Charlotte, city of high crime?

There have been several warnings from my new buddies here in Charlotte that crime (break-ins, robberies, etc) has been an increasing concern for the city at large.  My assumption was that since the city has seen growth by the several tens of thousands over the last few years, the crime had increased relative to it's population growth.

Methinkst I was wrong.

http://spotcrime.com/nc/charlotte

Check out this crime link Heidi sent to me (thanks H!).  It's really alarming.  In the last two months, there have been 300 incidents of crime in this city.  Let me give you some perspective...

Minneapolis and Portland had 13 (populations are 400,000 and 530,000, respectively)

Detroit had 21 (pop. 952,000).

San Fran had 48 (pop. 777,000).

Boston had 132 (pop. 590,000).

Other cities that were at around 300: Chicago, New York City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  And I assure you, Charlotte is no where near the size of those cities (our pop. according to city-data.com, is around 541,000).  Which means, the scale of crime here is... alarming.  And that, my friends, is why I got LoJack installed on my Toyota.  

Have I mentioned that about 75% of the vehicles on the road here are silver?  Why is this?  I chose the color because I knew it would get really hot for several months and wanted to reflect the sun as much as possible... maybe it's all of the midwesterners down here who have a similar tolerate/hate relationship with the heat of the sun in the south.  Better get grateful, or I'll turn into one of those shuffling old ladies with a sun hat, SPF 1000 and long sleeves year-round to avoid the beams.  And I'm simply too fabulous for that!