Quote:
Originally Posted by Centropolis
i think we are nearing 300 for metro st. louis...which seems almost like an order of magnitude worse than chicago..
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I wouldn't say St Louis Metro is "an order of magnitude worse than Chicago." That's 2.8 million people! So Chicago with 2.6 million has 460 more homicides. St. Louis proper had 176 homicides thru Dec. 3rd and that is terrible, 55 per 100,000.
Chicago is difficult to explain but looking at the violence and homicide rates through the lens of an entire cosmopolitan city with millions of people obviously dilutes the totals and greatly understates the devastation and despair in the areas of the city which have devolved into literal war zones. For example, on the South Side of Chicago, Hyde Park is affluent, 50% Caucasian and home to the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry. Directly to the south lies the Woodlawn neighborhood which is a hotbed of extreme poverty, drugs and gang violence with a population that is 97% African American. It is the birthplace of the Black P.Stones. This sort of insularity and segregation is a reality in Chicago. I've had this debate with my family that is from Detroit who believe Chicago is overrated and they always say other cities, namely Detroit have much higher homicide rates so therefore they must be "worse." I'm not sure how widespread the violence in Detroit is. I would imagine since they've lost half of their population there is a large criminal presence left in the city spanning much of the boundaries like Gary, IN. I went to Detroit years ago in the mid-2,000's and the entire city looked run down and even buildings downtown were abandoned and dilapidated. The high rise lobbies and entrances had bars and gates on them or windows boarding them up, etc. It was a sprawling ghetto. Chicago is very different. There is not a "North Side" equivalent or a luxury downtown housing market where hundreds of thousands of well off people live in neighborhoods with extremely low crime rates that off set the numbers. If Chicago lost half of it's working class population leaving the areas to be consumed by gangs expanding their territories the murder rate would obviously explode. This is the case with most Rust Belt cities but Chicago has a massive GDP and diverse economy being much more stable.
Anyway, this is the thinking of many Chicago residents in denial and especially the police and elected officials who believe the city is quite safe as a whole seeing most of the violence can be ascribed to isolated areas on the South and West Side's. It is a mindset that the violence is contained among the savages so there's no real need to damage the city's reputation based on a few pockets of the city. This of course is actually true from a demographic and geographical standpoint and where the problem lies. The adverse affect of this is the people living in the war zones have been largely left to their own devices. I read an article which said that 72% of homicides were solved in the 1990's compared to just 21% today. Of Chicago's 759 homicides in 2016, 576 cases have not seen an individual charged.
When you break down the "Chiraq" element to the city you will find there are no more dangerous areas in the world.
Englewood and
West Englewood have a combined population of 58,000 or so and have tallied 86 homicides in 2016. That is a rate of 146. The
East and
West Garfield Park neighborhoods have 57 homicides with a population of 38,000 for a rate of 150. North Lawndale has 32 homicides with a population of 32,000 for a rate of 100. All of these neighborhoods are at least 90% African-American with median incomes below the poverty line. Chicago neighborhoods serve as cities within a city where forced isolationism is frightening. I know many people in Englewood that have never been to the Back of the Yards neighborhood which borders it directly to the north. Back of the Yards has an high Hispanic population around 60% while Englewood to the south is 97% African American. Back of the Yards is much safer than Englewood though still dangerous. Bridgeport which is directly north of Back of the Yards has a high Caucasian population around 35% and is 35% Asian, only 2% African-American. It is a working class community with double the median income of Englewood and has nice housing developments, good schools, grocery stores and shopping centers. They are world's apart, I would wager most Bridgeport residents have never been to Englewood in their lives. You are talking 2 miles max. The majority of people in Garfield Park, Englewood and Austin have probably never been downtown. A famous rap producer from Chicago named Young Chop who has done songs for major artists made his first trip to the Loop and Millennium Park as part of an interview piece with Vice News. As he said, "growing up in Englewood, downtown may as well be a million miles away." It is sad that a large population of Chicago residents can only identify Chicago landmarks from television and movies while in reality they only live a few miles away from them. I can't speak for other cities but this phenomena is widespread in Chicago. It is well known that Chicago is the most segregated city in the country by some distance.
Even back when Gary In. (which is in the Chicago Metro) had 110 homicides and a rate of 91 per 100,000 being named "the murder capital of the world" there were still neighborhoods in Chicago that were more deadly than even the worst parts of Gary. To this day Gary has a murder rate above 60 and is technically "worse than Chicago" by that metric and I can tell you Gary is made up entirely of Chicago gangs as they expanded the drug trade east. I could give you 3 or 4 neighborhoods in Chicago that equals the population of Gary at it's worst point and there would be significantly more murders. I believe East St. Louis is the worst area in the St. Louis Metro and it is controlled directly by Chicago's gangs who they pay taxes to and where they get their orders from. Many of St. Louis' issues are merely an extension of the Chicago crime empires and are not "worse than it" but are rather a result of it.
Here is an article about the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords taking over the streets of East St. Louis.
http://www.therealstreetz.com/2015/0...st-st-louis-2/
The East St Louis gangs came about with the Chicago gangs of the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples being introduced into the city, and eventually given the East St Louis ghetto a reputation of one of the most dangerous places in the country.
With the lack of nearby opportunities and drugs thriving in the urban communities of St. Clair County, the East St Louis ghetto gained a number of negative labels, whether it was the “Murder Capitol” or the “Most Dangerous City”.