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Yes, I fully agree that many people who criticize Chicago's crime are doing so in bad faith, but by the numbers Chicago's violent crime is climbing again after

Yes, I fully agree that many people who criticize Chicago's crime are doing so in bad faith, but by the numbers Chicago's violent crime is climbing again after decades of decline. That there are bad faith people among critics of Chicago crime doesn't imply that we should ignore Chicago's very real crime problems, nor that all critics of Chicago crime are acting in bad faith. > But a movement towards criminal justice reform (which started out bipartisan, with Koch support!) elected a bunch of high-profile reformist prosecutors and shifted everyone's attention towards police oversight at exactly the least congenial time, on the eve of a bunch of exogenous shocks (the pandemic, the economy, the full flowering of a disastrous anti-gang policing strategy) that juiced violent crime Chicago's crime began surging back in 2014-2015, and I'm pretty sure the likes of Fox News were happy to talk about it back then (certainly I recall my father-in-law ranting about it around that time). The idea that they waited until there were confounding factors like the pandemic to talk about it probably has no bearing in truth, although I'm sure they boosted that topic again in 2020 and 2021 when Chicago homicides soared to ~30-year highs (as they did all over the country). > Notably, none of that attention has anything to do with improving the lot of the people who live in Lawndale or South Shore; In fairness, it's not like the conditions of people in those neighborhoods abruptly fell off in 2014 such that it would explain the surge in violent homicides. If you're interested in reversing the surge (which is probably where most of the opportunity lies, assuming that if something can drive crime to surge so dramatically/quickly, that perhaps it can be similarly made to decline dramatically/quickly), you're probably going to look at the causes of the surge rather than investing more in education in those communities in the hopes that it will yield a positive return in ~10 years.

tptacek 4y ago
Like most of the rest of the country, property crime and violent crime are on the rise in Chicago. But index crimes in Chicago are far below where they were at any point in the 1990s. The full context isn't just "crime is up", but also "up from where". And yes, there were changes that have explanatory power over the increase in gang homicides on the south and west sides; a string of them, in fact. The atomization of the large "institutional" Chicago gangs, the disinvestment and flight from the roughest neighborhoods to suburbs in the south and west, and, yes, the way CPD managed the problem, "flooding the zone" in whatever the most recent hot-spot while leaving other problematic areas to fester. A lot of this is Chicago's fault. But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city. For most families that live in Portage Park, South Shore might as well be in Indiana.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > But index crimes in Chicago are far below where they were at any point in the 1990s. The full context isn't just "crime is up", but also "up from where". That context isn't helpful for someone who is considering where to live. I don't care what crime rates were in a city 30 years ago, I care how a given city's crime rates compare to other places today (and possibly in the foreseeable future). > But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city. I take your point that, in a segregated city like Chicago, the north-side crime rates are going to be a lot lower than the city average, but I'm pretty sure rates are rising in virtually all neighborhoods.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Yes, and that's what I'm telling you: that the "rising crime rate" story tells you nothing at all about what it's like to live here, because crime is rising from historic lows, and the headline crimes are gang-related and largely confined to neighborhoods you won't live in --- something you can see pretty clearly from the different rates of increase of homicide (the quintessential gang crime) and violent crime overall (still near all-time lows). You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up". Up from where? But, to be helpful, I've provided that context for you.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      It seems like you misunderstood my argument. Based on: > You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up". ... it seems like you think I'm arguing "rates are up over the last decade and thus quality of life must be bad overall". My argument is that crime rates are high overall (tenth worst of the top 100 big cities) and on a worsening trajectory. The near-term trajectory (i.e., the last ~decade) is important because we don't live in a city from moment to moment, but we will likely be in a city for 5 or more years. I also don't purport to claim that crime rates tell you everything about a place's quality of life, in case that wasn't clear. Yes, it is unlikely that a professional will live in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, but they're also less likely to live in the worst neighborhoods in any other city they might move to. You could credibly argue that Chicago's more segregated nature means more variation in crime rates between the worst and the best neighborhoods, which I completely believe (and consequently I also consider more qualitative assessments of cities in addition to a strictly numerical approach considering the dearth of data).

tptacek 4y ago

Like most of the rest of the country, property crime and violent crime are on the rise in Chicago. But index crimes in Chicago are far below where they were at any point in the 1990s. The full context isn't just "crime is up", but also "up from where". And yes, there were changes that have explanatory power over the increase in gang homicides on the south and west sides; a string of them, in fact. The atomization of the large "institutional" Chicago gangs, the disinvestment and flight from the roughest neighborhoods to suburbs in the south and west, and, yes, the way CPD managed the problem, "flooding the zone" in whatever the most recent hot-spot while leaving other problematic areas to fester. A lot of this is Chicago's fault. But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city. For most families that live in Portage Park, South Shore might as well be in Indiana.

throwaway894345 4y ago
> But index crimes in Chicago are far below where they were at any point in the 1990s. The full context isn't just "crime is up", but also "up from where". That context isn't helpful for someone who is considering where to live. I don't care what crime rates were in a city 30 years ago, I care how a given city's crime rates compare to other places today (and possibly in the foreseeable future). > But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city. I take your point that, in a segregated city like Chicago, the north-side crime rates are going to be a lot lower than the city average, but I'm pretty sure rates are rising in virtually all neighborhoods.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Yes, and that's what I'm telling you: that the "rising crime rate" story tells you nothing at all about what it's like to live here, because crime is rising from historic lows, and the headline crimes are gang-related and largely confined to neighborhoods you won't live in --- something you can see pretty clearly from the different rates of increase of homicide (the quintessential gang crime) and violent crime overall (still near all-time lows). You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up". Up from where? But, to be helpful, I've provided that context for you.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    It seems like you misunderstood my argument. Based on: > You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up". ... it seems like you think I'm arguing "rates are up over the last decade and thus quality of life must be bad overall". My argument is that crime rates are high overall (tenth worst of the top 100 big cities) and on a worsening trajectory. The near-term trajectory (i.e., the last ~decade) is important because we don't live in a city from moment to moment, but we will likely be in a city for 5 or more years. I also don't purport to claim that crime rates tell you everything about a place's quality of life, in case that wasn't clear. Yes, it is unlikely that a professional will live in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, but they're also less likely to live in the worst neighborhoods in any other city they might move to. You could credibly argue that Chicago's more segregated nature means more variation in crime rates between the worst and the best neighborhoods, which I completely believe (and consequently I also consider more qualitative assessments of cities in addition to a strictly numerical approach considering the dearth of data).