The biggest thing with crime rates is understanding relative risk. The crime rate in another neighborhood may be 40% higher than yours, but that by itself is relatively meaningless. The reality is that in the vast majority of places in the United States you are very unlikely to be the victim of the crime. Even if you stay in a particular neighborhood for decades.
I've never been able to ascertain wether the insistence that suburbs are much safer comes from not understanding the actual risk, or something more sinister (racism - probably unintentional).
