[stickfigure]

Homicide is a local phenomenon that national statistics don't really convey.

The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US:

    New Orleans, LA - 30.5
    Detroit, MI - 41.5
    St Louis, MO - 64.5

[dragonwriter]

> The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US

And a few in México, for comparison:

Tijuana, B.C.: 134.2

Ciudad Juárez, Chih: 104.5

Uruapan, Mich.: 85.5

(These are also the top 3 in the world for cities not notionally at war, and the next 3, plus one more of the top 10, are also in México.)

[stickfigure]

The obvious retort is don't go to those cities. I've never heard anyone pitch a relaxing holiday in Juarez.

On the other hand, there are plenty of cities in Mexico with lower rates than major cities in the US. I've had perfectly lovely times in New Orleans and St Louis, despite the murder rate. I've also had perfectly lovely times in:

    Zacatecas 43.0
    Morelia 39.7
    Guadalajara 38.07

...and dozens of other Mexican cities that didn't make the top 50 list so I'm having a hard time finding statistics.

If you're comfortable in Baltimore or Detroit, you should be vastly more comfortable with most of the cities in Mexico.

"Country XYZ has more murder hotspots" is a useless metric. One of the parent comments said "Mexico is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either with broken glass or razor wire." That is nonsense, it's a huge country and very little of it looks like Juarez.

[emerged]

Wouldn’t it make sense then to also provide the rates for the worst cities in Mexico?