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Take Chicago for example. Not too many places were as dangerous as Austin, Englewood, and Cabrini Green, but you have Lincoln park, Gold Coast, Lakeview etc to balance things out.
And you think all those murders were spread out equally in the county? You think all of Chicago's MSA (9 million) had 2500 murders?
The Chicago metro area's homicide rate is 30% higher than LA's. Chicago also doesn't have big cities in its suburbs like Long Beach to add to the total. Chicago has Gary though, which is worse than Compton.
Chicago metro is smaller so go figure lol,And L.A is so much bigger than Chicago that yes it had multiple cities surrounding it that was worse also, Long beach,Inglewood,Compton i believe had 93 murders one year in the 90s .
All 3 big cities were bad but Chicago i don't think ever reached 1000 plus murders like L.A despite having a higher Poor Black population in it's history ,Chicago arguably had the worst project gang wars of course.
The Chicago metro area's homicide rate is 30% higher than LA's. Chicago also doesn't have big cities in its suburbs like Long Beach to add to the total. Chicago has Gary though, which is worse than Compton.
Did you not understand I was comparing 2 regions of 9 million? Who cares if LA has Long Beach, what does that have to do with anything?
The Chicago metro area has a higher murder rate than the LA metro area. It's a fact.
2,500 murders with 9 million people, while a lot, was nothing unique to the LA area in the 90s. NYC had 2,262 with 7 million people (which is a higher rate than 2,500 with 9 million).
If you drew a circle around NYC to make it 9 million it would've had 2,500 and more than that if you drew it around the Jersey side.
Last edited by joeyg2014; 08-02-2015 at 07:42 PM..
1. Washington DC- late 1980s was probably the worst time in DC but the early 90s was still very rough. Murder rate was extremely high. The crack epidemic hit the capital hard. Drug kingpin Rayful Edmonds was probably the richest kingpin on the East Coast during it and his crew apparently murdered dozens of people.
2. Chicago- Out of all the major cities, it had the highest crime rate all through the early 1990s. Southside and West side Chicago were really rough. Cabrini Green is infamous for its' violence and probably the worst "housing projects" that I've read stories about in the U.S.
3. Detroit- It has always been a very dangerous city to be in. It still is arguably the roughest cities in the country (rivaling probably only New Orleans and Baltimore at comparable population sizes).
4. NYC- From 1990-1992, the South Bronx, Harlem, and parts of Brooklyn often had murder rates that were exceeding 85+. East New York for a few years were averaging 120-130 murder rate per 100,000. Harlem had a few precincts reporting 100+ murder rates in the early 90s and late 80s. It's arguable that 1970s Harlem when murder rate were not reported, that it was nearly as bad as the Crack Epidemic that hit NYC from about 1985-1991 if not worse. For the most part Queens was OK although South Jamaica and Far Rockaway were still considered rough. Staten Island had some rough parts too but the South Bronx/uptown Manhattan were hit hardest by the Crack Epidemic and Brooklyn had some really rough neighborhoods.
5. Los Angeles- The 1992 riots definitely led to a lot of crime. During the early 1990s, it was considered the gang capital of the country. South Central was a war zone and you can hear helicopters everywhere. I used to have cousins who lived in a bad Cali neighborhood and I visited there in the late 90s (not in LA) and hearing helicopters was a norm on a daily basis as well as seeing people drinking 40s on corners.
6. Philadelphia- The crime rate wasn't as astounding as the cities above. Philly has always had a crime problem and for awhile in the early 2010s (2010-2012) it was worse than Chicago overall. It was still really rough in the 1990s from what I've heard but I remember talking to a few locals and they said crack hit West Philly and North Philly pretty badly but not as bad as some places in Washington DC or NYC. One person I knew grew up during the time period and said the late 80s Philly was a lot more crackheads wandering around than the early 90s. He said Philly started to get safer during the mid 1990s at least in their view. I may be bias because I lived outside of Center City for 4 years but in a somewhat nice/modern neighborhood and never had a problem dealing with crime. Seeing homeless people walking around wasn't uncommon at night. Some were drug addicts or some were schizophrenics. As long as you kept to yourself, you were fine.
Last edited by mosdefinitely; 08-04-2015 at 01:05 PM..
Number 1 & 2 were L.A & N.y respectively in the 90s ....
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