[burningChrome]

>> If I was looking for somewhere to live then it would be more interesting I think.

When I was looking at places to live in South Carolina, Florida and places in the Northwest like Oregon and Idaho, it was interesting to see some of the crime maps and grades these sites gave for crime.

In small coastal towns in Florida, they had small populations and were essentially tourist towns or inhabited by "snow birds" people who live in Northern states who live there during the Winter. Several of the places got D's or F's for crime. I was just shocked, but reading the footnotes, they made it clear that the numbers could be skewed because of the transit population or other factors like Spring Break revelers who come down, get in fights, people get assaulted, or sometimes killed and suddenly a small town's crime rate goes through the roof because of an outlier event that year.

It just made me leery about any statistics you see online with cool heat maps or grades they give to certain areas.

As an aside, the same thing was evident in small rural towns in the mountains in Idaho as well which also got poor grades for crime. It aligns more with your comment, it you go looking for trouble, chances are, you're going to find it.

[katzinsky]

Yes, data and statistics aren't a substitute for careful thought. You shouldn't throw them out but you definitely can't outsource your thinking to them either.

That's part of why online forums can be nice: a well moderated one can be great at pointing out blind spots in your thinking.