When you think about the Capital Region does the word dangerous come to mind? It's where I grew up and it's a place where I like to spend time. Whether it's at the Plaza, or the great restaurants on New Scotland Ave, or even State Street in Schenectady to take in a show at Proctors and explore Jay Street. I've never felt like I was in any sort of danger. Maybe I was wrong.
This new list from Only In Your State, they used FBI statistics to come up with this top 10 list of most dangerous cities in New York. Here in our area we had two Capital Region locations make the list in Albany and Schenectady. Albany came in at number seven where Schenectady was in the four spot.
Reasons why Schenectady is dangerous:
Having one of the most drastic changes in ranks from last year, the city of Schenectady went from being the 11th most dangerous city in New York State to the 4th most dangerous. Yikes! With more than 66,000 residents, if you happen to live here in Schenectady you have a 5% chance of being a victim of property crime. While the city's population is certainly to be taken into consideration, you'll also want to make note that Schenectady's violent crime rate was recorded as being quite high.
Here are the reasons why Albany made the list:
With no change in ranking from last year's list, New York State's Capital is considered to be the seventh most dangerous city. Nearly 100,000 residents call Albany home, and while the ranking of the city may have had no change from last year, property and crime rates have continued to decrease here throughout recent years - giving us hope that Albany will fall lower on this list in the future.
While things got worse in Schenectady it appears that Albany remained the same.
So who took the top spots? Number one went to Buffalo, New York. Number two went the Buffalo's nearby neighbor of Niagara Falls. At the bottom of the list, Utica took the number nine spot while Syracuse came in 10th.
To see the whole list, click here.