Chicago Not Actually "Murder Capital" Of, Well, Anything (Detroit: 2013, crime)

[ChiNaan]

Chicago Not Actually ‘Murder Capital’ Of, Well, Anything « CBS Chicago

It took them awhile to catch on, but it's refreshing to see a mainstream news source opt for statistical accuracy over sensationalism for once.

[marothisu]

Anybody who knows math/statistics would think the article is obvious, but unfortunately for many people it's not. They think raw number is the end all be all of stuff (Of course we admit the number is too high but it's still not the whole picture) ,which is sad.

The article seriously sounds like they compiled a bunch of our posts on here and edited them down.

[NARFALICIOUS]

Regardless, next time someone says the “South Side isn’t safe,” do me a favor and fart in their face.

Journalism at its best



I agree with the article though.

[mjtinmemphis]

I never take the murder crime stuff seriously. It's all sensationalism at best. I know people who live in Detroit who are just as safe as any place. The same can be said with Chicago. Its about your life and choices you make. Not the city.

[MichiVegas]

Chicago obviously is the murder capital, in terms of raw numbers.

And it obviously isn't, in terms of proportions.

I never heard anyone claim that Chicago has the highest murder rate; though plenty of news sources say it has the highest number of murders (which is indeed true).

Trying to confuse the issue is useless, IMO. The fact is that Chicago has far too many murders, and has lots more than NYC and LA, despite being much smaller. Why is that?

[chet everett]

DOES NOT MATTER!

Must put head in sand!


Must stick fingers in ears!

Must shout loudly: So much better public transportation than LA, so much more dense! So much less expensive than NYC!

Originally Posted by MichiVegas

Chicago obviously is the murder capital, in terms of raw numbers.

And it obviously isn't, in terms of proportions.

I never heard anyone claim that Chicago has the highest murder rate; though plenty of news sources say it has the highest number of murders (which is indeed true).

Trying to confuse the issue is useless, IMO. The fact is that Chicago has far too many murders, and has lots more than NYC and LA, despite being much smaller. Why is that?

[jonnynonos]

I don't know the statistics but I think there is little doubt that, say, Chicago's worst half dozen to dozen neighborhoods are among the worst in the country.

The fact that, you know, technically some neighborhood extends to X Rd. and includes 20,000 people east of such-and-such viaduct who aren't blowing each other to pieces, thus dilluting the figure, is hardly noteworthy. (i.e. parcing just how bad New City is.)

[NARFALICIOUS]

Oh no....another 10 page thread is brewing..

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by MichiVegas

Chicago obviously is the murder capital, in terms of raw numbers.

And it obviously isn't, in terms of proportions.


I never heard anyone claim that Chicago has the highest murder rate; though plenty of news sources say it has the highest number of murders (which is indeed true).

The problem is that most people only pay attention to raw numbers, and many don't even have a concept of proportions in this case. Really even then, proportion isn't good enough on the whole level. A city is pretty complex, so the safety of a city, even at the neighborhood level, is not good enough sometimes. Sometimes safety can be completely block-by-block or within a few block radius of some point. I know of areas of town here that are "unsafe" at the high level when you say the neighborhood, but there are safe areas within the neighborhoods completely. Of course, there are whole neighborhoods here that are completely safe. Really, all big cities are like this, but most people don't have a concept of this nor do they understand statistics or proportions for that matter.

Trying to confuse the issue is useless, IMO. The fact is that Chicago has far too many murders, and has lots more than NYC and LA, despite being much smaller. Why is that?

I'm not going to go into "why", but NYC and LA have both done a better job than Chicago in the last 20 some years in reducing their homicide rate. However, what also gets lost in the fold is that although Chicago still has a lot, it's about half of what it was in the late 80s and early 90s.. Not sure how many people even realize that but things were overall much worse 20 years ago than today. Most types of serious crimes in many (no, not all) neighborhoods have actually been decreasing for awhile.

[Freefall18]

India, the murder capital of the world.