Yeah, I'm going to try redoing the overlay with homicides and other violent crimes pretty soon.
It's tough to normalize this kind of thing well, since there's an argument to be made that if there's a shooting on your block, it'll feel dangerous no matter how many people there are living there. Also, primarily commercial districts would get unfairly dinged if it was normalization per capita... would be better with foot traffic in that case.
A shooting is bad enough that it should show up regardless of the population density. But I certainly would feel a lot less safe if a shooting took place on a street where only 10 people lived, so density is still a valid factor.
I agree foot traffic might be a better metric than population, though.
It's tough to normalize this kind of thing well, since there's an argument to be made that if there's a shooting on your block, it'll feel dangerous no matter how many people there are living there. Also, primarily commercial districts would get unfairly dinged if it was normalization per capita... would be better with foot traffic in that case.