From The Tribune staff reports
BIRMINGHAM — There’s a lot to love about the Magic City. There’s a world-class foodie scene, growing business hub, and a popular literary and arts scene. But a recent study for the first half of 2022 show that Birmingham also has a violent crime problem.
With 59 murders on the year, the city trails only much-larger cities New Orleans (145 so far in 2022, for a 36.8 rating) and Baltimore ( 174 homicides so far in 2022 for a 29.1 rating).
While larger cities like Philadelphia (240 murders) and Atlanta (74 murders) lead Birmingham in raw numbers of homicides, those cities’ murder rates are much lower.
Asher’s research may not be complete, as the report was compiled from 90 public-facing city dashboards. The research is limited to cities with populations of 200,000 or more.
“If a city is missing, it probably didn’t have the data publicly available in a way that makes it possible to analyze it,” Asher told NOLA.com.