Forbes says Detroit is 12th safest City in the country!

[Retroit]

It's not as simple as tallying up the rankings in 4 categories. To be accurate, they should have used actual death rates instead of rankings, and they should have weighted them so that one category wouldn't be overrepresented. For example, if the 40th ranked city in violent crimes had 500 deaths per million, but the 40th ranked city in workplace fatalities had 50 deaths per million, then workplace fatalities would have 10 times more influence on ranking than it should.

[DetroitPlanner]

Re, did you read the methodology? The rankings are based on rates.

"
Methodology
To determine our list of America's safest cities, we looked at the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas across four categories of danger. We considered violent crime rates from the FBI's 2008 uniform crime report; 2008 workplace death rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2008 traffic death rates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and natural disaster risk, using rankings from green living site SustainLane.com. "

[Retroit]

Re, did you read the methodology? The rankings are based on rates.

"
Methodology
To determine our list of America's safest cities, we looked at the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas across four categories of danger. We considered violent crime rates from the FBI's 2008 uniform crime report; 2008 workplace death rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2008 traffic death rates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and natural disaster risk, using rankings from green living site SustainLane.com. "

Yes, I realize that. You can use rates to make a ranking for one category. But it's wrong to simply add up those rankings in different categories to come up with a combined ranking. For the combined ranking, they should have used the actual rates, not rankings. For example, consider the following cities:

City A: Murder rate 100/million, rank 1; Workplace rate 20/million, rank 2
City B: Murder rate 200/million, rank 2; Workplace rate 40/million, rank 4
City C: Murder rate 300/million, rank 3; Workplace rate 10/million, rank 1
City D: Murder rate 400/million, rank 4; Workplace rate 30/million, rank 3

Bases on this, Forbes would rank the cities in the following order:
1. City A: combined rank: 3
2. City C: combined rank: 4
3. City B: combined rank: 6
4. City D: combined rank: 7
In other words, city C is safer than city B.

But is it? You'd have a greater chance of dying in city C [[310/million) than you would in city B [[240/million), so city B is actually safer.

Am I making sense?

[jjaba]

Forbes' trick here is to only include the Westside in the safety numbers.
By adding the Eastside of Detroit, you are changing the data dramatically.
The rankings are absolutely accurate West of Woodward. #12 ain't too bad.

jjaba, Proudly Westside.

[jjaba]

That Union Song, "UNION MAID" is a parody of the traditional song "Red Wing". Google it and enjoy.

jjaba, Old timey Westside Union guy.

[reddog289]

Workplace safety and traffic mishaps go hand in hand, High unemployment and lack of a job to go to lessen those figures.