We Are Tukwila
Did you know that an average Tukwila resident racks up restaurant bills of over $10,700 each year at restaurants in the city, drops another $105,000 or more shopping at businesses in the city and attends around 67 sporting events at Starfire Sports Complex annually? Not only that, we have the most professional soccer players per capita than any other city in the country!
April Fools? Well, if we were applying statistical data the way a for-profit marketing firm known as Safewise does to determine the “Safest & Most Dangerous Cities” list, then the above would be true. If you have ever taken a statistics class, you know that when seeking ratio, applying a number to 20,000 (residents) instead of 150,000 (Daytime population with visitors) will yield dramatically different results. Results that are then ranked against explicit warnings from the FBI to not do so due to the many variables such as residential vs daytime populations in unique cities like Tukwila.
Why is this important? For a company that says they “Want to avoid harmful generalizations of any demographic, group or community”, their actions say quite the opposite. Tukwila like most all cities in the country has been deeply impacted by COVID-19. Publicly ranking and thus knowingly damaging the livelihood and image of what is an extremely diverse, inclusive, wonderful and caring community based on inappropriately applied data does exactly what Safewise claims to be opposed to. It harms residents, businesses and the community as a whole all while at a time when many are struggling to get by or get back on their feet due to COVID-19 impacts. Further reporting and sharing this skewed data as a means of ranking cities only serves to negatively impact our diverse community and businesses.
For the third year in a row, Safewise has yet again failed to respond to our requests to address why they continue to ignore FBI warnings. Why are we putting this statement out? Because we care. We care about our diverse community, businesses and visitors. When we see incorrectly applied data hurting that same diverse community that we serve and care about, then we are going to stand up and say something and not remain silent.
Thank you for clarifying our status. Too bad there are not “required” standards that must be adhered to. Tukwila has its issues…but they are not those reported by Safewise.
This article didn’t seem complete. I was very confused reading this and after googling and finding things from 2016, I’m guessing Safewise said Tukwila was the most dangerous city again? It’s never actually stated. It’d be helpful to include Safewise’s actual statements or a link, and then maybe how you’d calculate the data instead?
I am curious how the data is hurting the community… is Safewise an important company for how the city functions or does budgeting or something or is this just a rant reaction to a listicle they made that scares off potential new homeowners? Please help a girl understand what the full intent of this blurb is. 🙂
News agencies pick up on the Safewise rankings and then sensationalize the rankings which brings negative attention. Counting shoplifting and violent crime as the same then applying it to only the residential population of such a different kind of city grossly inflates the crime stats per capita. This hurts the community because it wrongly paints the entire community as having a high crime rate which is inaccurate when you actual break down the data, apply it to the actual daytime population and differentiate between property crime and violent crime.