Camden, N.J., Ranked Most Dangerous City in U.S.

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Reuters
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21 -- Camden, N.J., was the most dangerous city in the United States for the second consecutive year, according to an annual survey released Monday.

The survey ranked the rates of serious crimes including homicides, rapes and robberies in 369 U.S. cities, based on 2004 statistics reported by the FBI last month.

Camden, a city of 80,000 near Philadelphia, was listed as the most dangerous, followed by Detroit, St. Louis, and Flint, Mich., according to the survey by Morgan Quitno Press, a research and publishing company based in Kansas.

Camden's homicide rate was more than 10 times the national average and its robbery rate was seven times the national average, the study said.

"It was a very bad year for Camden," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno, adding that the city's rating was the worst in the survey's 12-year history.

The safest city, also for the second year in a row, was the Boston suburb of Newton, Mass., which had no homicides and the lowest overall crime and motor-vehicle theft rates in the nation. Newton was followed by Clarkstown, N.Y; Amherst, N.Y.; and Mission Viejo, Calif.

In Newton, the median household income was $86,052 in 2000, more than three times that of Camden's $23,421, statistics show. The median value of a Newton house was $438,400, more than 10 times that of Camden.