Life in Nuevo Laredo

Via the Mexico Institute, I see NPR has a report about how life in Nuevo Laredo has calmed down a lot in the past couple of years, and murders have dropped from 180 in 2006 (which was the apex of the hysteria about Nuevo Laredo) to 50 in 2008. Such statistics offer a comparison that contradicts the outcry about supposedly anarchic Mexico. In Washington, D.C., which is about the same size as Nuevo Laredo, 169 people were murdered in 2006. This marked a nadir following 15 years of steady decline; in 1991, almost 500 were killed. Does that mean that Washington is a failed state?