I understand (and made a similar point regarding most cities being liberal), but parts of Chicago really are especially dangerous, because the violent crime rat

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/...