Jim Muth wrote:
FOTD -- January 04, 2004 (Rating 6)
Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:
Last evening I heard an item on one of the local news outlets that caused me to stop and wonder. The news item claimed that, with 500 or so homicides in 2003, Chicago had the highest murder rate in the nation, while here in Baltimore, we had only 300 or so homicides, making us only 60-percent as violent. It sounds good until one realizes that the population of Chicago is around 3,000,000, while the population of Baltimore is close to 600,000. My calculations tell me that this gives Baltimore a homicide rate 6 times that of Chicago. I wonder whether this was local Chamber of Commerce propaganda or whether the news reporters actually did not know any better.
of course this kind of mistake might also be just a mistake in the numbers, It might be a proportional number, and a reporter or someone else involved shortened it, not understanding what the numbers meant.