Post by Camden McNearney
Sources
Blog Post 3
Cam McNearney
Dr. Jenkins
PS 101
April 14, 2022
Blog Post 3
The city of Kennesaw has always been known for its American history, historic downtown, and its safe and family friendly area. Kennesaw is a suburb that is in the neighboring county of Fulton County that many families move to for its safety and school districts. Fulton County is where the city of Atlanta is located, and it reaches many surrounding areas of Atlanta. The city of Atlanta is known for its high amount of crime. On the crime index, it is located at a “5” the crime index is on a scale from 1-100. With 100 being the safest, this means that Atlanta is only safer than 5% of the cities in the United States. It is well known that Atlanta is not the saftest city to be in, with this of a crime rate, residents are beginning to panic. Using the math provided by the crime index, that puts the rate of crime per 1,000 residents at 44.83. The police presence is in the inner city of Atlanta to try and hit it where it is occurring the most often, but this does not always prove effective. There are documented incidents in Atlanta where a group of criminals can break into more than 10 cars in one minute. This makes it almost impossible for police to stop. The Mayor of Atlanta is proposing $70 million dollar effort to try and reduce the crime rate and hire up to 300 more police officers.
Just outside of the city, Kennesaw has always been a safer city to live in and very family friendly. With it being in the neighboring county of Atlanta, people love to reside there, being close to the city but also having a nice place to raise a family. Lately, the city of Kennesaw has been falling victim of Atlanta’s crime bleeding over. Kennesaw is currently put at 37 on the United States Crime Index. Even though 37 isn’t a bad number to be at on the scale, it is higher than has been in the past. The crime rate per 1,000 residents has now climbed to 16.20. Many families and students have found this change very unsettling because it has previously been known as a family friendly suburb. People from Kennesaw are speaking out against the rising crime rates and asking for legislation to be brought forth by their representatives. Recently a Kennesaw neighborhood computer store called “Computers R US” was robbed by a masked man who smashed his way into the store with a crowbar and stole thousands of dollars’ worth of computers and cell phones. Many locals have gone to the police in worry about more occurrences like this in the future. This makes Local residents scared for their own life and those of their children. Even though the crime rate is not extraordinarily high, its quick spike has put many members of the town on alert.
Although the city of Atlanta has a crime rate that seems to extremely outweigh the crime rate in Kennesaw, there is still a correlation between the two. Atlanta’s crime rate has slowly increased over the past few years and so has Kennesaw’s. With Kennesaw only being in the neighboring county of Atlanta with cheaper living costs, People are expanding outside of the downtown area and making its way to the suburbs. As that seems great for the area to have an influx of residents, this has seemed to cause a negative effect on crime in Kennesaw. The crime has expanded its way out of just the inner city and has made its way to sub cities and we can see this occurring firsthand. There are multiple reasons why this might be occurring, but many residents believe it is due to the fact that many counties focus their police presence on the inner city of Atlanta, leaving surrounding suburbs vulnerable to crime. While it is important to address the high crime rates in the city, city officials cannot allow it to continue to affect surrounding areas the way that it has been in the last few years. People have gotten tired of being pushed aside due to Atlanta’s large population.