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McDonald's CEO sounds the alarm over crime in Chicago
- sure_about_that 4y agoAs someone who lives in Chicago, it’s odd how obsessed other people are with my city and it’s crime, politics, etc. Don’t see the same interest in other cities.
- TheChaplain 4y agoFirst time I see it. Mostly I read about Detroit that seem to have huge problems of smash and grabs on cars as well as stolen catalytic converters.
- sure_about_that 4y agoSame things happening in Republican-led cities, but doesn’t get the national headlines for some reason. Miami, FL: https://www.local10.com/news/florida/2022/09/14/watch-alleged-catalytic-converter-thieves-take-florida-deputies-on-wild-chase/ https://www.local10.com/news/florida/2022/09/14/watch-allege... Oklahoma City, OK: https://okcfox.com/amp/news/local/oklahoma-city-police-seek-penn-square-mall-smash-and-grab-suspect-maroon-truck-crime-stoppers https://okcfox.com/amp/news/local/oklahoma-city-police-seek-...
- spicyusername 4y agoAmerica only has a few real metropolises. Anecdotally I've seen the same obsession with the others as well (New York, LA, etc). It's not entirely unexpected that our largest cities get the most attention.
- sure_about_that 4y agoDallas and Houston are almost as big (with worse crime rates) and barely make the news. They are also in a Republican state, so Fox News, talk radio, and the like don’t focus on their issues. It’s political. They don’t actually care about crime in these places. See also: All the talk about Detroit, a very small city.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoYou're looking at the here and now, but to understand the prominence of cities in the American zeitgeist, you need to understand the history of those cities too. A hundred years ago Dallas was a small city of less than 200k people, not particularly relevant to anybody outside Texas, but Chicago had a population of 2.7 million and was the economic powerhouse of the entire midwest. And Detroit seems like a generally irrelevant city by the numbers today, but 100 years ago Detroit was America's 4th largest city and in the subsequent decades rapidly became an industrial powerhouse with the rise of the automotive/war industry. Detroit seemed like the future of America, it became very prominent in the American zeitgeist at this time. When people express dismay with Detroit, they're not merely responding to the present conditions of Detroit but also Detroit's failure to make good on the expectations people used to have for the future of Detroit. If it makes you feel any better, I think 100 years from now people will probably talk about Dallas like they talk about Detroit today.
- karlshea 4y agoEveryone in outstate Minnesota has the same obsession with Minneapolis/St Paul.
- google234123 4y ago> McDonald’s on Wednesday announced plans to open a new innovation facility at its Chicago headquarters, relocating employees from its current innovation center in Romeoville, Illinois. This seems like the wrong action to take if they actually want to put any pressure on the government to address this.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThey’re kind of stuck where they are. The old McDonalds corporate HQ campus has already been sold off and redeveloped. Oak Brook wasted no time, and are probably really glad they did - it’s a mixed use thing with plenty of housing.
- res0nat0r 4y agoI take with a grain of salt mega-corps complaining about "crime", when usually it's just used to deflect from other plans that they already have in place that just aren't as appealing to the public. https://qz.com/2077384/why-is-walgreens-really-closing-its-stores-in-san-francisco/ https://qz.com/2077384/why-is-walgreens-really-closing-its-s...
- twelfthnight 4y agoHonestly, I have a really hard time reading this situation. Admittedly crime has risen in Chicago (I live here) and folks talk about it a lot. Partly because it's warranted, partly because it's amplified in order to get Pritzker out of the governorship. In any case, McDonalds moved their headquarters downtown to appeal to folks who wanted to work in the hipper downtown than the Chicago suburbs. But then the pandemic hit and now they are paying for an expensive office that isn't as appealing as it was before. So are these CEOs looking for excuses to leave the city (and blame Democrats who will tax them more)? Are there actually concerns inside the company that folks don't want to work downtown Chicago (I could honestly see that as possible as well). shrug
- claytongulick 4y ago
- maybelsyrup 4y agoGlass houses etc etc https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/business/mcdonalds-wage-theft-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/business/mcdonalds-wage-theft... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-12/claim-lodged-against-mcdonalds-over-alleged-denied-paid-breaks/101326134 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-12/claim-lodged-against-... https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-wage-theft-lawsuit-settlement-2016-10?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-wage-theft-lawsuit...
- Noumenon72 4y agoI think almost everyone would trade away their 10-minute breaks for an assurance of never getting robbed or shot, so it's more like a house with a few glass windows. Also, the law and punishment around wage theft seems to be pretty stable, as seen in all these convictions. If wage theft started increasing like violent crime, we might start paying more attention to it.
- drekk 4y agoI would also trade my left arm to stop school shootings, but funny enough life doesn't work that way McDonalds and other companies do wage theft because it's profitable. Having to pay out a couple of times whenever someone raises a fuss is already paid for by all the times someone didn't notice. Unlike violent crime it affects nearly all of us directly and represents a larger monetary value than all burgarlies and larcenies put together. "The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy."" - Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah
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- drekipus 4y ago
- latchkey 4y agoThey've been feeding people crap food for decades. It is easy to google research into how diet is interlinked with things like crime [1]. Shutting down these places is likely a net positive. [1] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/diet-crime-and-delinquency https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/diet-cri...
- kortilla 4y agoThere are McDonald's in rich places too.
- serf 4y agoi'm not one to defend mega-corporations, but pretending a company that originated from belting out hamburgers as fast as possible is supposed to be doing social-positive humanitarian work is ridiculous. also, just to entertain this notion, fast food is interlinked with poverty and substandard living conditions, too -- most folks tend to think that rather than being the cause of these conditions that fast food is simply the available option. It's a special kind of privileged to be able to yell "Shut these places down that serve unhealthy food." without first securing healthy food for those in need. Let's first think about what happens when the only food source available to certain groups gets regulated out of existence. I'm not saying that they don't hold a level of responsibility -- what I AM saying is that no food is worse than bad food.
- blowski 4y agoThese two positions seem a bit extreme. 1. Shut down McDonalds! 2. But then poor people will starve to death! I imagine there’s a solution somewhere in the middle. Perhaps McDonalds is taxed higher, banned from advertising. Subsidies are pushed for healthier lifestyles in those neighbourhoods.
- drekk 4y agoOr, and I'm just entirely spitballing here, we cut out all the middlemen and provide food at dispensaries for people at no cost? The US produces enough food to feed 10 billion people. Most of it is animal feed or gets landfilled. 1 in 5 children are food insecure on the wealthiest nation in the history of this planet. It's an absolute disgrace and the children getting permanent learning disabilities due to malnutrition don't have decades for the free market to humanely allocate resources (something it's entirely incapable of doing unforced). McDonalds has employees qualifying for food stamps. On top of that we give them tax incentives for "creating jobs" as they spend all their R&D trying to maximize their food's "craveability" (addictiveness). More to the point we've made it illegal for food companies to not optimize for that because they've have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. It's not a money problem. Heck, we could solve global poverty with <5% of "first world" GDP. It's an incentives problem. There's no incentive to feed Americans healthy food. There's not even an incentive to feed Americans. Which is why you get headlines like: https://apnews.com/article/portland-storms-oregon-4eebd2cd2f1b9f798667994bc871a647 https://apnews.com/article/portland-storms-oregon-4eebd2cd2f...
- tptacek 4y agoCrime in most of Chicagoland is somewhat higher than in recent previous years, and lower than it was when I moved back here in 2005. That's certainly the case for McDonalds Corporate, which has its headquarters in the heavily-patrolled, maximally gentrified West Loop. Nobody who works in McDonalds HQ is worried about crime near their building. Where crime in Chicago is a real problem is in the south and west sides of the city, where white people don't live. Those areas are playing out a slow motion mechanistic tragedy set in motion a century ago when they were redlined, sliced in half by the Dan Ryan, evacuated by white people, and disinvested. A map of Chicago violent crime is, roughly, a map of redlining. The city can make no excuses for this. It's an ongoing human tragedy running at a scale that is hard to get your head around. At the same time, it's hard to take the CEO of McDonalds seriously, because the crime problem in Chicago is mostly segregated away from him and people like him (and me).
- seibelj 4y agoI thought he was mostly saying the stores themselves are unsafe for workers and customers, and the perception of Chicago being dangerous makes people not want to work at corporate. Plus the never-ending tax increases and general denigration of private business from the Mayor (although common in many major cities) which pushed out many other corporate headquarters for Miami and Austin. > “We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants … we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants,” he said. “So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what’s happening in society at large.” > “It’s more difficult today for me to convince a promising McDonald’s executive to relocate to Chicago from one of our other offices than it was just a few years ago,” he said. “It’s more difficult for me to recruit a new employee to McDonald’s, to join us in Chicago than it was in the past.” > And when it comes to returning to the office, he said, “one of the things that I hear from our employees [is] … ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to come downtown.’” > Kempczinski pointed to several high-profile corporate departures from the city, including Boeing, Caterpilllar and Citadel, which all recently announced plans to relocate their headquarters. He said that mayors and governors from other cities and states have reached out to McDonald’s to consider doing the same.
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- jacobriis 4y agoIt is highly problematic for a corporation that is ostensibly commited to social justice to weaponize disinformation like this. Almost all grassroots wealth redistribution actions end without violence. Physical harm is usually caused by those "fighting back" against giving up even a modicum of the fruits of their unearned privilege.
- notinfuriated 4y agoIs this satire?
- none_to_remain 4y agoYes
- snickerbockers 4y agoMcDonald's is ostensibly committed to social justice?
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- shishy 4y agotheir food is an injustice to society anyway, I don't think they're "weaponizing disinformation" this seems like hyperbole (but I'm not sure if this is satire either)
- alphabet9000 4y agomcdonald's hamburgers are the worst. they are worse than burger king. a big mac has 26 grams of fat, a quarter pounder has 28 grams of fat.
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- semiquaver 4y agoWow, a no context Wesley Willis quote is the last thing I expected to read in this comments section. Rock over London, Rock on Chicago!
- addajones 4y agoWheaties, breakfast of champions!
- almost_usual 4y agoRock on Chicago
- thelittleone 4y agoFat isn't necessarily bad. It depends on the type of fat and the individuals caloric macro nutrient profile. The notion that fat is outright bad was conjured up decades ago and has since been shown to be false. Some fats are healthy. However, I would not be surprised if the fats found in McDonald's are predominantly unhealthy.
- Dalewyn 4y agoTo add to this, everytime I eat at Burger King I'm amazed at how god damn /salty/ it is compared to McDonald's. The saltiness isn't immediately obvious, but any day I have a a BK burger for lunch I end up drinking several huge cups of water throughout the day because of all the salt. Over consumption of salt is far more harmful to one's health than over consumption of fat in general, as far as I'm concerned.
- shishy 4y agoIf the bullets don't kill you, McDonald's will ;) In all seriousness I think unlike other local (ex) CEOs, he's committed to staying and seems to be trying to talk about it productively. The others seemed to hide behind crime rates to cover up their hiring issues and ran away. Still, part of the problem is that they're going to have trouble recruiting because of the perception of crime / safety based on how its reported and he never seems to acknowledge it in any statistically meaningful way; I don't think the areas the HQ is in for example are as bad as some of the other neighborhoods further south or west. Bit of a shame because it sort of reinforces the bad perception others have, when he could be combating it and trying to address the issues simultaneously.
- carabiner 4y ago
- dmix 4y agoArtists don’t live in ghettos, they live in the edges of gentrification, where it will be nice in a couple years. Still enough crime to keep rents 20-30% cheaper but still enough local consumers and businesses to generate work and growth. No one opens coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery stores in most gang ridden neighbourhoods that artists look for.
- cbHXBY1D 4y agoMakes me want to move to Chicago tbh. I'm tired of not being able to afford a home and paying out my ass for rent in Bay Area/Seattle/NYC.
- y0ssar1an 4y agoFun fact: The number of gang members in Chicago (>117,000)[1] exceeds our peak troop deployment to Afghanistan (110,000)[2] 1. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-cop-breaks-down-number-of-gangs-in-city-how-theyre-structured/2309434/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-cop-break... 2. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/afghanistan-war https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/afghanistan-war
- MichaelCollins 4y agoGang members is not really gang soldiers though, right? With a number that big, I think they must be counting a lot of people who wear a gang's merch/colors/etc, but aren't active combatants. At least I hope so.
- _8j50 4y agoIf their organization was legal like NRA which is millions of people that would be something else. A gang is a criminal org so while many carry weapons their main goal is to expand the empire and make money.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIsn't there an element of something similar to sports-team affiliation? Where people superficially align themselves to a gang their friends or family or neighborhood is associated with, but don't actually commit crimes in service to that gang? Like a guy who wears a Cubs hat, but he doesn't play the game.
- _8j50 4y agoMaybe but gang initations are usually brutal and hardly ever legal.
- pydry 4y agoOn the low end it's more about protection. In that sense gang violence begets gang membership. They inevitably crop up everywhere where police represent more of a threat than protection. Kind of like the free market springing up to meet demand, in a kind of sick and twisted way.
- xnx 4y agoI believe he is sincere, but he also definitely wants to eliminate headlines like "9 shot, 2 fatally, in 'outrageous act of violence' outside Chicago McDonald's" (https://abcnews.go.com/US/shot-fatally-outrageous-act-violence-chicago-mcdonalds/story?id=84856528 https://abcnews.go.com/US/shot-fatally-outrageous-act-violen...) and "6-year-old boy sexually abused in River North McDonald's bathroom, police say" (https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-crime-boy-sexually-abused-in-bathroom-mcdonalds/12150803/ https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-crime-boy-sexually-abused-in...).
- arkis22 4y agoclearly only a shallow capitalist would want to eliminate those acts from happening.
- black_13 4y ago
- rickdeckard 4y ago
- pjmlp 4y agoSo it is already time to engange Eliot Ness' successor?
- samoit 4y agoThat's what you get when you under finance public schools,public healthcare, etc. They wanted people to be just clever enough to consume but without complaining about real problems. So now people are "a lot" less educated, so they live with a low/bad/wrong idea about the world, economics and society. For years rich people thought that every man for himself was the better aproach but don't having into account that they also live into society. Thatś what you get, a place where you need private police, a place where you are scare to go anywhere.
- perardi 4y agoI feel like it’s relevant to link to some stats here. https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/CompStat-Public-2021-Year-End.pdf https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/CompStat-P... And, for more easily visually parseable statistics on homicides, let’s link to… https://heyjackass.com https://heyjackass.com …though the commentary there is, let’s just say, less than neutral. I grew up and went to school in downstate Illinois. Having lived in Chicago for 7 years, and having lived in large cities now for 10 years, I do feel there’s been a shift in perception both in the city and outside. I definitely get nastier vibes from family, and the city does “feel” a bit less safe living here now. (Bit spooky seeing someone drive by at 2am and saw a catalytic convertor right off a car on the street…) I wish I really knew what this vibe shift (ugh, sorry) meant for the future of the city. I love it here—wouldn’t live anywhere else in the USA. The architecture, the transit, the arts and entertainment, the beautiful lake front…there’s just so much going for it. But perception becomes reality when it comes to things like this. If Chicago becomes truly notorious for crime, there is less investment, and thus less development, and everything comes tumbling down. (And seriously, I would not move. I live in Uptown, which is, oh, not the safest of neighborhoods. I’ve seen some gnarly crimes and scenes here, but the benefits just so outweigh the potential costs in crime. I am quite willing to gamble a bit of safety so as to not succumb to suburban ennui.)
- mdrzn 4y ago>> https://heyjackass.com https://heyjackass.com HOLY SHIT those stats! Great website to put it in perspective.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago> the benefits just so outweigh the potential costs The reader is left to assume these are emotional benefits, is that accurate?
- therealchiggs 4y agoCitadel are moving their HQ from Chicago to Miami, explicitly stating violent crime as one of the reasons[1]. One thing that’s affecting peoples perception of safety is an increase in violent crime in previously safe neighbourhoods such as River North. Folks who felt safe because they could avoid the more violent areas of town are reading about (and witnessing) shootings and car-jackings occurring near where they work and go out to eat at restaurants. That changes calculations away from feeling some semblance of control over the situation towards feeling like violence might randomly happen to me or my family, which increases fear disproportionately compared to the raw statistics. [1] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/billionaire-hedge-fund-manager-ken-griffin-moving-citadel-hq-out-of-chicago-into-miami/2864133/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/billionaire-hedge-fund...
- simonsarris 4y agoI find it incredible how many people's responses in crime topics (like this one or SF) immediately turn to blame-shifting, blaming the messenger, claiming the messenger must have some ulterior motive, trying to redirect conversation to other crimes like wage theft, etc. 2,606 people (that we know of) were shot so far in Chicago this year. That's over 10 per day. That's insane. And it's even crazier that it's so hard for anyone to discuss it without the carnival of canards that get bandied about every time. It seems like some people are practically trained to divert away from the actual subject.
- swearwolf 4y agoThere’s a word for what you’re describing: gaslighting.
- pjc50 4y agoNorthern Ireland's troops-on-the-streets civil war that lasted for 30+ years only managed to kill about three thousand people. Do we need to send international peacekeepers to Chicago? Send in some blue helmets? > It seems like some people are practically trained to divert away from the actual subject. That is a succinct description of American politics and "news" media.
- tb_technical 4y agoThe more than half of all homicide by gun in America is committed by five cities. Chicago holds the record for number one. Clearly there is a problem, but how the hell do we fix it?! Stop and frisk? All the authoritarian shit New York did in the 70s and 80s? That's not politically feasible AND it's unconditional.
- seer-zig 4y agoIt's definitely a challenge. A good start is to instill a sense of accountability in people, that there is a Day of Judgement where they will face God for their actions. Improve infrastructure and education. Crack down hard on crimes.
- Balgair 4y agoIt's the YouTube algorithm. Or so says Channel5 youtube channel with an interesting take on one of the drivers of the increased murder rates[0] TLDW: Drill rap is a very aggressive style from the projects, the same ones Michelle Obama grew up in. A few of it's rappers got really famous and rich because a bunch people seemed to really like it and the atmosphere behind it. This atmosphere is known as Chiraq (pronounced 'Chai-rack', for CHIcago and iRAQ, and the dangerous nature of area). There are many people documenting the Chiraq scene. As many of the Drill rappers produced music to YouTube, the algorithm caught hold. Viewers seemed to watch the more aggressive videos, commentary, and dis-tracks. Rappers saw this and produced even more aggressive and violent content. Quickly, content about murder and the like became top hits. Rappers found that hyper-violence got big views and therefore money and fame. YouTube, in a small way, incentivized the murder rate to rise, or so is alluded to in Channel5's video. After that they go to a White Sox game and talk about flat-earth and condoms. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPnQbKgotOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPnQbKgotOw
- pjc50 4y agoLinking a specific type of music to a specific type of crime is quite a common prejudice; that's how we got the UK criminalizing "repetitive beats" in an attempt to outlaw raves, Cuba banning reggaeton, etc. I'm don't think there's any actual evidence for this and in any case music is free speech.
- Balgair 4y agoThis comment just seems so at odds to the linked video and the interviews Channel5 did in it.
- 2devnull 4y agoNobody in this thread is making any international comparisons. Being tough on crime has worked to a measurable extent in other nations, what about Chicago makes those policies that work elsewhere around the world, suddenly stop working when deployed in Chicago? Can Chicago be more like Singapore? Why not?