Of the local news sources I subscribe to, here's how they rank in doom and gloom:

Block Club Chicago



Chicago Sun Times

Crain's





Chicago Tribune

Unfortunately, the Tribune is by far the best-resourced so I end up having to read it anyway. Crain's generally has better reporting but obviously a limited breadth of coverage.

I definitely do NOT see any chance of this happening. I don’t believe there is any precedent for suburbanites to move en masse to the city just because it’s cheap. In fact, that would be a very bad thing.

Anyhow, staying to the topic of this thread, we NEED office/commercial/residential rents in the core of the city to remain high if we want to keep seeing new skyscrapers getting built.

I am thinking/assuming that LL gets that. More and more things are opening up, despite the fact that we haven’t reached herd immunity. City and municipal leaders are surely getting desperate at this point, knowing full well that we either revive this economy or we are going to really be on a path to destruction.

I used to read the Sun Times but I pretty much quit a few years ago. I find their website really annoying to navigate. I do like Ed Zotti’s column on Chicago, though

It doesn't need to happen en masse and lots of things going on right now have little precedent. On the other hand, we have a record number of 18-29 year-olds living at home, 5% more than pre-pandemic. That 5% additional people living at home represents about 2.5 million people aged 18-29. At some point, they will likely want to move out of their parent's home. Will they move to the suburbs or the city?

https://i.imgur.com/QCJmOog.png

This is something I am looking into myself. Not from the perspective of the Suburbs getting too expensive but as an owner looking to cash out of those fast rising home values to make the jump to urban living. Even further more moving from Sun Belt to urban Midwest with Chicago being the top choice. I know of no one else looking to do the same. That said I do know plenty of people that are chasing cheaper places to live but that is mainly just suburban to suburban.

I read some press about this happening in NYC last year. Rents became more affordable in the city due to the pandemic and people adjusted their behavior accordingly.

Obviously if housing is empty and getting torn down because the demand isn't there at any price, sure "there is no precedent for that"... in the 1970's and 80's! Americans who are older than 35 and younger than 80 have a pretty myopic view of the history of cities, where cities either staying the same or getting worse due to a supply shock in the suburbs is the only pattern they are familiar with. In most of the world in the last 50 years, and in the U.S. during most of its history, supply and demand still apples to realty.

People balance a variety of factors when deciding where to live. And in an otherwise desirable location if the price falls, people adjust their behavior.

I know multiple people in nyc who moved to larger apartments in Manhattan because rent prices for awhile had dropped a lot there. Some other coworkers of mine in their early to mid 20s had also moved in with their parents if they were from the area so they could save money. Now they are trying to find new leases in the city as there is some sort of return to the office on the horizon.

I think it'll happen though not en masse. People moved out of cities mainly because so much shut down. Many amenities that attracted them to city life were no longer open, plus uncertainty around when things would come back. Some left because of the unrest and some left because they figured it's a good time to have a kid. Those people would have left anyway. Since the suburbs are on average cheaper than say Manhattan or downtown Chicago...many people did make the move. I have read multiple articles though from people who did this and regretted it. They will probably cash out and move back to whichever city they came from.

I think the "afraid of a virus in a dense city" bit is overplayed. It might have made some people germophobes but I think it's made more people cautious but mostly not detracted those who already liked the idea of urban living. Even in nyc during all this, many people were carrying on. Contrary to what the media said, it was never truly dead here. Sure, there were less people out but that still equates to more than most any city. Levels on the street were like comfortable areas in downtown Chicago during during normal summer (not Michigan Ave levels).

I find that people tend to overreact in these situations for predicting the future just as they predicted 9/11 was the end of urban living too. It might not kick instantly back up, but in a few years my guess is that a lot of people will forget, as there's not another pandemic, and they will fall back to the same thoughts as before of walkability and closely amenities.

I am curious to see how downtown Chicago will be like this summer.

I’m hoping for the crowded, vibrant place that I know and remember. I’m guessing it will be close to that but still not quite. Perhaps we will be there by summer 2022

I was heavily involved in our local census count effort for 2020.
Speaking at least for this little slice of Cook County, the self-response rates among Hispanics and working class/lower-income renters were exceedingly low. Like, 50-60%.

And the Census Bureau did not inspire confidence in the level of organization and reporting for the door-to-door follow-ups that started in summer time. Even if the the door-to-door operation had been a model of Swiss efficiency and precision, the pandemic made face-to-face contact and intercepts that much more difficult.

We have hundreds of semi-formally subdivided 2-flats, 3-flats and apartments over storefronts (semi-formal = no separate address with the post office, no history of building permits, etc.) and could never get confirmation from the CB as to whether they incorporated our supplementary info for their in person follow-ups.

It'll be impossible to say for sure until place-, tract-, or block-level counts are released, but until seeing those, and being able to reality check against other data points like school enrollments, water billings, and block-by-block intel, I'm going to be skeptical of the counts in any places that have large proportions of the above populations.

[MODERATOR NOTE] Moved Jahn posts >>> HERE <<<

. . .

Not sure if anybody posted this study yet about the loss of 2-4 unit buildings in Chicago.

https://www.housingstudies.org/relea...dings-chicago/

It turns out that Chicago, Philly and Raleigh were the top three choices for Amazon's HQ2 and that Bezos just made a decision with his gut.

Ignoring the specific details, the fundamentals as judged by Amazon exist and are real. These three locations are among the best choices for growth like this in the future, regardless of what happened in the Amazon situation. I believe Raleigh is getting a large new Apple R&D facility.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/b...rad-stone.html

Not subscribed, so couldn't read the article, but based on your post, I feel like the Chicagoland area may be in an "awkward phase" where it's too big a player to be perceived as fresh, but not "sexy" enough to warrant indiscriminate investment like NYC or LA.

The smaller fish may have to catch up a bit before we can put the petal to the metal. Further erode any cost of living advantage. More traffic and other big city problems elsewhere could be necessary to accelerate the growth engine at home.

I think Chicago already has a plan for this and there's no reason it can't be on or near the same level as LA. It shpuld absolutely not wait for smaller cities to play catch up. If that happens then Chicago is already behind. It's a good thing some leaders understand that while they might be ahead of some areas, it's still behind others and there is ground to make up ASAP.

I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it until I'm blue in the face: Chicago's biggest liability is that it doesn't have the mammoth media presence that both NYC and LA have. Ever since the 60s, multi-hyphenate media conglomerates (in their various iterations, both past and present), helped push the narrative that only in bi-coastal America, could you be classy, formal, sophisticated, worldly AND achieve the highest high of the 'American Dream'. And people have always bought into that narrative, because we are now and have always been a highly consumerist society, placing preference on optics over substance, whether or not there was actually any truth to what was being sold. A big part of the fault lies in Chicago leadership through the 50s-70s, that focused wealth and influence in a small, insular closed circle of elitism that awarded cronyism and personal connections, where outsiders were not welcome....compared to the attitude of 'if you can make it here (NYC/LA), you can make it anywhere', and also where outside (European, Asian, African, South American) cultural influence were elevated and more easily accessible.
The same mass-market media conglomerates still also push the false narrative that Chicago now has Somalia-levels of violence and crime, while totally ignoring the fact that nearly all of the violence is gang & drug related in very specific blighted communities, AND that even bi-coastal metros have very similar crime rates, even pre-pandemic.
Chicago does have A LOT of catching up to do, especially in how to position itself in a post-pandemic world for success, growth and the ability to thrive organically. But it's not helped by maintaining that parochial, closed-circle mentality (hell, even Crains had an in-depth article about that a couple of years back). People, families, companies, feel they HAVE to be here for a myriad number of reasons, instead of wanting to be here. Chicago is not 'sexy', and sex sells, whether you like it or not. Sexiness also brings collateral benefits, but sexy ostentation is too much for the parochial masses here...just look at the insular, bedroom-community attitude of the whole of DuPage county, one of the most populated counties of the country. There is nothing desirable about a place like DuPage county..hell, even a big chunk of Cook County too.
Don't EVEN get me started on how decades of political corruption has forever tainted Chicago's desirability..that's a whole other major chapter in the story..

^ I tend to agree. A lot of the people who come here to NYC for example, at least younger people (new or recent college graduates) go big time on the media vision of the city. Probably back in the 90s it was more accessible as things were more affordable overall, but it's still going strong today. I mean, lower Manhattan (SoHo, West Village, TriBeCa, etc) has really no comparable anywhere in the US but still out of reach for most to live in unless they are trust fund kids or legitimately well off. Many people live in less than ideal conditions there who have good jobs just so they can live around there (i.e. 2 bedrooms carved out of a small living room, and the ability to fit almost nothing more in it than a twin sized bed).

Chicago is definitely seen as "not sexy" to a lot, where apparently high levels of violent crime permeate every corner of the city somehow, and it's about 20 degrees colder than reality. One of our neighbors here is the head or one of the heads of a small country's embassy here. When saying we were relocating back to Chicago it was definitely a regurgitation of media sound bytes like these. I think there was a small amount of surprise when I said that the majority of where the city lives doesn't see some high levels of violent crime and it's not in the negatives year round.

My wife is a marketer (with a masters in it) and the first time she spent a weekend with me in Chicago when I was splitting time between there and NYC, she immediately pointed out that Chicago's marketing is really, really bad and it needs a new marketing campaign. The reality versus what's in the media is pretty crazy actually. There is some truth to what the media says of course, but they try and paint the entire city as if there's murder happening literally everywhere on a daily basis which is just extremely far from the truth (so far this year, 76% of the city's homicides occurred where only 25% of the city's population resides for example).

Between when I'd first moved to Chicago and now, it's definitely attracted some more diversity in some areas (whether racial, business, or in terms of personalities) but still could do a lot more. There's obviously many problems, but pretty much every city has problems. I hate to be a pessimist but there's no such thing as a perfect city.

Chicago basically needs a brand new marketing campaign - preferably not run by people in their 50s (no offense to anyone) and kind of smash the decades old stereotypes that the media loves to play up.

What makes you think it was just a 50s-70s problem instead of an “entire U.S. history” problem? Wishing for Chicago to be populated by different people with a different culture and mentality ...doesn’t lead to anything. Chicago is Chicago, and the city will change organically according to whoever decides to make it their home.

For example, a huge plot point of ‘The Great Gatsby’ if you read carefully is that it’s about people from Chicago going to New York for NYC’s sophisticated and glamorous lifestyle and ruining everything. Because even back then Chicago was a negative buzzword with most of the same criticisms as today.

—“I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.”

As for marketing, it’s hard to fight back against tropes dating back to the Civil War. There’s always going to be one city in the nation to be the stand-in for anti-urban sentiment and societal ills, and Chicago got that dubious honor practically since the city was founded.

Have you ever heard of a city named 'Detroit'?

Detroit fell too hard. (On top of a shorter history of being the scapegoat than Chicago)

On the marketing front, the media isn’t comfortable using Detroit as the anti-urban scapegoat without feeling like they’re punching down. So Detroit gets its fair share of ‘Well actually, Detroit has some good things too!’ publicity.

'A Love Letter to Detroit,' on Vellum and Chrome - The New York Times
Nov 26, 2020

Chicago on the other hand is considered fair game. You can be guaranteed whatever social issue is on people’s minds-Chicago will get the full scathing exposé, on top of relentless political attacks from opposition.

Other cities get this media treatment occasionally. For Chicago, it’s been almost 160 continuous years.

Black Lives Are Shorter in Chicago. My Family's History Shows Why. - The New York Times Apr 28, 2021

Chicago and Illinois have always been seen as backwater western (and later midwestern) outposts. But I do agree that the insular attitudes, cultural conservativism and horrible (both in substance and quantity) marketing have kept the city spinning its wheels as an afterthought to most people outside the professional class (and even among them, it seems to have the same appeal as a nice office: a good place to do business but not to hang out on the weekends, metaphorically.) For its size and class, Chicago should have a way bigger place in the cultural zeitgeist than it does. Surprise is probably the most common reaction for every first time visitor I've ever talked to.

The burgeoning film industry gaining momentum and the tech scene (more exciting than consulting and finance) expanding are the two widest avenues to try and broaden the appeal of the city. Trying to attract artists of all stripes should be a high priority if the city really wants to capture the next generation and grow the city's population. Offering tax credits for building studio space, lotteries for insanely cheap artist housing, etc. are starts. "Forcing" people from Big Ten schools to move here because they get a job in marketing isn't going to be enough to plant seeds for exponential growth, IMO. They'll just end up moving back to Minnesota or on to one of the coasts as their career blossoms. Chicago needs to become cool, and white collar jobs in legacy industries aren't cool. We need lots more small town kids moving to Chicago because it seems cool. Of course crime is the dark cloud hanging over everything, but one could argue that conservatism is the main barrier to solving that issue as well (we need more affordable housing in desirable neighborhoods, less resistance to investment in blighted ones)

It's going to take more than commercials for tourism to get the city on the map, does anyone know what the city does to try to capture attention beyond the obvious?

My girlfriend was on a work call with some people from Columbus not long ago and the topic of weather came up, the Columbus people went on at length on how they could never live in Chicago because it's so cold, how does she manage to live somewhere like "Chiberia"... anyway long story short it was colder in Columbus that day than Chicago. How do people from Columbus, OH of all places get the idea that Chicago is a wintery wasteland?

Photography.

Most of the other famous Winter cities look more palatial and Christmas-y.

Chicago’s skyscraper core rising abruptly from the seeming frozen tundra looks stark and primeval.

Chicago
• Video Link
https://youtu.be/sasESBLgpCg

Moscow
• Video Link
https://youtu.be/rAxhaiNNfRk

because of the grand pecking order.

if another city has a winter that's a little bit colder and snowier than your city's winter, then you have to shit all over it and endlessly talk up its horribleness so that you can feel better about where you live.

people in atlanta shit on DC winters
people in DC shit on NYC winters
people in NYC shit on boston winters
people in boston shit on chicago winters
people in chicago shit on minneapolis winters
people in minneapolis shit on winnipeg winters
people in winnipeg are in fact just pygmy polar bears dressed in human clothing.

If it can realistically snow before Thanksgiving (and certainly on or around Halloween) you should not be shitting on anywhere for less than ideal weather. That excludes everyone but Atlanta.

I have a few friends from the NE that so regularly groan about it never being this cold in the NE and I'll just pull up the weather. If it's 32 in Chicago, it's 38 in NYC, Boston, or Philly. Warmer, but not warm.

I know this might sounds weird, but be careful for what you wish for. Chicago is an amazing city, and has a reputation of being an amazing city with a lot of people, just not to the degree NY/LA has. Chicago definitely needs to do a better job marketing, but Chicago should make sure it maintains the "identity", grit, and affordability that sets it apart from NY/LA.

I want Chicago to start regaining people and grow, but I don't want to see Chicago become another horribly overpriced "hip" city in America. This is basically what's happening to Denver and Austin, and it's not something you want to strive for. A good balanced approach to improving the city's image, maintaining those amazing neighborhoods in the city, while keeping it affordable for all people is what should be the goal here.

This is a really excellent point, and something that I didn't think to add in my initial comment. I absolutely agree about maintaining a balance..

..maybe that's the prime marketing tactic that city leaders should use: "Chicago: the balance between the coasts." :cool:

I think Chicago on the whole is so far from having too much growth that it's not even something we need to seriously think about. There are dozens of city neighborhoods that are criminally underpopulated with the existing infrastructure to support tens of thousands of more people literally overnight.

It's the opposite issue in a place like Denver or Austin. If the city added 300k people between today and 2030 we'd probably hardly notice. Those numbers in Denver or Austin would be and are crippling their existing infrastructure.

^ Chicago isn't adding people, it's churning its people

We'll see! :cheers:

Either way I don't expect it to be a meaningful change in either direction. +/- 25-30k?

For us to "screw" up in this way would be a nearly impossible stroke of luck, lol. The city could start turning the tides on population loss and its reputation, but for hundreds of thousands of people to start moving in to the point where we lose all the "grit" on the south and west sides would literally take many decades, if ever.

I don't think Chicago has to worry about becoming "too popular". It certainly won't be a problem in our lifetimes. We have a *lot* of work ahead of us before that has a remote chance of happening.

Boston winters are warmer but much snowier than Chicago. Not sure that's better...
Anyway obviously Winnipeg shits on Inuvik who shits on Yakutsk who who tries to shit but the shit freezes to their asses on the way out.

1.5 years into living in Chicago review:

Holy shit. Terrible time to move here.

The best way I can describe my experience with Chicago is that its like watching a movie you go "wtf did I just watch?" You complain about it being too sad, silly, or weird. But at the end of the day, it gave got a strong emotion from you, so its a success in that manner.

This city (and its leadership) pisses me off so often, like really bad. But then I also have those days when I'm like "holy shit, I live in this freaking awesome place, no way!" I just wish they could get crime under control, if that were to happen (even reaching 2004 levels), I could see myself living here forever.

Pretty much. NYC added a lot of people since 2010, overall and so much construction yet the majority of the grit still remains whether it's in Brooklyn, Queens, or The Bronx. It would literally take some epic China-level growth in some cities that was previously seen to get to the level of all that being erased. Fat chance of that happening in the US right now anywhere.

Pretty much. NYC added a lot of people since 2010, overall and so much construction yet the majority of the grit still remains whether it's in Brooklyn, Queens, or The Bronx. It would literally take some epic China-level growth in some cities that was previously seen to get to the level of all that being erased. Fat chance of that happening in the US right now anywhere.

I don't think this is a "Chicago thing" and more of a "terrible time to move anywhere right before a pandemic" for a good 90% of the country to be frank.


I think you mean 2014, which was the lowest level in crime totals in Chicago since 1965. In any case, I think what most people need to realize is that violent crime in much of the US has been on the rise for the last 8-10 months. Chicago has work to do, and so do so many other places right now, as you'll see below.

Here's what I predict will happen: Chicago will actually end up with fewer homicides than last year. Why? Most years, violent crime spikes in the summer for a variety of reasons but one of the reasons is because school is out. Some of the biggest victims in Chicago of shooting deaths are under 18 - and in normal years this had kind of "delayed" some of this and then spike in the summer. During the pandemic, schools are essentially closed in person. I hope I am right in this, but I think everyone will get to the end of the year and say "wait a minute...but it was trending upward." My guess is that it will just continue at some steady streak. Maybe in the fall it will decline if in person class is back on.

Current or semi current homicide rates among various US cities right now
- Juarez, Mexico: 34.22 per 100K (just for fun here...which is barely higher than Jackson, MS)

- Jackson, MS: 32.37 per 100K people
- St. Louis: 24.29 per 100K
- Baltimore: 20.22 per 100K
- Birmingham, AL: 20.06 per 100K
- Shreveport, LA: 17.1 per 100K
- Memphis: 16.9 per 100K
- Columbus, GA: 15.97 per 100K
- Detroit: 14.18 per 100K
- New Orleans: 14.1 per 100K
- Baton Rouge, LA: 14.08 per 100K (as of 3/5)
- Philadelphia: 12.5 per 100K
- Buffalo: 11.75 per 100K
- Oakland: 11.55 per 100K
- Kansas City: 11.51 per 100K
- Little Rock, AR: 11.15 per 100K
- Indianapolis: 10.84 per 100K
- Cleveland: 10.76 per 100K (* As of April 10 - probably a bit higher now)
- Akron, OH: 10.61 per 100K
- Milwaukee: 10.51 per 100K
- Richmond, VA: 10.42 per 100K
- Washington DC: 10.34 per 100K
- Atlanta: 10.26 per 100K
- Louisville: 9.88 per 100K
- Hartford, CT: 9.83 per 100K
- Bakersfield, CA: 9.11 per 100K
- Albuquerque: 8.56 per 100K
- Pittsburgh: 8.33 per 100K
- Columbus, OH: 8.24 per 100K
- Rochester, NY: 8.24 per 100K
- Chicago: 7.61 per 100K (as of 5/11)
- Cincinnati: 7.57 per 100K
- Norfolk, VA: 7.42 per 100K
- Toledo, OH: 6.91 per 100K
- Knoxville, TN: 6.4 per 100K
- Houston: 6.28 per 100K
- Minneapolis: 6.28 per 100K
- Greensboro, NC: 6.07 per 100K
- Nashville: 5.97 per 100K
- St. Petersburg, FL: 5.74 per 100K
- Dallas: 5.73 per 100K
- Fresno, CA: 5.66 per 100K
- Ft. Wayne, IN: 5.55 per 100K
- Durham, NC: 5.1 per 100K
- Lexington, KY: 4.95 per 100K
- Portland: 4.75 per 100K
- Wichita: 4.62 per 100K
- Newark, NJ: 4.61 per 100K
- Jacksonville: 4.5 per 100K
- Oklahoma City: 4.47 per 100K
- Providence, RI: 4.45 per 100K
- Charlotte: 4.06 per 100K
- Denver: 3.99 per 100K
- St. Paul, MN: 3.9 per 100K
- Stockton, CA: 3.86 per 100K
- Winston-Salem, NC: 3.65 per 100K
- Ft. Worth, TX: 3.52 per 100K
- The Bronx, NYC*: 3.24 per 100K
- Los Angeles: 3.24 per 100K
- Colorado Springs: 3.17 per 100K
- Sacramento: 3.15 per 100K
- Austin: 3.06 per 100K
- Las Vegas: 2.52 per 100K
- Anchorage: 2.43 per 100K
- Boston: 1.88 per 100K
- NYC: 1.88 per 100K
- Brooklyn, NYC*: 1.84 per 100K
- San Jose: 1.76 per 100K
- Omaha: 1.71 per 100K
- San Francisco: 1.7 per 100K
- Manhattan, NYC*: 1.66 per 100K
- Seattle: 1.48 per 100K
- Queens, NYC*: 1.29 per 100K
- Staten Island, NYC*: 1.26 per 100K
- Virginia Beach: 0.89 per 100K
- Toronto: 0.84 per 100K
- Oahu (i.e. all of Honolulu and more): 0.40 per 100K

I don't have a good reading on numbers from places like San Antonio, Phoenix, San Diego, Vancouver, etc.


Now onto various geographic chunks of the city..


Area 1: Downtown area (Near South, North, West, and the Loop), Lincoln Park, Lakeview, North Center, Lincoln Square, Uptown, Edgewater, Rogers Park, West Ridge, Edison Park, Norwood Park, Jefferson Park, Forest Glen, North Park, Albany Park, Portage Park, Irving Park, Dunning, Montclare, Belmont Cragin, Hermosa, Avondale, Logan Square, West Town, Lower West Side, O'Hare

Total population (2019) = 1,416,845 ==> Nearly the same size as San Diego, and larger than Dallas.
Total homicides thru 5/11 = 17

Homicide rate = 1.2 per 100K ==> Lower than Seattle, Boston, NYC, San Jose, etc. Also lower than every borough in NYC including Manhattan at not a ton lower population.

Area 2: Austin, Humboldt Park, West Garfield Park, East Garfield Park, South Lawndale, North Lawndale
Total population (2019) = 288,676 ==> About the same size as Orlando or Pittsburgh
Total homicides thru 5/11 = 66

Homicide rate = 22.86 per 100K ==> Very high, but still lower than St. Louis and Jackson, MS. Slightly higher than all of Baltimore.

Area 3: Englewood, West Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, Chatham, Auburn Gresham, South Shore, Roseland, West Pullman, Washington Heights, Chicago Lawn, Avalon Park, Burnside, Calumet Heights
Total Population (2019) = 378,367 ==> About the same as Cleveland, OH
Total homicides thru 5/11 = 87

Homicide rate = 22.99 per 100K ==> Very high, but still lower than St. Louis and Jackson, MS. Slightly higher than all of Baltimore.


Area 4: Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Brighton Park, New City, Gage Park, West Elsdon, Clearing, West Lawn, Ashburn, Archer Heights, Garfield Ridge, Armour Square
Total population (2019) = 354,674 ==> About the same as Honolulu city.
Total homicides thru 5/11 = 11

Homicide rate = 3.1 per 100K ==> Almost the same as Austin, and a little lower than Los Angeles.



This is how crazy skewed things are. You have 2 geographic areas of the city with a combined population of 667,043 people, where 153 homicides have occurred. That's 75% of all of the city's homicides occurring in 2 geographic areas where only 25% of the entire city lives. It had a combined rate of 22.94 per 100K which is still lower than St. Louis and Jackson, MS in rate this year and just slightly higher than Baltimore, with almost the same population as Detroit. Literally the 2 "worst" homicide areas of Chicago combined has almost the same rate as Baltimore (including its lower crime areas) and yet still lower than St. Louis and Jackson, MS. The homicide rate where the other 75% of the city lives? 2.52 per 100K. That is lower than Austin and the same as Las Vegas.

And then on the other side of the city, you have a big area of over 1.4 million people, which is larger than Dallas and nearly the same population as San Diego, with one of the lowest homicide rates of any area in the US so far this year. Lower than Boston, NYC, San Francisco, San Jose, etc. and lower than Manhattan.

Then along the I-55 corridor basically you have another geographic area about equal in population to Honolulu, with a lower homicide rate than Austin and Los Angeles so far this year.



Just imagine if just one of those 2 very high areas got a major reduction in violent crime.

Those are MSA values?

City proper values. MSA values for almost all of these would be much lower. For example, the 2016 rate for Chicago city according to the FBI was 28.07 per 100K. For the entire MSA it was 10.2 per 100K. The rate outside of the city in 2016 was 2.97 per 100K and that's including Gary, IN with a rate of over 60 per 100K. If you exclude Gary too then it was 2.32 per 100K.

In fact, in 2016 at the height of everything before the pandemic, those 2 major areas in the city accounted for 64% of the total city homicides - right now it's 75%. I'd have to compare against through 5/11/2016 and 5/11/2021 but I'd bet things are more concentrated this year vs in 2016. I had done data analysis on this about 1.5 months ago and 2016 vs. 2021 concentration was essentially the same, with 2021 being a little more concentrated by community area. In any case, if you omitted those areas then the entire metro area would have a homicide rate (counting still much of the city) of 4.75 per 100K. Just to put that into perspective in 2016, that's lower than the entire Los Angeles metro area (suburbs + city).

This is how crazy concentrated these things are.

ah ok but you didn't scale to the year. I was just confused why they seemed off by a factor of ~3. just me being dumb.

marothisu - love your number crunching. In all aspects over the years

Interesting review. But the pandemic is obviously a 800 lb gorilla in the room. Spend a couple more years in Chicago, post-pandemic, and then we can see how you feel about “normal” Chicago which is a total blast.

I do wonder how it is that a non-business owner or a non-property owner can get so pissed at the city’s leaders, though. Most of the “fucking over” and “shaking down” by the leaders occurs at the detriment of those folks, not at regular people.

Things like this make Chicago an easy target nationally.


https://www.newsbug.info/news/nation...7b007487a.html


Chicago mayor chooses only reporters of color to interview her as she marks 2 years in office

Alice Yin, Chicago Tribune

May 19, 2021 Updated 13 hrs ago




CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday defended her decision to grant interviews on her two-year anniversary in office only to journalists of color, saying it was intended as an effort to confront the issue of what she described as a mostly white and male City Hall press corps.


But the move, revealed Tuesday by her office, was greeted skeptically by some in the Chicago media and beyond, with questions about whether excluding white reporters is a discriminatory act from a mayor who has had an often contentious relationship with reporters


...

It's for one day to send a message. Don't see what the big deal is. It's not like pols don't normally carefully curate who interviews them.

No, but to blatantly say she won't grant interviews based on the color of skin..... does come across as bad, regardless of how you feel about Lori.

Even if it's just for one day, it's hard to look at it and not interpret that as racist. Bad move on Lori's part.

it's a simple protest tactic to draw attention to an issue she feels is important.

a lot of suburban republicans will get all hot and bothered by it.

and most chicagoans won't care.

Even Kinzinger probably doesn't care about it... ;) Honestly, I think it's just another stupid little story to get the far-right nuts' panties in a huge bunch. More like the central and southern Illinois republicans, not so much the suburban ones. Haha

Aaron (Glowrock)

I don't think it is only for one day. Its not just suburban republicans miffed


It is the Number one topic nationally when you google NEWs Chicago.

And there is not one positive article about it from WSJ or most other trusted news source.




https://www.google.com/search?q=chic...=1621603658632

Says one day in the 1st article shown on your link.....
"over a move to earmark a single day exclusively for Black and Latino reporters to interview the mayor "
It's a big nothing burger....let her make her point about a lack of diversity of reporters and move on.

since when have any of your "trusted news sources" ever published a single positive article about anything related to Chicago? :haha:

"Biased news media is biased, film at 11."




oooooohhhhh, but John jacKass is now upset about this (non)issue?

once that obnoxious imbecile starts bloviating, you know it's high time to care even less.

If the people of Chicago don't like it, they can vote her out. If it's generating national press it's because... that's why she did it.

I often find that F-150 driving schlubs in Indiana or people who live the suburbs and watch Fox News don't like stories coming out of Chicago. That's usually a good sign. If we were making them happy, we'd be failing.

Sometimes I wish it was my job to get myself worked up over something minor and shitpost in a wide-read newspaper.

That's an excellent way of looking at it. Thanks for the new perspective! :cheers:

It was also a shrewd diversionary tactic on her part, I must say.