The crime rates in other places is irrelevant if the city you've lived in for the last 20 years has become noticeably more dangerous.
This is not "a narrative that keeps being pushed without merit", in fact the people who dismiss such claims are often the ones who live very insulated lives.
I've been here 25 years, and most of the areas that used to be sketchy are now not.
That's just gentrification of those areas. Others became in the process.