Written by Natalia Toliver
Los Angeles and San Francisco used to be some of the most beautiful and affluent places on the West Coast, but now they are in the top ten of the most dangerous cities in the United States. Augurisk Now is an app used to “track the likelihood of crime and national disasters, making it a useful tool for everyone from travelers to concerned citizens to potential homebuyers.”
When you enter a potentially dangerous area, the app uses “proprietary risk-scoring algorithms to alert of potential dangers, warning users that they have entered a predicted or observed high crime area.”
The app analyzes its data by looking at Census block groups. Augurisk’s algorithm predicts crime occurrences based on 188 predictors such as socioeconomic, demographic, climate, and law enforcement variables. Within the top five most dangerous blocks, Los Angeles takes the top three spots, followed by San Francisco, and then Kansas City, Missouri.
Downtown LA has been ranked as the most dangerous block in the U.S. According to a survey done by American Community Survey, residents there were living on less than $10,000 a year between the years 2014-2018, which is earning less than 99.8% of all U.S block groups. The median household income in this area is around $9,175 per year. 83% of the residents in the area were male which is often a factor associated with a higher crime rate and about 80% of the population 16+ were unemployed.
Downtown LA near the Santa Monica Freeway ranked second for the highest violent crime areas. And the areas around E 7th St, S. San Pedro St., E 5th St., S. Central Ave., E 4th St., and S. Alameda St. ranked 3rd.
The story is similar in San Francisco, which took spots four, seven, and eight for the most dangerous areas.
These 2 cities, which at one point were beautiful and affluent, now have some of the lowest median household incomes, highest unemployment rates, and high crime rates. What else do these cities have in common? They are some of the most liberal in the country. Years of democratic rule has allowed crime to flourish, jobs to disappear, and the cities to deteriorate enough to become the most dangerous in the country.
Looking at current democratic leadership would help one to understand how this happened. Governor Newsom’s inaction recently allowed a convicted sexual predator and murder to be released from prison, new LA County DA George Gascon is trying to eliminate sentence enhancements, and President Joe Biden is allowing thousands of asylum seekers to be released into the country while their cases are pending.
The effects of Democratic leadership are apparent and alarming. It is crucial that everyone does their part to save the state of California. Sign the petition to recall Newsom, support candidates that are in favor of law and order, and vote democrats out in the upcoming 2022 elections.
Photo via ABC 7
