By Maria Hickey, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – A study released by the East-West Gateway Council finds that crime is not that bad in St. Louis.
Among 34 comparable metropolitan areas, the study found that St. Louis ranked below average in rates of property crimes, violent crimes, murder and other crimes.
Earlier this fall a Kansas City company released a study that ranked St. Louis as the most dangerous city.
Gateway Executive Director Les Sterman says the local study compared peer regions.
"If you're going to compare places you've got to do it by some similar geography, and that's what we do, the census-defined metropolitan regions," Sterman said. "So if you compare apples to apples we are quite well below average in term of the incident of crime in this region."
The study, called Where We Stand, if the fifth done by the Gateway Council. The last was released in 2002.
Sterman says St. Louis is no longer losing population as the past four studies showed, but he says racial disparities in employment, healthcare and housing remain an issue.