What's it like living in Chicago?

Great Debates
1

762 murders in 12 months. Apparently that’s more than NYC and LA combined and the most lethal year in Chicago in 2 decades.

So what’s it like living there, Chicago Dopers? Are you fearful to go out at night? Do you avoid certain areas? Escort your kids to school and back? Make sure you are armed at all times? Or is it the case that Chicago is perfectly safe unless you live in the wrong district?

If the latter be true that is surely a terrible indictment of the governance of Chicago. Where would you, who are closest to the scene, assign blame for the increase of violence? The mayor, the governor or Washington? Does the blame lie solely with those committing the violence?

Have any of you considered moving elsewhere because of the rise in shootings? Or have you yourself seen no evidence of any increase and regard the press reports as distorted?

Mods: placed in GD because of the questions on causes but please move elsewhere if you feel it fit.

2

:dubious: From your own cite:

As that following graph in your cite shows, Houston also has a per capita murder rate that’s almost the same as Chicago’s, while those of New Orleans, Detroit and St. Louis are all more than twice as high. Moreover, Chicago’s per capita murder rate has been roughly steady since the mid-2000s, following a significant decline since a mid-1990s peak.
Chalk this thread up to another instance of jumping to conclusions based on a few alarming-looking absolute numbers rather than looking at percentages and context. Here are some more context statistics from city-safe.com:

Interestingly, Americans typically perceive Chicago as a very dangerous place, irrespective of what relative crime rates are actually like. This is probably a historic holdover from its reputation during the Capone years and earlier.

3

I’ve lived in Chicago proper for most of the past 28 years, and in the Chicago area since 1971 with breaks for college and grad school out of state. Honestly it doesn’t feel any different now than it ever has. I believe most of the violence is on the south and west sides; I live on the northwest side and work in the Loop.

Haven’t modified my activities at all, nor has anyone I know done so to the best of my knowledge. I wouldn’t come late at night alone on the train, but then I’m a short woman, so that’s always been the norm. I don’t know anyone who carries a weapon, ever. (Well, except one woman at my office, but she’s a…special case for a variety of reasons.)

4

I still feel it was a lot worse in the 90s.

5

I am curious as to why Chicago had more murders than New York and LA COMBINED. Sorry, but that is a hell of a statistic. Chicago has a third as many people as NYC.

Toronto, almost exactly the same size as Chicago, had 69 murders.

6

London is three times the size; we had 118 murders in 2015.

7

I work in downtown Chicago; I live in the near west suburbs. Many of my friends and colleagues live in the city proper.

While I think all of us in the area are fairly boggled at the level of ongoing violence in the city, I don’t know anyone who’s taking additional / new precautions over the past couple of years (since the rise in the homicide rate wasn’t just a 2016 thing). I don’t know anyone who’s gone to get a gun permit based on it, nor do I know anyone who’s changed their habits.

However, many of the shootings take place in neighborhoods that have traditionally had problems with violence. And, I’ll admit: I don’t live nor work in those neighborhoods, nor do I know anyone who does. Thus, my reaction to it all may well be considerably different from that of people who do live in those neighborhoods.

8

Interestingly, municipality-wise, Chicago itself doesn’t even make the list of 30 US cities of population 25000+ with the highest murder rates for 2016. The city that holds the #30 spot on that list is Chicago Heights, IL, with East Chicago, IN, at #26 and Harvey, IL at #20.

Harrisburg PA, New Orleans, and St Louis all have higher murder rates than those Chicago-area municipalities.

9

Here’s a map of homicides. As you can see it depends on your neighborhood:

My understanding is that the majority of the victims are gang members.

10

60 Minutes did a bit on this last night. Apparently, police are backing off to the point where police stops of suspects is down 80%. They basically only respond to 911 calls. Apparently they feel they get no support if they act proactively and have to act roughly with (or perhaps even shoot at) suspects.

11

Across the country there was a major drop in homicide rates since the '90s. New York’s drop was simply amazing. It started dropping before Chicago’s rate did, dropped lower, and has stayed near historic lows. Something has gone right there beyond the national trends.

Chicago has stayed at about 400 to 500 per year since 2003 - until this year’s jump. Hard to know if this year’s jump is a statistical fluke or reflective of something more structural.

Eva Luna’s post is most spot on. Most who post here who live in Chicago are not living in the neighborhoods that are seeing the current jump and do not experience it really at all. It is very neighborhood specific. 324 homicides in the Austin neighborhood; 7 in Lincoln Park. 219 in West Englewood; 1 in Edison Park.

Let’s be real. Few posting here live in Austin or West Englewood. (I do ride my bike through Austin though.)

Overall the murder rate is about 15 to 20/100K. Spitting distance of the rate of death by motor vehicle accidents. But much higher or lower depending on where you live.

So what is different about Chicago than New York? Several things and honestly I don’t know the impact of each. Chicago is a much more segregated city for one. The gangs are allegedly more splintered. Illegal guns are easily imported from neighboring states. If I had to pick one the homicide rate being so co-segregated by race with poverty would be the thing that stands out the most.

New York City is far from perfect in this regard but it is nowhere near as segregated.

12

With lots of others being caught in the cross-fire.

13

Ditto here.

14

I lived in Chicago from 1989-1990, back when the murder rate was even higher. It was awesome. Chicago is a wonderful place to live, actually, with the nice areas cheaper than NYC, making it a more livable city. As someone above pointed out, the violence is really only in certain neighborhoods. I imagine it’s pretty bad living in those neighborhoods.

OP, did you mean to ask what it was like living in one of the very bad areas of Chicago? Probably the same as living in one of the really bad areas of NYC, New Orleans, LA, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, etc.

15

That’s because it was. According to this, Crime in Chicago - Wikipedia, murders topped out in 1994.

OP, Chicago is 24 out of 30 according to this: America's 10 Most Dangerous Cities - WorldAtlas

16

I was reminded of this opinion piece from the Chicago Tribune last year, “Just another day in ‘war-torn’ Chicago.”

The author basically describes a typical day taking his 96-year-old mother to the grocery store in the south side of Chicago.

17

That’s a really odd cite; if you click through to Chicago Heights, #30 on the murder list, it shows 0 murders (though plenty of other crime).

18

I grew up on the far south side, Beverly. It was and still is, a very desirable neighborhood. The gang related violence is primarily on the west side and near south side. Currently I live about 50 miles west of the city.

I hate Rahm Emanuel with the heat of 1,000 suns and believe he should be impeached for what he has done to the Chicago Public Schools. Chicago is still a great city and if I were younger and worked downtown, I would live in the city.

19

I was born in Chicago in 1968, and have lived here most of my life, with a short stint in Waukegan in the oughts.

I live in a nice neighborhood on the North side, with little crime. I live near neighborhoods where there are often shootings. I don’t tend to spend a lot of time in those neighborhoods, not because of the shootings, but because there simply isn’t much to draw me to those areas. On occasion I’ll go to a restaurant in those neighborhoods, and haven’t yet come across any incidences of violence.

I like living in Chicago and have no intention of leaving.

20

Like most Chicagoans on this board, I live on the North side. Where we’ve had a few homicides as well, but they’re the kind of thing you hear on the news and think, “Oh, shit…” and then go on with your day. Most of the people killed up here are not from up here - they’re outsiders who came up here hunting up trouble. Or at least it feels that way.

Unlike most Chicagoans on this board, I work on the South and West sides, in the “really bad” neighborhoods. Roseland, Englewood, Auburn Gresham, West Garfield…all of 'em. I’m a home health nurse. These are my patients. I’m always aware of the danger, and I do take steps to minimize it. I don’t work down there before 9 am or past 3 pm. When the kids are out of school, I’m on the Dan Ryan headed north.

I’ve had the worst of the gangbangers and their family members as patients. They’re patients to me. The only oddity is that when you work with someone really high up on the food chain, it’s almost like you’re being presented at Court. (Royal, not legal.) Guys lower on the food chain will meet me at my car and walk me into the building. I actually find this comforting. I can’t swear to it, but I think I helped to nip the Krokodil drug thing in the bud - I told my patient very seriously that I wasn’t telling him how to do his business, that I didn’t really want to know his business, but this shit was really, really bad stuff, and if he could kinda spread the word that it was really, really bad stuff, that it wasn’t DEA Drug War b.s., that would be a kindness to humanity. Never heard another report about Krokodil in the area after he nodded and said not a word in response to me. I think he quietly took care of it. That’s how high in the food chain he was.

I know these people, is what I’m saying. We’re not buddies, we’re not friends, but not a week goes by that at least one of my patients isn’t mourning a brother or a cousin or a friend who’s been shot. And what’s it like? It’s sad. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening. They don’t know how to stop it, either.

I place the blame on myriad factors. The primary is the lack of sufficient decent jobs in the area, mixed with an astronomically high incarceration rate for young men. Young unemployable men with police records who have no futures and nothing to do with their time other than sell guns and drugs. You join a gang, you’re a target to the other gangs. You don’t join a gang, you’re a target to every gang. There’s no way to win.

I also place the blame on law enforcement of the past few decades. When I was in high school, there were a couple of major and a double handful of minor gangs in Chicago. Now there are over 600. Six hundred. Some of these “gangs” have fewer than a dozen members and a block of “turf.” Law enforcement decided to crack down on the gang leaders, jail them and kill them, and it turned out that gangs are hydras. Remove the leader, the group splinters, and now you have two more gangs fighting each other. Lather, rinse, repeat. So now you have 100,000 gang members in 600 gangs, with no strong leadership, constantly fighting each other for the best drug selling spots and within each gang for leadership. It’s insanity.

Now, to be sure, *more *people were shot and more people were killed in the heyday of the strong gangs in the 90s, so we cannot think that strong gangs are safer gangs. But I think if you look closer, you’ll find that the targets in the 90s were just that - targets. They were gang members shooting other gang members, intentionally. Which isn’t great (especially given the trap of joining or not joining a gang) but it’s easier to dismiss as people causing their own problems. Now there are no rules. A child was dragged into an alley and killed to punish his gang member father. People open fire at basketball courts, killing bystanders. Children are shot through the walls of their house by people driving by.

So, that’s why I’m outta there by 3:00. I’m not afraid of being a target, but bullets don’t take directions well, especially when fired under the influence of adrenaline.

There’s also another factor, and that’s the toxic masculinity in the culture, combined with almost everybody having a gun. It’s a culture that is still rabidly homophobic, and considers any type of mercy or compassion to be “gay” and every misunderstanding or mild incident of disrespect an insult of the highest order. 50 years ago, they might have settled things with a fistfight. Today, they settle them with guns.

But at the same time, the south side is full of good, wonderful, brilliant, funny, generous, amazing people. I’ve never seen such generosity in my middle class life. People who have almost nothing, give what little they have to each other. Which is a beautiful thing, and also a problem. You win $1000 bucks at the casino, and you’ll have nothing left three days later, because you buy food and diapers for your niece and pay your cousin’s electric bill, and help your buddy with his car payment. And you do this because you know the next time your niece or cousin or buddy gets some money, they’ll help you out in return. So no one can get ahead, because they’re helping everyone else out.

So what’s it like? It’s the best of times; it’s the worst of times. It’s culture and great food and lovely people and live music and wonderful parks and you have to work really hard to be bored…and it’s a war zone. And it’s like two different cities - both with some really great people in it - that share a name.