SPRINGFIELD — The City of Homes means different things to different people. For some proud residents, it's a city poised for a comeback as it tries to turn the tide on crime and poverty.

Things are looking up for Springfield – multiple major economic development projects are underway or in the works – but crime remains a stubborn reality, prompting expanded law enforcement strategies to combat the problem.

Regrettably, Springfield routinely makes national crime lists and this week was named the Northeast's second most dangerous metro area, according to Law Street, a multimedia website launched in 2013 and written by and for so-called millennials – the young, tech-savvy generation born in the 1980s and '90s.

An examination of Law Street's roster doesn't indicate any apparent criminologists, sociologists or statisticians on staff, but it does reveal one young woman whose specialty is "weird lawsuits."

With that in mind, Law Street has broken down crime data for major and not-so-major American cities, with Springfield, Massachusetts, falling into the latter category – cities with high crime rates and less than 200,000 residents.

In the Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities Under 200,000 category, Springfield ranks sixth in the nation, trailing Springfield, Missouri; Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; Rockford, Illinois; and Little Rock, Arkansas, according to Law Street.

When Law Street crunches crime data by geographic region, however, Springfield occupies the No. 2 spot on the list of the Northeast's most dangerous cities, trailing only the Vineland-Bridgeton, New Jersey, metro region – roughly the square corner of an area that forms a right angle about 40 miles south of Philadelphia and 35 miles west of Atlantic City.

Coming in at No. 3 on the list of Northeast crime hotspots is the nationally known Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington corridor of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, respectively.

None of the Northeast's urban areas ranked among the Top 15 most dangerous metro regions in the country, according to Law Street, which claims to be the first media company to release metro crime rankings, both nationally and by region, using the latest available FBI data.

Law Street's Crime in America team analyzed data from each region across the country to create what it claims is a comprehensive ranking system of the safest and most dangerous urban areas in America. Data analyzed included a city's violent crime rate (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults) per 100,000 residents, and economic factors such as poverty rates and median household incomes.

Law Street, whose motto is "law and policy for our generation," was founded by non-millennial John A. Jenkins, a veteran, award-winning journalist who formerly served as president and publisher of Congressional Quarterly Press and created First Street, a Web-based political intelligence platform, according to Law Street's website.

The site bills itself as a "comprehensive hybrid of legal news and resources for students, young professionals, and everyone who's interested in law and public policy."

This is the second year Springfield has placed on Law Street's "most dangerous" cities under 200,000 list. There have been nine homicides in Springfield so far this year, one less than in Boston – a city that's more than four times bigger than Springfield. As a result, local authorities have rolled out enhanced policing initiatives to help curb the violence before school lets out for the summer.

Meanwhile, despite repeated warnings by the FBI not to use its annual Uniform Crime Report to rank U.S. cities and metro areas by alleged danger levels, media outlets such as Law Street, Business Insider and the Huffington Post, among others, continue to publish online articles that rate cities by safety and other standards.

After one such online crime survey ranked Springfield the 12th most dangerous city in America in 2011 – a list that included such major cities as Detroit and Philadelphia – some local law enforcement officials saw red.

"You can't go comparing city to city," Sgt. John Delaney, a Springfield police spokesman, said at the time. "People will look at this and say Springfield is out of control when, in fact, it's not out of control."