Chicago "wildings" - not just in Southside?? (Roscoe: college, shops)

[chicagolawyer]

Originally Posted by thirtysomethingtransplant

The second link (the Second City cop blog) is written by a CHICAGO cop, not an outsider. He said it's absolutely not safe to visit downtown on the weekends, that it's overrun by savages. (And plenty of the commenters are in agreement with him.)

Article below talks about mass exodus of people from Chicago (but increase in NY & L.A.'s populations):

The Second-Rate City? by Aaron M. Renn, City Journal Spring 2012

I've lived downtown for three years. I walk around every weekend. I've never even seen these "wildings" much less ever felt unsafe at any time.

[chicagolawyer]

Originally Posted by thirtysomethingtransplant

I'm betting the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The extremes of any position are subject to hyperbole.

Fallacious reasoning: Argument to moderation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[chicagolawyer]

So some actual facts:

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Chicago had 32,062 instances of violent crime in 2009. Dallas had 10,221 instances. Houston had 25,593 instances. DC had 8,071 instances. That's 11,875 per million people in Chicago, and 8,517 per million in Dallas, 11,900 per million in Houston, and 12,970 per million people in DC.

So Chicago is more dangerous than Dallas, less dangerous than DC, and about the same as Houston.

[pumbaa]

Originally Posted by chicagolawyer

So some actual facts:

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Chicago had 32,062 instances of violent crime in 2009. Dallas had 10,221 instances. Houston had 25,593 instances. DC had 8,071 instances. That's 11,875 per million people in Chicago, and 8,517 per million in Dallas, 11,900 per million in Houston, and 12,970 per million people in DC.

So Chicago is more dangerous than Dallas, less dangerous than DC, and about the same as Houston.

How dare you provide factual links and a scientific argument? Didn't you know Chicago is like living in the middle of the hood in every neighborhood at all times? Come on people if some of this stuff was actually happening it would make national news not just local news. 1200 kids running around the 3rd largest city in America rapping and pillaging would be on 20/20 and Dateline forget WGN.

[eevee]

LOL at this thread. It's amazing what can transpire in 24 hours. Hit refresh and this is what I've stumbled upon.

Are we still discussing how Lakeview descended into Syria-esque violence over the summer? We subletted an apartment near Sheffield and Belmont and I obviously missed the mass assaults. Yes, walking through Lakeview was exactly like that one scene out of "Children of Men"-just one long shot of violence and mass chaos (alas, this analogy would have been 100% times better if youtube had a clip of said scene, but ah well, moving on).

I don't think I've ever seen a "wilding". I've seen groups of 4+ black male teens walking around, but since they were just window shopping at stores or obviously coming out of school, I never thought of those as "wildings". The way some people speak about them, you'd think violent flash mobs would be a common sighting...

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by chicagolawyer

So Chicago is more dangerous than Dallas, less dangerous than DC, and about the same as Houston.

That is true in a VERY big picture sense, but instances of violence vary drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood. I haven't set foot in Austin, Englewood, or Chatham for at least 5 years - how does that effect my exposure to crime?

Most people on the North, Northwest, and near South and West sides don't set foot in the areas where most crime occurs. I've been messing around with some Bash scripts to look at CLEARpath data and am working on a Django app to map it out. It is pretty wild how low your crime risk is outside of a few small sections of the city.

[BurbstotheCity]

Originally Posted by Attrill

That is true in a VERY big picture sense, but instances of violence vary drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood. I haven't set foot in Austin, Englewood, or Chatham for at least 5 years - how does that effect my exposure to crime?

Most people on the North, Northwest, and near South and West sides don't set foot in the areas where most crime occurs. I've been messing around with some Bash scripts to look at CLEARpath data and am working on a Django app to map it out. It is pretty wild how low your crime risk is outside of a few small sections of the city.

Sounds like you're on to something. I'd really be interested in seeing what the violent crime rates in all of the mentioned cities would be if taking out the "bad" outliers.

[chicagolawyer]

Originally Posted by Attrill

That is true in a VERY big picture sense, but instances of violence vary drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood. I haven't set foot in Austin, Englewood, or Chatham for at least 5 years - how does that effect my exposure to crime?

Most people on the North, Northwest, and near South and West sides don't set foot in the areas where most crime occurs. I've been messing around with some Bash scripts to look at CLEARpath data and am working on a Django app to map it out. It is pretty wild how low your crime risk is outside of a few small sections of the city.

Isn't this true in most cities though? Or is it more true in Chicago than other places?

[mjtinmemphis]

Originally Posted by Attrill

That is true in a VERY big picture sense, but instances of violence vary drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood. I haven't set foot in Austin, Englewood, or Chatham for at least 5 years - how does that effect my exposure to crime?

Most people on the North, Northwest, and near South and West sides don't set foot in the areas where most crime occurs. I've been messing around with some Bash scripts to look at CLEARpath data and am working on a Django app to map it out. It is pretty wild how low your crime risk is outside of a few small sections of the city.

This is something I've noticed for 2 years. its a block by block thing. I have friends who live in Chatham who don't have a problem with crime. Too bad we have insecure people who write off 2/3 of the city because of what they hear. I don't think that is just a Chicago thing.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I don't think anyone is debating that. If she had just reported the actual crime statistics, nobody would have had a problem with it.

It's a question of which crime statistics. Go here:

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Publi...-Map/dfnk-7re6

And you can see that it is no lie that Belmont between Sheffield and Halsted is a massive hot spot - the intersection of Belmont & Sheffield trumps most intersections in Chicago.

Of course, these crimes are often petty, but don't fool yourself into thinking that aren't a healthy number of violent crimes, up to and including sexual assaults. Comes with the territory of being a hub for night life.

So I'm saying it's unlikely but possible that someone could end up spending a lot of their time on/near that stretch and walk away with a very skewed impression of the neighborhood.

And anyone who thinks this area hasn't always been this way can meet me for coffee some time and I'll show you the old storefront where people went through the front plate glass window on a monthly basis in the late 80s, where guys used to sell dime bags just off of the L stop, and a hundred-and-one other anecdotal tales of varying levels of crime I have personally witnessed.

However - extrapolating from this one crazy-busy stretch that Lake View as a whole is as freaky as Englewood is delusional.

Extrapolating further that it's a racial issue just gets more ridiculous, etc.

We live in a city of 2.7 million people. As many have posted, the reality is that violent crime touches very few people, your odds are simply very good that you won't be in the small % of people who gets personally victimized.

But don't underestimate how deeply either being the victim of a crime or being a friend of someone who is can rattle a person. There's really no way to prepare yourself for the shock that can happen when you're at the business end of a knife, or a gun, or are outnumbered by people looking to do you harm.

What I'd hope people take out of this is the fact that for people growing up in Englewood, West Humboldt, etc., these kinds of experiences are generally a fact of life, and greatly tear at the social fabric. I knew kids when I taught in CPS that routinely ran 15 minutes late to school as they had to walk a mile out of their way to avoid going to an area where they'd be beaten senseless just due to the misfortune of having their home in a certain place.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that when said kids become teens and learn there is a larger, more exciting-yet-safer part of the city they can explore, they choose to do so. A pack of teens can seem hostile and intimidating when in fact they are just hanging out and being the kind of dumba***s that teens all are.