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Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

Just guessing but I sense that you are neither a child, elderly, or a woman.

The city is less safe for them than a non-elderly adult male. The homicide rate in NYC is 3 times per-capita than London. There are also other forms of violent crime and property crime. Since you've been in NYC for years then you know that many residential buildings that keep people other than residents and their guests out. We value our safety and that of our children, elderly and women who are at higher risk of crime than men.

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A quick google search didn't find the results specifically for NY city, but nationally you're 3.5x more likely to be the victim of murder or attempted murder as a man. 2x for robbery. 2x for aggravated assault. Women are generally much safer everywhere than men.

According to a 2011 Center for Disease Controls and Prevention study 1 in 5 women have been raped or experienced attempted rape [1]

Women are also harassed.

Why don't you ask some of your female friends whether they would want the security when in their apartment buildings?

[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/feb/...

According to your link only 10.5% were raped and 6.5% experienced an attempted rape.

And even that includes some murkiness over things like "too drunk to consent".

If you want real rape statistics then look at sexual assault charges, not surveys.

• "Completed forced penetration," 11.5 percent.

• "Attempted forced penetration," 6.4 percent.

• "Completed alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration" without the ability to consent, 9.3 percent.

Source CDC referenced in link provided.

1 in 9 completed forced penetration. Another 1 in 15 attempted forced penetration. Almost 1 on 5 for either.

Here's the original study. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a...

In that study 1 in 21 men reported being forced to penetrate someone, 4.8%. A further 1.4% of men reported being raped which is defined only as being penetrated, not being forced to penetrate. That's a stupid definition of rape. So it's really more like 6% of men have been raped, which puts the stats at women being about 2x more likely to be raped than men (only 11.5% of women experienced a completed penetration attempt).

Fear is an important thing and we do need to address it, but public policy should be based on factual risks, not irrational fear. Only 7% of rapists are strangers. That means those transients at the AirBnB are the less likely to rape a woman than basically anyone else they know.

We don't want strangers on our apartment buildings which have doorman or intercom systems to offer some protection. There is violent crime. This is a large city with violent crime. We want our apartment buildings to be safe without strangers. There is the alternative of using hotels in nearby Union City NJ. Please respect my desire and that of other New Yorkers for safety in our apartment buildings.

Honestly I don't care what you do with your city's zoning laws, but virtually everything you've said here is irrational and/or just factually incorrect. Okay, you don't want strangers in your apartment building. I bet you don't even know 10% of the people in your apartment building. They're almost all strangers today. There's some rational arguments to be made for limiting short term rentals, but you haven't made a single one.

I can play this game too.

Only 31% of rapes and sexual assaults against women are committed by strangers. [0] An estimated 10% of female murder victims were killed by a stranger. 29% of male murder victims were killed by strangers. [0]

But sure, move the goalposts again. I'm confident you can find a good factoid to support keeping the "wrong sorts of people" (if you know what I mean!) out.

[0] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf

I know lots of women who host AirBnB so they definitely don't share your fear. Not quite sure where you're getting that from.

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