Idk who you think "we" is. It's not in my definition of safety, nor probably the general populace to think of Stockton, California as "safer" than NYC, just because Stockton had 50 murders a year compared to NYC's 240... Because Stockton has a 17.77 murder rate per 100k, and NYC 3 per 100k. You bet your ass you'd be "safer", as in less likely to get shot or stabbed to death, living in NYC.
If anything, the real # in 2023 of 386 only further proves my point. That it's ridiculous to assert even that many more murders is less safe than Stockton, CA.
Safety is about "am I more or less likely to have something happen to me" and no one is thinking that means moving to the tiniest country of 2,000 people where only 10 murders happened in the entire country last year.
I contend it is significantly safer in the majority of cities in the US than New York City.
You're factually wrong.
You seem to be implying per capita is a bad measure of safety. But you're not being clear why. Can you elaborate?
Your conclusion is without any evidence and is in fact, wrong, based on the crime metrics we can easily compare.
It's quite uncanny that it's the people who most fear crime, think they're going to something like "stay the hell away from crime infested NYC" and proceed to move somewhere where they're more likely to be affected by crime.
Rational or not, proximity of crime freaks some people out much more than probability of being the victim.