> Is crime in urban areas more prevalent because it is a shorter distance to walk for a potential mugger to get to a rich person he can mug?
This is just a correlation, possibly meaningless, but an explanation for the decline in New York City crime over the last 30 years is that poor people can't afford to live there any more. It's just an opinion, true for most such views.
> ... but if you can back it up by numbers I'll gladly change my view.
Now that would be very difficult, even with the numbers. The number of poor people living in NYC is available, and the number of poor-on-rich crimes is available (both in sharp decline), but proving a connection between them is nigh impossible.
This is just a correlation, possibly meaningless, but an explanation for the decline in New York City crime over the last 30 years is that poor people can't afford to live there any more. It's just an opinion, true for most such views.
> ... but if you can back it up by numbers I'll gladly change my view.
Now that would be very difficult, even with the numbers. The number of poor people living in NYC is available, and the number of poor-on-rich crimes is available (both in sharp decline), but proving a connection between them is nigh impossible.