Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
I agree. The fanaticism over Chicago's murder rate is really overblown. The murder rate there is very high relative to NYC and L.A., but mostly is in line with other industrial hubs still struggling to transition to the post-industrial era.
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it's also important to remember that, like most other US cities, the street violence/homicide problem in chicago is very concentrated.
yes, chicago has a shamefully high number of murders, but so far this year, ~70% of them have been concentrated in just 18 community areas (out of chicago's 77), 5 on the far west side, and 11 on the far south side.
not coincidentally, those are also the 2 of the 7 "cities" within chicago (from the recent "tale of 7 cities" thread) that are also currently losing population.
because the human mind is oriented toward easy categorization and not nuanced understanding, too often people think of chicago as this giant 200 sq. mile swath of out and out gun violence, when the problem is really more like 40 sq. miles of out and out gun violence.
that fact is still horrendous, but gun violence does not dominate life in all areas of chicago as trump/fox news would have the simple-minded rubes out in the sticks fear.