America's Most Dangerous Cities, 2011

By John Giuffo, Forbes.com
October 4, 2011

A city where murder is nearly a daily occurance stands a good shot of being named the most violent, crime-prone area in the country. And last year there were 345 murders reported in the Detroit metropolitan area - altogether 1,111 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

To compile our list of America’s most dangerous cities, we used the FBI’s uniform crime report for 2010, which tallies crime data for each of the country’s metropolitan statistical areas, regions that usually consist of a large city and its suburbs or nearby cities. Because small fluctuations in crime numbers can produce outsize jumps in rates in smaller metropolitan areas, we looked at MSAs with a population of 200,000 or more. We used the FBI’s numbers for four categories of violent crimes: murder and non-negligent manslaughter; forcible rape; robbery; and aggravated assault.

It’s commonly expected that crime will rise as economic conditions worsen, but that hasn’t been the case in the U.S. – violent crime has fallen for the past four years. In 2010, murder was down 4%, rape fell 5%, robbery dropped 10%, and aggravated assault fell 4%, according to the FBI. “There’s a complex series of forces at work behind these rates,â€