By Associated Press

December 6, 2002, 10:33 PM EST

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis outranked Detroit as the nation's most-dangerous city, according to a Kansas research and publishing firm's annual report.

St. Louis' marketers and criminologists dismissed the findings as another bid to satisfy America's craving for rankings.

"People are inundated with this type of thing, and they read it for what it is," said Nancy Milton of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission.

Using FBI crime figures for 2001, Lawrence, Kan.-based Morgan Quitno Press ranked Atlanta as the third most dangerous city, followed by Gary, Ind., and Baltimore. Detroit had been No. 1 for three years, according to Morgan Quitno's rankings, now in their ninth year.

Ranked safest was Amherst, N.Y., followed by Brick Township, N.J.; Newton, Mass.; and the California communities of Thousand Oaks and Sunnyvale.

The rankings are based on a city's rate for six crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2002