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> People think that big lefty cities are dangerous without having ever been there. > If I asked you which of the following cities has a higher murder rate than

> People think that big lefty cities are dangerous without having ever been there. > If I asked you which of the following cities has a higher murder rate than Chicago which would you select: Cleveland, Las Vegas or Kansas City. For what it's worth, you've listed four "big lefty cities", with all four cities having voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in all of the last six elections, most with big margins. (Though to be fair, it's hard to find any big cities that haven't, considering that the largest political divide in the country is on urban vs. rural lines.) Chicago should be considered a peer city to NYC and LA, and it does suffer quite a bit in its murder rate compared to those two[0], even though they were all once comparable. Of the ten most dangerous (highest rates of violent crime) cities in the US[1] of any size, only one, Springfield, IL, voted for the Republican presidential candidate more than half the times of the last six elections. All but two of the remainder were solidly Democratic for all six cycles. So while there may be some truth to your idea that people unfairly believe "big lefty cities" are dangerous, there is also some truth to those people's idea, as well. [0]: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/chicago-violence-problem-debate-safety-inequality https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/c... [1]: https://www.populationu.com/gen/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-us https://www.populationu.com/gen/most-dangerous-cities-in-the...

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Most cities are democrat. Of the top 100, only 24 have republican mayors. So it stands to reason that there will be more democrat run cities with high murder rates. Conversely there will be more democrat cities with low murder rates. I wouldn’t classify any of those cities as decidedly lefty, all three of them are in swing/red states. That’s just my opinion and not really the point, though. My point was more to the effect that there is a trope, especially in right wing circles, that Chicago in particular is especially dangerous, which isn’t really the case. It was a point to illustrate that talking points like “Chicago is super murder happy” and “Seattle is Dying” keep getting repeated despite their lack of grounding in truth.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - tptacek 3y ago
    No, it doesn't. There are a lot of murders in Chicago in large part because it's a huge city. Per capita, we don't even make the top 10.
- gottorf 3y ago
  I understand (and made a similar point regarding most cities being liberal), but parts of Chicago really are especially dangerous, because the violent crime rate is not evenly distributed throughout city limits. For young men, living in certain parts of Chicago (e.g. 60624) was in fact more dangerous to their life than being deployed to Afghanistan[0]. I hesitate to describe that as a trope; more a travesty that needs to be addressed. Of course, if you're a tourist five miles away at Navy Pier or the Bean, Chicago isn't dangerous at all, and there's all of the rest of Chicago that you quite correctly state brings down the overall murder rate (to only 10th highest in the nation). But it's not like there's a wall separating the less violent parts of Chicago from the more violent parts, and as a tourist who doesn't know the different areas of the city well, the fact that Garfield Park has a higher murder rate than the most violent city in the world might make you shy away from the whole city. So I don't think it's fair to say that there is no ground at all for the claim that Chicago is murder happy. I'll stop here since I've managed to wander far from the GP's question about Seattle; I just love Chicago and the topic engenders some passion in me. [0]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/2799859/del_pozo_2022_oi_221360_1671050393.00525.pdf https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/...
  - tptacek 3y ago
    You could synthesize a contiguous area of Chicago that would lead the nation in per capita homicides (an easy thing to do here would be to just take Englewood, with its 48 homicides and 29,000 population). But of course, you'd be comparing Englewood to all of (say) St. Louis, which is also quite a livable city overall.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Almost all cities are run by Democrats, especially if they are big. I can think of exceptions like Fairbanks AK and Mesa AZ, but those places have their own crime problems. Most of the really bad cities (New Orleans, St. Louis, Jackson Mississippi) are blue cities in red states, but that is more to do about historic poverty, and Jim Crow's legacy, than anything else.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Most cities are democrat. Of the top 100, only 24 have republican mayors. So it stands to reason that there will be more democrat run cities with high murder rates. Conversely there will be more democrat cities with low murder rates. I wouldn’t classify any of those cities as decidedly lefty, all three of them are in swing/red states. That’s just my opinion and not really the point, though. My point was more to the effect that there is a trope, especially in right wing circles, that Chicago in particular is especially dangerous, which isn’t really the case. It was a point to illustrate that talking points like “Chicago is super murder happy” and “Seattle is Dying” keep getting repeated despite their lack of grounding in truth.

wonderwonder 3y ago
[flagged]
- tptacek 3y ago
  No, it doesn't. There are a lot of murders in Chicago in large part because it's a huge city. Per capita, we don't even make the top 10.
gottorf 3y ago
I understand (and made a similar point regarding most cities being liberal), but parts of Chicago really are especially dangerous, because the violent crime rate is not evenly distributed throughout city limits. For young men, living in certain parts of Chicago (e.g. 60624) was in fact more dangerous to their life than being deployed to Afghanistan[0]. I hesitate to describe that as a trope; more a travesty that needs to be addressed. Of course, if you're a tourist five miles away at Navy Pier or the Bean, Chicago isn't dangerous at all, and there's all of the rest of Chicago that you quite correctly state brings down the overall murder rate (to only 10th highest in the nation). But it's not like there's a wall separating the less violent parts of Chicago from the more violent parts, and as a tourist who doesn't know the different areas of the city well, the fact that Garfield Park has a higher murder rate than the most violent city in the world might make you shy away from the whole city. So I don't think it's fair to say that there is no ground at all for the claim that Chicago is murder happy. I'll stop here since I've managed to wander far from the GP's question about Seattle; I just love Chicago and the topic engenders some passion in me. [0]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/2799859/del_pozo_2022_oi_221360_1671050393.00525.pdf https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/...
- tptacek 3y ago
  You could synthesize a contiguous area of Chicago that would lead the nation in per capita homicides (an easy thing to do here would be to just take Englewood, with its 48 homicides and 29,000 population). But of course, you'd be comparing Englewood to all of (say) St. Louis, which is also quite a livable city overall.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Almost all cities are run by Democrats, especially if they are big. I can think of exceptions like Fairbanks AK and Mesa AZ, but those places have their own crime problems. Most of the really bad cities (New Orleans, St. Louis, Jackson Mississippi) are blue cities in red states, but that is more to do about historic poverty, and Jim Crow's legacy, than anything else.