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Old Posted Aug 26, 2019, 7:05 PM
ThePhun1 ThePhun1 is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Houston/Galveston
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
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.
Most rational people, especially on this board, can probably figure that out. It doesn't stop it from being in the back of your mind if visiting. It's worse in places like LA where such statistics are skewed, as some suburbs have their share of violent crime.

And for me, as a minority who can blend into any scenario, I'd be a lot more likely to visit a high crime area (I'm assuming Chicago's are predominately minority) for friendship or business, so it definitely is something that'd I'd be thinking about.
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