Really? How did you conclude this?
The FBI’s UCR for 2016 shows that large cities (GROUP I) have a violent crime rate that is roughly double small cities (GROUPS III, IV, V, and VI) and suburbs. Cite
Furthermore, the City of Chicago (third largest city in America, with a population of 2.7M) had a whopping 765 murders in 2016. Houston (fourth largest city in America, with a population of 2.3 million) only had 301 murders. Hell, you could combine Houston with LA (the second largest city in America) and they still wouldn’t match Chicago’s total murders. Cite
As for “equal economic status” bit, I don’t know what specific metrics you’ve looked at, but when Business Insider ranked the 40 largest cities’ economies, Chicago was #36 and Houston was #34. That would appear to be pretty damn close.
What, in your mind, explains the sky-high murder rate of Chicago when compared with Houston?