Heck, I used to go to Greater Grand Crossing --one of the highest crime neighborhoods in Chicago-- about a decade ago at midnight dressed from work in a dress shirt, tie, black slacks to get some ribs from some of the barbecue joints down there (Uncle Johns [RIP], Barbara Ann’s [also gone], Lem’s [on the border with Chatham]) and I’ve never had any sort of issue there. Now, would I recommend a tourist to do this? No. But I don’t carry a gun, I look fairly white and nerdy, and I’ve never been hassled in the least.
Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the country with really high levels of socioeconomic disparity (not because the city has a lot of very wealthy people but because of the abject poverty). Both City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County law enforcement also have had serious problems with integrity, staffing, and abusive practices. But even with that, it’s not “out of control” except for certain areas where people should be wary.
Oh, we love Milwaukee. Personal trivia: it’s where my wife and I honeymooned. Always felt perfectly safe there, even when visiting places like Speed Queen Bar-B-Q, which feels like it’s in a lower income part of town. Anyway, we try to get out to Milwaukee at least once a year.
A lot of these sorts of crime statistics rankings and comparisons suffer from differences in what makes up “the city”.
Some city limits are very tightly bound to the traditional downtown and the now rundown early residential (read slums) and aging industrial areas immediately nearby. Other city limits extend a lot farther out into better-off areas and sometimes even very rich areas.
Even if the crime rate in each of downtown, the slum, and the leafy upper class 'burb in those two regions is the same, the city’s crime rates will be wildly disparate.
I suspect Chicago is an example of a place where the city stats incorporate a lot of well off nonviolent areas. Milwaukee is probably one of the opposite.
Actually a number of big cities actively banned or discriminated against Walmart for a long time.
Apparently to preserve Mayor Richard Daley’s détente with organized labor, Chicago government has nixed a renewed effort by Wal-Mart to build a new Supercenter in Chicago’s predominantly African-American Southside. In vetoing the bid, Chicago’s planning commissioner–who must approve stores bigger than 100,000 square feet– cited the 2004 promise by the original lead developer that Wal-Mart would not be part of the Chatham Market retail development, which is located in a Tax . Increment Finance (TIF) district. Since the company has been effectively shut out of Los Angeles, Boston, and New York City, Chicago has been described as “ground zero” in Wal-Mart’s strategy for moving into untapped urban markets. In 2004, the company’s effort to put a store in Chicago’s impoverished West Side provoked a bitter battle in Chicago City Council. Unions and community organizations including ACORN mounted a citywide effort to block the notoriously anti-union, low-wage company from operating in the city.
Chicago Nixes Second Wal-Mart: The End of Its Urban Strategy?
Chicago makes it into the top 10 for highest murders per capital for 2025 so far at 24 per 100,000. But St. Louis is kicking it with a score of 69 per 100,000.
Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Memphis, and Newark are all ahead of Chicago.
And St. Louis is the poster child for a major urban area where the core city contains only economically depressed collapsing housing and old industry. Even much of the stuff built in the 1940s is outside the city limits.
The daytime population when the downtown offices are occupied and the industrial plants are full of workers is double what it is at night when those folks go home to sleep outside the city limits.
Which results in a daytime population of potential victims (numerator) that is far larger than the number of residents (denominator).
The same thing applies to per capita water consumption in Las Vegas. The hundreds of thousands of hotel guests drinking & bathing & having dishes washed are part of the total consumption numerator, but not part of the total population denominator.
Where did you get those numbers? Are rates down significantly everywhere, then? As of the halfway point of the year, we had around 100 fewer murders than the same time last year.
Yeah, doing a quick calculation of 255 murders as of Aug 17 (reported in the Tribune) at 2.7 million population, I’m getting a projected 15 per 100,000 rate. That number aligns with being lower than last year’s 17.5 at the end of the year, so we’re in the right ballpark. Where is this 24 coming from?
Wow! St L is the big(gish) city I spend the most time in after Chicago. I have a sister and 2 nephews who live near and a niece and a nephew in the city. No, I’m not prowling the worst neighborhoods after midnight, but I have been out and about quite a bit. The downtown is sadly deserted. But I’ve never felt ANYTHING approaching fear - or even a need for caution.
For example, recall the riots following the shooting of Michael Brown happened in Ferguson, a suburb (??) of St. Louis. Commentary at the time indicated the police force seemed to exist to ticket the low income residents for various offenses for the benefit of the city employees. I assume these sorts of suburban towns are part of the urban area, but not prt of the aggregate crime statistics (same as th really rich areas). Wht used to be towns well beyond city limits have effectively become part of the urban total. I assume (LSL’s comments) that they do not get counted in the urban statistics?
St. Louis is one of the few cities in the U.S. that is its own county (Baltimore is another.) There’s no way St. Louis can play statistical games with its crime rate by including sleepy suburban areas, because the suburbs are literally in a different county.
Not really. St Louis and Baltimore are independent cities, meaning that they are not in any county. On the other hand, San Francisco, Denver and Philadelphia are combined cities and counties.
Speaking as someone who lives in suburban Cook County: you are correct, Chicago is in Cook County, but it is not all of Cook County. There are about 2.7 million people living in the City of Chicago, and a total of 5.2 million in Cook County – so, 2.5 million people living in suburban Cook County.
Incorrect. The City of Chicago is entirely within Cook County.
Confusing the matter is that there are cities named North Chicago, West Chicago, and East Chicago, none of which are contiguous with the City of Chicago, and all of which are outside of Cook County: they are in Lake County, DuPage County, and Lake County (Indiana), respectively.
I took a closer look and while there’s a bit of the city limits that extends to DuPage county, nobody actually lives there, it’s just some outlying bits of O’Hare.