USA FACTS: Violent Crime/Property Crime, Increases In Home Prices, Seattle Air-Conditioning and Human-Caused Wildfires (2019)

Violent crime is up, property crime is down New FBI data shows that 2020 broke a 30-year trend: violent crime was up 3.3% last year compared to 2019 after decreasing almost every year since 1991. Meanwhile, property crime decreased by 7.9%. A new USAFacts report brakes down this preliminary data for insights into crime last year. Homicides increased by 25% in 2020, from 16,424 nationwide to 20,480. Despite the increase, homicides were 3% lower than in the 1990s. While the homicide rate gets attention due to the clear severity of the crime, homicides comprise 1% of all violent crime in this FBI data.    The FBI divides this violent crime data into four categories: homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Aggravated assault is the largest category, comprising 66% of violent crimes and driving the uptick in the violent crime rate by rising 10.5%. Aggravated assaults rose for all population groups except cities with fewer than 10,000 people.   The decrease in property crime led to a lower overall 2020 crime rate compared to 2019. In fact, this was the largest percent reduction in property crime in the past five years. Larceny-theft decreased by 10.5% in 2020, driving both the property and overall crime rates down.  Dive into even more data here, including what changes drove down the property crime rate and which city had the largest increase in homicides.   USAFacts wants to hear from you What would you like to see more of in this newsletter? Please take our survey to let us know how you feel about the topics and visualizations we send each week. We'd love to hear how this newsletter can best serve you. Click here to start the survey. Average home prices are up 16% As the nation deals with a lack of housing stock and many people opt for single-family homes instead of apartments during the pandemic, home prices are climbing nationwide. This new interactive visual details how the cost of a $100,000 home has increased since 1991. Select from the nation's 100 largest metro areas and track them in quarterly intervals so you can precisely measure price fluctuations near you. The price of an average home increased 16% between April 2020 and April 2021, the largest yearly jump since at least 1992.   Some areas had 20% or higher increases in home prices during the pandemic. Prices in Boise, Idaho rose 28% in the first quarter of 2021, the largest increase among the 100 biggest metropolitan areas. Honolulu was the only metro area where prices decreased, down -0.85%.   The Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index shows the average single-family home purchased for $100,000 in January 1991 would be worth $331,190 in April 2021. Nineteen percent of the increase, or $45,000, occurred in the last year. Dive into the years of data with this visualization.    Less than half of Seattle households have air conditioning  Speaking of homes, households in Southern cities including Houston, Miami, and Atlanta are likely to have air conditioning to keep them cool during the summer. But the record temperatures that stretched from the northernmost parts of California up through British Columbia, Canada two weeks ago meant many Western households endured the heat without much relief. Ninety-one percent of American households had central air or window units in 2019. Of the nation's largest 15 metro areas, Seattle had the fewest homes with air conditioning, at 44%. Temperatures in the city reached 107 F during the late June heatwave.  However, in Portland, Oregon, where temperatures reached 115 F, 79% of households had air conditioning. See the article at USAFacts here. And to learn more about temperatures nationwide, check out the State of the Earth. One last fact  People caused 87% of wildfires in 2019. States including Washington and Georgia have implemented burn bans through September 2021. When camping or barbecuing this summer, remember the advice of government employee Smokey the Bear: "Only you can prevent forest fires."