune hiring terminex and buyin glue traps to no avail..i had to nail three 2 by fours into my slider door frame to keep the scum from breaking my patio door open. i had to nail ply wood in front of all the bedroom windows to keep my kids safe while they slept at night.
towards the end of it i was sleeping by the front door in a recliner with a full length mirror aimed at the door( so i could see if it opened) where i also had a full view of the bedrooms and the kitchen. while i snuggled up to a crow bar .while my oldest(who was 5 or 6 at the time) slept with a small hammer (just in case some sicko busted into the window through the ply wood and tried to assult her and her sister) i was so stressed out i had panic attacks that felt like heartattacks, going to the E.R only to find out its panic. i still have panic attacks and anxiety disorder to this day and have to go to therapy to work thru the trauma of it, both my kids had to go to therapy once we left this lovely place.and trust me i didnt live there by choice, i lived there out of neccessity. i called the cops several times and they'd patrol for a few weeks and stop, i had one cop that came to my house tell me to move or buy a gun. i was to terrified to buy a gun cause i had two small kids..so i slept with a crow bar!if you call that sleeping! my kids couldnt play outside, it wasnt safe for them to go in the back yard or walk to a friends house (even with me walking with them) then a pedophile moved across the street and the break ins increased (was this coinincdence?)my neighborhood was so bad that my regurlar cab drivers (two brothers from iraq) would sweep the house for me, checking every room, closet and window before they would let us out of the car! and now every place i live even thou i am out of the ghetto and living in a beautiful quiet place, i never feel safe. i am paranoid,keeping removeable wooden dowels in the inside of the windows with a security system with glass break because after going thru the horrible experience of not feeling safe now i never do, i get up several times a night just to check on my kids and look out the windows even thou now i live in middle class surburbia!
no offense
and i know you meant well.
but i would rather live in surburbia or some little country town that is somewhat safe then live in the hood or the ghetto.
at least now my kids can play in the back yard , we dont have to walk by drug dealers, sex offendors commuting from a local halfway house or deal with drug addicts and lushes begging for change.
the parks i take my children to now aren't littered with 40 ounce beer bottles and needles and used condoms and the air actually smells like air. they are no more nightly smells of dope wafting through the kitchen window from a neighbors house, there are no more bi weekly break ins, there are no more occasional shootings..there is no more obscene graffity drawn on fences that my kids have to look at on their way to day care or school.there are no more people trying to hustle me as i walk thru a parking lot or mow my grass! and thou i know that the only real safety in the world is in the palm of gods hand...i will say that its much better and safer to get as close to that as you can! you cant put a price or a statistic on how screwed up i am and how tramatized my kids are because of the experiences we have had to go thru.i would deal with commuting and take my chances then ever ever go thru that again.
my ex boy friend who has been to an inmate in several prisons (both state and federal) before he cleaned up his act told me that some of the cell blocks he lived in were safer than my neighborhood at times.
i would rather commute 5 hours to work, live on a island compareable to alcatraz with little more than a place to buy supplies get medicine and mail then ever ever live in a hood or ghetto like i have in the past, i would rather work three jobs so my kids can go out and play and see the sun then live in a place where my kids cant go outside even on their porch or in their pack yard or patio...i would rather work all holidays and commute two hours to anywhere then ever feel so unsafe that i am compelled to put furniture or ply wood infront of the windows.
and yes even thou i am sure it is statistaclly less dangerous than commuting and even less lethal..think about all the rapes,breakins,murders and assults that dont even get reported. and i'm sure if your added those up the commuting with be the safer option.
now i in no way want to offend the author of this article or anyone reading this or the website and i hope i dont get banned for writing my oppinion but i had to say it regardless of the penalty to represent a real voice of experience in the real world who has been there done that.so let me just appoligize now for offending anyone, but i do not appolgize for stating the truth

and before anyone says it (as several have to my face) no there was absoloutly no other choice! this was all i had to work with,all i could provide..i was a poor single mom who made two much to get assistance but not enough to provide a safe place for her kids! I got no childsupport from their dead beat father and i asked for no handouts! i worked often 3 jobs at a time just for us to survive and did whatever i had to do to feed and clothe them..My only other option was to give up and give up my kids up! and i wasnt going to do that...i struggled and made it through and now we're in a much better place! but my story isnt unique, it is only a taste of what so many other moms or dads who are single parents and poor in america could tell you. Most people just dont know it so well because you only hear it on the news..you are not directly touched by its misery that comes along with raising two kids or more in a ghetto or the hood working multiple minimum wage jobs in america without assistance .
i'm sorry telecommuting is safer and in my heart and soul would be the choice i would gladly take anytime above ever ever living in a dangerious neighborhood again.
thats my oppinion and my story...hopefully my oppinion will be respected and not get me in hot water!

Another consideration in this debate is the quality of life and size of home. I have decided that I would rather live in a small home in a marginal neighbourhood (although certainly not one where I am in fear) than have a larger home in a "safer" suburb with an hour commute each way. Living is "cozy", but because I can get to work in 10 minutes by transit, or 25 walking, I have that much more time to spend with my two young children and husband. And that is what my kids will remmeber, not their small, shared bedroom. I have colleagues who are gone 11 hours a day because of their commute, and so see their kids for an hour each day, when everyone is already tired.
Just another factor to think of.