City dwellers - how is crime in your city these days?

[arivecchi]

It definitely seems to be in the rise near me. The things people are stealing are pathetic - like boxes people leave outside for a second, copper parts, ac compressors, bikes.

It has gotten to the point where everything is locked up in my garage and what cannot be locked up has to be brought inside the house.

So for those of you who live within city limits, have you noticed an uptick in your area?

[bostonsmama]

I think big cities like Chicago (and NY, LA, ATL, etc) will always have a bit more crime b/c of its large population and class divergence. Usually, the bigger the gap between the highest income earners and lowest income earners, the higher the crime. In rural areas where everyone is either poor, or middle class (or it's all wealthy), there is usually less crime.

I think I found that when our economy took its initial downturn, there was an uptick in crime--mostly petty crimes, burglaries, a few more bank robberies, but now that unemployment is pretty steady and more people are suffering together, our city has actually evened out in crime.

Also, remember that it's summer and kids are out of school (less supervision), so thefts of things like bicycles would naturally be on the rise. And now that metal and precious metals are at all time highs compared to the US dollar, yeah, jewelry theft and engine theft for those metals are on the rise, but our metro area of 1 million plus is still pretty safe.