ST. LOUIS — In announcing a new East Coast headquarters in Charlotte this summer, Michael Neidorff, CEO of St. Louis-based Centene Corp., made several comparisons that portrayed Charlotte as a community on the rise and St. Louis as one facing serious challenges.
Charlotte, he said, is growing, and workers with technology skills can be easily recruited to the region. "On a corporate and personal basis, we recognize that Charlotte has their act together," Neidorff said in July.
His criticism of St. Louis, while varied, placed the biggest emphasis on a single topic: crime and public safety. Neidorff cited publicity around murders in St. Louis — especially those of children — as a reason why it's difficult to recruit top talent to the region, which also isn't growing. Earlier this month, the Clayton mayor said the health care giant (NYSE: CNC) again cited regional crime concerns for halting a second phase of its massive headquarters development, risking the loss of significant government subsidies for the project.
But if Centene's primary concern over whether it can grow in St. Louis is crime, a comparison of regional crime statistics between Charlotte and St. Louis provides a complicated picture. The company, which is set to get $450 million in city, county and state incentives in North Carolina for the East Coast headquarters, didn't respond to a request for comment.
Rick Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, analyzed crime data for the Charlotte and St. Louis metropolitan areas and found that violent crime rates in the two areas aren't dissimilar, even though the St. Louis region recorded more murders.
"They're right, the risk (of being murdered) is higher in St. Louis, but in neither case is the risk appreciable," Rosenfeld said.
The analysis compared regional crime statistics reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program for 2018. Charlotte did not report the data for 2019.
In 2018, the Charlotte region, with a population of 2.6 million, reported 427 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Those include murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.
The St. Louis metro area, with 2.8 million residents, reported slightly more, at 455.
The numbers mean that a metro Charlotte resident has a 1-in-234 chance of becoming a victim of violent crime, while the figure is 1-in-220 in the St. Louis metro area, Rosenfeld said. "The probability of being threatened, harmed or killed by violence is quite small, regardless of whether you happen to live in the Charlotte or St. Louis metro area," he said, adding that aggregate figures are "small solace to someone who has been killed or their family or friends."
Among large metros examined, Baltimore's rate was highest, at 720 violent crimes per 100,000. Portland's was lowest, at 114.
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