To live and die in NYC.
New York City is a political Rorschach test we use to project our feelings about crime and urban living. But what do fifty years of data and national comparisons say?
New York City commands outsized attention in our culture and national media, even for our largest city and financial and cultural capital. Long the setting for romantic comedies and gritty crime dramas, in recent years, amidst a hyper-politicized media environment, the city has become a lightning rod for right-wing media and politicians eager to paint it as a lawless failed city. While the city — like most of the country — suffered a rise in murders and overall crime beginning in 2020, it has largely settled back to prior and in some cases record-low levels.
Comparing crime in NYC to the rest of the country
Does the reality of crime in New York City match perception? Is it actually less safe and healthy than the rest of the country?
Looking back 50 years, it is easy to see how New York earned a reputation as a particularly dangerous place. Murders peaked at 2,245 in 1990 at the height of the crack epidemic — a rate more than 3× the national average. But it plummeted by 1998, continued to fall steadily and by the mid-2010s, NYC’s murder rate was lower than the national average. NYC recorded a record low 305 total murders in 2025, an 88% drop in the rate from its 1990 peak.
Peak 1990 (30.6) → 2025 (3.55), 88% below peak
While all crime surged in 2020 and 2021, amidst the social upheaval of Covid and the backlash against policing in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, murders began falling again in 2022. Violent crime and property crime, however, have been more resistant to a similar decline, remaining roughly at levels seen in the mid-2000s and higher than the national average.
So how safe is NYC, in 2024, compared to the rest of the country? If NYC were its own state, it would be the 13th most populous — just behind Virginia (~8.8 million) and just ahead of Washington state (~7.9 million). So I find it meaningful to compare its crime stats not just to the top 50 cities by size, but to all 50 states and Washington D.C.
NYC ranks #30 of 52 (highest first) · Murder, per 100k
NYC ranks #41 of 50 (highest first) · Murder, per 100k
Using 2024 crime data, NYC’s homicide rate of 4.5 per 100k remains below the national average, and lower than 28 states, including places like Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma. The rate of all violent crime, however, is higher than all but two states — Alaska and New Mexico. Among the top 50 most populous cities, NYC has a lower murder rate than all but 9 other cities. It ranks as the 22nd safest city accounting for all violent crime.
What drives the perception that NYC is a particularly dangerous place?
Nationally, individual perceptions of crime have not tracked with trends in crime data. Study after study has shown a disconnect driven by media reporting and political affiliation. And over the past 20 years we have carpeted neighborhoods — both urban and rural — with cameras and equipped almost every American with phones that allow them to do live reporting, all of it feeding social media and news cycles hungry for “shocking video.”
New York in the 2020s has seen a rise in crimes on the subways, some of which have been shocking and random, but feed a narrative that crime is worse than it is in the aggregate.
I think there is another, simpler explanation. Proximity. While a New Yorker’s odds of being murdered are among the lowest in urban America, murder and violent crime are much closer in a big city than they are across the land area of a state. The population density of NYC means we share each square mile with 28,000 people — and with their misfortunes. Louisiana’s per-resident murder rate is 2.4× NYC’s, but Louisiana has 1.2 murders per 100 square miles to NYC’s 125.
→ right = riskier per resident · ↑ up = murder physically closer (log scale). Hover any dot.
What does it look like when we factor in accidental deaths?
I think there is a better way to look at the risk of death in a place than the murder rates that capture our attention. When factoring in deaths from accidents (traffic and otherwise) New York City is a much safer place to live than all 50 states. If we add overdose deaths to the total, four states (including New York State) slip ahead of NYC.
But here’s the catch — this is a comparison of national CDC data for states from 2024 — after three years of falling murder and overdose deaths — to New York City’s 2021 data, the last year for which comprehensive cause of death data is available from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
NYC ranks #52 of 52 (highest first) · Hom + accidents, per 100k
Can New Yorkers expect to live a longer than average life?
Yes. Even with added air and noise pollution — and the stress of proximity to crime — New York City residents, on average, live longer than people in just about any state or big city in the country.
NYC ranks #1 of 52 (highest first) · Life expectancy, years
NYC ranks #2 of 35 (highest first) · Life expectancy, years
Are health and safety outcomes evenly distributed in NYC?
Certainly not. I would not ignore the inequalities that exist while touting the positive aggregate health and safety outcomes of the population of 8.5 million people. Many pockets of the city continue to experience intractable generational poverty and persistent crime that make their lives less safe and healthy. While the city’s overall life expectancy of 83 is remarkable, the life expectancy of many of the poorest neighborhoods across Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx still sits at roughly 75–77 — in line with the national average and a diverse swath of states.
felony complaints per 1,000 residents (2025) — hover the map
life expectancy at birth (2010–15 est.) — hover the map
Why are New Yorkers likely to live longer? Beyond facing a reduced likelihood of death by homicide or accident, it is a population that, because of its density, benefits from two factors known to increase health and longevity — movement and less isolation from other people.
Method notes
Murder counts are official (FBI UCR, NYS DCJS, NYPD year-end releases) but not identical across sources — NYPD’s 2024 figure was announced as 377 and later restated as 382; the trend chart uses the restated series and the differences never move a ranking. City comparisons use 2024 because the FBI’s final 2025 national data lands in fall 2026 (the preliminary 2025 numbers show murder down further, roughly 18% nationally, with NYC at a record-low 305). Mortality rates are crude per-100k from CDC datasets; NYC’s cause-of-death detail ends in 2021, so it is flagged wherever it sits next to 2024 states. Neighborhood life expectancy is USALEEP 2010–15 — older than the 2025 crime map beside it.