According to the invaluable site, HeyJackass.com, Chicago ended 2018 with 588 homicides. That’s fewer than 2017 or 2016 but more than any other year in the last 16.
It’s difficult to place that completely in perspective. The homicide rate in Chicago is about the same as that of Mexico, Colombia, or Guaetemala, a bit lower than El Salvador or Honduras. Most of those homicides take place in just six of Chicago’s neighborhoods. Here, courtesy of Google Maps, is a picture of the heart of the Austin neighborhood on the West Side, the neighborhood in which the greatest number of those homicides took place:
The Austin neighborhood is 83% black. In 2015 its estimated population was around 98,000 people but I suspect that the 2020 census will reveal that has dropped sharply. As is evident from the picture, it is a neighborhood with many empty lots and failed businesses. If you move the map east or west along Chicago or north or south along Long, you’ll see what I mean.
There are many reasons for the large number of homicides, mostly interrelated. Gangs, bad relationship between the people and the police, lack of economic development and opportunity, collusion between the city government and the gangs, the list goes on.
Heh. And how many times have I simply left the Loop and taken Madison, Lake or W Chicago out for Bulls or Blackhawk games, or all the way out to the far western burbs after work. If I was back in Chicago, not now. No way. West of the Madhouse? NFW. A damned shame.
What struck me about that picture is that it’s not unlike the neighborhood I grew up in. I don’t find such neighborhoods alarming but I may be in a better position to identify dangerous situations from just an ordinary one than most.
Neighborhood doesn’t look bad at all. I can’t get Google maps for some reason. I imagined worse, there’s actually glass in the windows.
Also I noticed the Cook county Sheriff’s dept. is in a mobile pod.
Only those who know nothing but the green, leafy suburbs would be alarmed. But as you well know, the action starts after dark. The crowds gathered on street corners, darting into traffic often liquor bottle in hand. And after midnight, well…..
Gray – if you get it working look at the notorious W Lawndale, WGarfield Pk or Englewood neighborhoods as well. In some places average looking, some historical buildings, parks etc. Very historical. In fact, just blocks from where I went to grad schools are streets of brownstones, and in the case of Chicago where the old money used to reside. They don’t have the murder rates, but you wouldn’t stroll at night.
In any event, it didn’t used to be a war zone, it was created in large part by social policies.
The main cause is black genetics. The situation in Chicago’s black neighborhoods is the same as in every black community in the world. The so-called root causes of illiteracy, lack of economic development collusion with criminals and corrupt politicians are themselves the product of black genetics.
Blacks are unassimilable to any modern society. That they self-segregate is a good thing, but a return to the Jim Crow segregationist laws would be better.
I have an anecdote that at least I find amusing. My wife and I were driving in Chicago with the children of some dear friends in the car with us. They were living in Hubbard Woods.
We drove through a perfectly ordinary, nice, mostly Polish Chicago neighborhood and the kids immediately rolled their windows up. It was the neighborhood in which their father had grown up, largely unchanged over the years.
My comment about glass is from K.C. Mo., Troost St. 6000 block-8000 block area. All the store fronts were plywood to replace glass. Here and there you see a Black man in a lawn chair out front. Never was brave enough to go ask what he was selling.
Interesting that Chicago is only #24 on this list:
https://madison.com/news/national/the-cities-with-the-highest-murder-rates-in-the-us/collection_33b57fa7-d832-502d-ad55-aa29609b9a57.html