Birmingham has replaced Mobile as the second ‘most dangerous city in the United States’ according to a study released last month by data site MoneyGeek.com.

This ranking is based on comparison of crime data for 263 cities with populations of over 100,000 in the United States pulled from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) according to MoneyGeek. But Christopher Burks, visiting professor of political science at Samford University and founder of local urban policy consulting firm Urban Analysis, says MoneyGeek compared “apples to oranges” to come up with their rankings, making it invalid.

“MoneyGeek’s Safest Cities in America is not a fair ranking or representation of Birmingham,” Burks said. “MoneyGeek’s ranking is based on an invalid comparison of cities.

“To make fair comparisons, they should rank metropolitan statistical areas which include the full, urbanized region of a city with its many commuters from suburban municipalities. Instead, they have compared cities that have annexed their suburbs (like New York in 1898) or consolidated with their county (like Louisville in 2003) to cities that have been fragmented and hemmed in by suburban municipal incorporations (like Birmingham and St. Louis).

“In other words, MoneyGeek is making an apples to oranges comparison that invalidates their rankings where they should have made an apples to apples comparison by using the valid measure of metropolitan statistical areas (MSA).”