Are the facts from the FBI Universal Crime Report OK with you?

Here they are:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-publications#Crime

From there, go to the section "Crime in the United States"

You will see that 2011 is the latest data that is not considered preliminary. Click on 2011.

Click on the "Violent Crime" link on the resulting webpage. That click will take you here:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri...e/violent-crime

Now look over on the right side of the resulting page. There is a list of twenty-some-odd tables. Hover your mouse over "Table 6". You will see that a popup says: "Crime in the United States by Metropolitan Statistical Area". Click on that ("Table 6").

Here is where you will be after all the above navigation:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table-6

Now you can see data for tons of cities throughout the US. Of interest are the columns "Population" and "Violent Crime".

Scroll down until you find New York City. You will see that there is a "Rate per 100,000 individuals" row down a few rows below New York City. Unfortunately, this rate/100000 is for a group of cities including New York City, but you can calculate the rate for NYC alone using the raw numbers. For New York City, it shows the population is 8,336,002 and the number of violent crimes is 48,489. Doing the math, you will see this comes out to a "Rate per 100000" of 581.7 for New York City.

Now scroll up and down that Table 6 and compare 581.7 to other cities. The vast majority are well below New York Cities numbers. A few are higher (look at Anchorage Alaska with a rate of 812.9). A few are far lower (see Bangor Maine with 68.4).

So there are a few scattered cities that are higher than NYC, but most are quite handily below it.

So much for NYC being "one of the safest cities". I wonder where Forbes got their data? I am citing the most recent FBI data, the same data that Forbes claimed they used. You can look at the preliminary data for 2012, but it doesn't include the detail you need to look at individual cities. And even if Forbes did have access to some secret unpublished FBI data, wouldn't you find it hard to believe that NYC amazingly jumped from one of the worst, to one of the safest in only one year?

If something smells fishy, it probably is fishy. Coming out and saying NYC is one of the safest places to live is just contrary to common knowledge. Swallowing a claim like that hook, line and sinker shows the gullability of the US population, and the unethical/bias/agenda/whatever of Forbes.