Dangerous Cities

Wow - reports are coming out on the FBI's rankings of the most violent cities in Texas and they are right weird.  When I heard yesterday that Corpus Christi made #7 on the list, I was not very fussed initially - we are the 8th largest city in Texas, only in recent years edged out of 7th largest, so it sounds about right.

The report was not like that, though.  I would have expected the numbers to be linked to densely populated cities with their pockets of dense poverty, but not so much.

The eight largest cities (in terms of population) in Texas, from biggest to smallest, are:

Houston
San Antonio
Dallas
Austin 
Fort Worth
El Paso
Arlington
Corpus Christi.

Of that list, only Houston, ranked #3, had a higher rate of violent crime than we did here in Corpus. San Antonio was the only other city on the list of larger cities to make the top ten in violent crime, being ranked at #9.

West Texas was the worst region on the list, with little Odessa the #1 most violent city in Texas, followed by Lubbock at #2.  East Texas was not much better.  Texarkana was #4, followed by Beaumont and then Amarillo.  Victoria was #8 and Laredo was #10.  

Dallas (#17) did not make the top ten.

Austin (#21) did not make the top ten.

It is worth noting that for all the hype about border unrest, Laredo was the only border city that made the top ten - Neither McAllen (#18) nor Brownsville (#24) nor even big El Paso (#13) was one of the top ten cities in violent crime in Texas.

Interesting.