>Mayor Eric Adams attributed the decline in subway crime to a number of factors, including the massive surge of 1,200 additional NYPD officers in the subway system, as well as an additional 300 officers patrolling overnight trains
I'm sure there's a source table summary of FBI data at the bottom of the rabbit hole; your position would benefit from you finding that, reading it, and directly linking to it.
The "fun thing" about raw FBI crime data summaries is they have warts and issues .. many acknowledged on the tables themselves.
FWiW I'm a non US data wonk | programmer | geophysics | math consultant type - no skin in this game.
Rural counties tend to have more crime per capita than urban centers in the US, yes. A few cities show up despite the trend like St Louis and DC, but those are pretty extreme outliers.
If you want to reduce crime in an area simply make it busier.