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The District is on pace to end the year with fewer than 100 homicides, potentially making 2012 the first year since 1953 to avoid a triple-digit murder rate. Seventy-eight homicides have been recorded so far this year, a drastic turn from the early 1990s, when D.C. approached 500 a year, or even from just 2007, when the city saw 181 people slain.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier tells the Associated Press she can tell things are changing from the fact that her home phone is ringing a lot less these days:

“It strikes me probably daily as I ride around the city, or sometimes when I’m sitting at home at night, and it’s 10 o’clock and my phone’s not ringing. Or I get up in the morning, and I go, `Oh my gosh, I’ve slept five hours,” said Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who joined the department amid violent 1991 street riots. “It strikes me quite often how different things are now.”

Not that crime is disappearing altogether. Though the homicide rate has plummeted from the highs that led many outside observers to associate the nation’s capital with violent crime, other categories are showing increases. Thefts of personal items, for instance—particularly electronics—are on the rise.

But as for the dropping murder rate, one reason the AP finds could be the D.C. transformation into a more prosperous city. The District’s median household income is the fifth-highest in the nation, while many neighborhoods have undergone wholesale economic and cosmetic changes.