Dan Lewis - Latest Comments in Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Paul Smith — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:20:20 -0000

I'd suggest that in lower income areas guns are more prevalant because of the higher crime rate i.e. criminals are more likely to carry guns.

Murders in richer areas are more likely to be spur of the moment or in anger where people grab the nearest thing to them. Generally something you can hit someone with (blunt object) or a knife.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Dan Lewis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:02:59 -0000

I don't think there are a lot of armed robberies of stores in Manhattan, period. There's too much foot traffic to make it worthwhile. You'd be better off mugging a pedestrian on a side street than holding up a corner market.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Dan Lewis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:00:51 -0000

(1) The Upper East Side is a pedestrian section of a pedestrian city. Even late at night there are upstanding citizens walking around. I live across the street from a bar and whenever there's a marginally important game, there's foot traffic in and around the area until at least two hours after the game ends. And you don't drive anywhere except for out of the neighborhood. You walk to the grocery store, drug store, dry cleaners, etc.

(2) If anything, the "real" population is higher than the 200k cited by Wikipedia. It does not count most of the people who work in the neighborhood but live in other neighborhoods, as the typical area worker does.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Dan Lewis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:56:17 -0000

But why no guns?

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

happyjuggler0 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:06:18 -0000

90% of murders are by acquaintances. It's not too hard to figure out from there why the murder rate is much lower in rich neighborhoods.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

acusticthoughts — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:42:40 -0000

Two factors that might have statistical significance -

1. What percentage of people in that area spend time floating around the area? DO the people here spend more time indoors, at fancy restaurants, in their car with a driver?

2. What percentage of the time are the people who own homes there actually there? This particular population of people spends a significant amount of time in other places in the world. A better look at the population might be to find the average number of people within the region, versus those who are registered to actually live there. Then you might find that the "real" population closer to 100,000 or 50,000 or even less - who knows, which would increase that murder per 100,000 number.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

hmmz — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:48:52 -0000

Rich areas have more money, but one would think the tough guys would go to rich areas in order to "obtain" said money. Perhaps there is a class-based deterrent effect of tough guys being visually identified when they are creeping in rich areas looking for targets. I believe the only way to get a real answer to this question is to ask someone in the know. Maybe people in rich areas make difficult targets and access to money means higher risk of consequences? Tough guys are risk mitigators too.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Dan Lewis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:42:01 -0000

That's part of the reason why the homicide rate is so low generally, sure. There are few projects (some, though, for example in the 90s) and while there are homeless, they are pretty well known in the neighborhood and non-threatening. (I'll have to take your word that Upper East Siders with drug habits always pay cash.) That does not fully explain why there are literally no gun-related homicides in the area, unless you are also suggesting -- which I think is also right -- that your reasons mean that six and a half years is too small a sample size. So I'll read that into your comment.

But what is troubling me is the fact that there are two gun-related homicides just outside the Upper East Side's borders, and the fact that those borders are illusory and mostly meaningless. A cynic would think that real estate agents did a data dive on crime data in NYC and, having found that gun deaths were zero if we drew lines at 59th and 96th, drew those exact lines.

Re: Why Aren’t People Shot on the Upper East Side?

Chris — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:35:18 -0000

You lack projects and people with money always pay for their drugs. Police are also quick to remove "suspicious" people from rich neighborhoods.