Comments on: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

By: Paul Smith

Paul Smith — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:20:20 +0000

I'd suggest that in lower income areas guns are more prevalant because of the higher crime rate i.e. criminals are more likely to carry guns.

Murders in richer areas are more likely to be spur of the moment or in anger where people grab the nearest thing to them. Generally something you can hit someone with (blunt object) or a knife.

By: People Don’t Get Shot in the Upper East Side | cassler.net

People Don’t Get Shot in the Upper East Side | cassler.net — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:12:03 +0000

[...] Manhattan’s Upper East Side hasn’t had a shooting death in over seven years. Dan Lewis explains: The Upper East Side section of Manhattan is incredibly safe, apparently. 11 homicides over the period, or about two per year. For an area with a population of 200,000+, that gives roughly a 1 homicide per 100,000 per annum. To put that in perspective, in 2003, Maine had the “best” homicide rate in the nation, at 1.2 per 100,000. [...]

By: Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:02:59 +0000

I don't think there are a lot of armed robberies of stores in Manhattan, period. There's too much foot traffic to make it worthwhile. You'd be better off mugging a pedestrian on a side street than holding up a corner market.

By: Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:00:51 +0000

(1) The Upper East Side is a pedestrian section of a pedestrian city. Even late at night there are upstanding citizens walking around. I live across the street from a bar and whenever there's a marginally important game, there's foot traffic in and around the area until at least two hours after the game ends. And you don't drive anywhere except for out of the neighborhood. You walk to the grocery store, drug store, dry cleaners, etc.

(2) If anything, the “real” population is higher than the 200k cited by Wikipedia. It does not count most of the people who work in the neighborhood but live in other neighborhoods, as the typical area worker does.

By: Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:56:17 +0000

But why no guns?

By: happyjuggler0

happyjuggler0 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:06:18 +0000

90% of murders are by acquaintances. It's not too hard to figure out from there why the murder rate is much lower in rich neighborhoods.

By: acusticthoughts

acusticthoughts — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:42:40 +0000

Two factors that might have statistical significance -

1. What percentage of people in that area spend time floating around the area? DO the people here spend more time indoors, at fancy restaurants, in their car with a driver?

2. What percentage of the time are the people who own homes there actually there? This particular population of people spends a significant amount of time in other places in the world. A better look at the population might be to find the average number of people within the region, versus those who are registered to actually live there. Then you might find that the “real” population closer to 100,000 or 50,000 or even less – who knows, which would increase that murder per 100,000 number.

By: Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:02:59 +0000