Two years ago, Charlotte, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala., were considered America’s most livable large and midsize communities, respectively.

That designation came from Partners for Livable Communities, an organization that works to improve the quality of life in cities across the country.

This year Charlotte and Birmingham made big jumps on a list of another sort. Birmingham had 104 murders in 2005, a 76 percent increase over the previous year, according to newly released figures from the FBI. And murders rose 44 percent, from 59 to 85, in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, a reporting area which includes Charlotte and the county in which it’s located.

While the growth in actual numbers of murders in small cities is relatively small, these places became less “livable” for those who thought they were a haven from such crime – and for the poor souls whose deaths produced this surge in murders.

But even more ironic than communities being named “most livable” one year and then experiencing a surge in murders the next, is this topsy-turvy news: Murder rates surged in small cities last year while increasing only slightly in big ones.

Nationally, murder rates rose 4.8 percent in 2005, the FBI said in its annual crime report. But the number of murders fell 5.4 percent in New York, the nation’s most populous city. In fact, killings declined in seven of the nation’s 10 largest cities last year.

During the last decades of the 20th century, the nation’s largest cities were widely seen as unsafe. Big-city crime – especially murders – helped spark an urban exodus to the refuge of small towns.

But while there were 2,245 murders in New York City in 1990, the Big Apple had a comparatively low 539 murders last year. Tiny Erie, Pa., went from one murder in 2004 to six in 2005. Evansville, Ind., had no murders two years ago. Last year it had eight. And Glendale, Calif., saw murders go from five in 2004 to 19 in 2005.

The falloff in murders in New York City and the rise in homicides in these smaller cities appear to be part of a national trend. While murders rose last year only 0.5 percent in cities with a million people or more, they were up over 12 percent in cities with between 50,000 and 249,999 people.

“The society, regardless of where you live, is becoming more violent,” said James Mays, director of the criminal justice program at North Carolina A&T State University. He blames video games and music videos for glamorizing violence and desensitizing young people.

Crime and violence are no longer uniquely urban problems. They’re an American problem.

It’s time for city and country dwellers to start working together to stanch the nation’s growing number of murders. We need to start talking to each other across the urban-suburban divide that for too long has been seen as the demarcation line between liberals and conservatives.

If we do not find a way to get the weapons out of the hands of criminals, and the rage out of criminals’ hearts, nowhere will be truly safe – or livable – in this country.