Bright lights, big city
From NewsHub: “NZ’s most violent city spots revealed”
The approximately one square kilometre grid follows part of Queen St and includes the area around the Sky Tower and casino, as well as the eclectic entertainment strip of Karangahape Rd.
Last calendar year 550 people were the victims of assaults, sexual attacks and robberies in this area.
That’s a rate for these violent crimes more than six-and-a-half times the national average.
The other top locations included two more areas in central Auckland, and a chunk of central Wellington including Cuba St and Courtenay Place. One thing these four (and quite possibly some of the other top locations) have in common is that a lot of people who don’t live there spend time there — and some of these people commit or suffer violent crimes. Auckland Central West has a very high violent crime rate for its local population, but some of that is because the relevant population isn’t just the local residents, it’s workers by day and revellers by night. The area is presumably more dangerous than the national average, but it’s not six and a half times more dangerous.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »