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The two were on the same trajectory with regards to crime through the late 90s through to the 00s—basically, crime rates were plummeting. Chicago then saw its crime rates stop dropping as much and then a reversal though still nowhere near its peakrates.
There’s the different taxbase and amount of capital investment domestically and abroad, but Chicago is no slouch relative to its population and there have been cities with far smaller taxbases and amount of investment elsewhere which didn’t hit a new spiking of crime rates. I think those are likely to play some role, but aren’t the entire picture. As for size of police force, the relative size difference in be police force is about proportional to the size difference in population as well.
There are some other things that Chicago has done which diverged since the 00s alongside with the crime rate drop that migh help explain parts of it and there are some other differences.
One is that Chicago did a wholesale and rapid teardown of its housing projects as did St. Louis and possibly some other cities. Chicago had a lot of projects and they en masse rapidly tore them down. The projects weren’t great, but there also wasn’t a particularly well thought out plan for what to do with them all emptied suddenly. The people needed to go somewhere and a lot of them filled into the nearby neighborhoods in a rush of section 8 and other mechanisms (like living with relatives). That might have contributed to the difference.
Another difference is the ease at which firearms are accessible and easily trafficked. While certainly criminals can and do get access to guns in NYC, there’s a slightly greater impedement to doing so as NYC does not border areas that make it as easy to purchase as Chicago. Meanwhile, the Indiana border touches upon Chicago and Indiana is a comparatively very unrestricted when it comes to buying firearms.
Chicago and its general environs also had a comparatively larger manufacturing base than NYC did. NYC had more manufacturing overall, but in proportion to the makeup of its economy, NYC had proportionally quite a bit more of other industries to go by.
- NYC has far more economic opportunities than Chicago. A lot of crime is brought on by desperation and a belief that they can't thrive legally.
- NYC has priced out a lot of poor people (whom are more prone to crime) into other states or nearby satellite cities like Newark, Paterson,etc (and even into some depressed suburbs).
- NYC has an ultra-strong police presence and its gridded layout and lack of alleyways makes policing easier.
- A lot off NYC's inner city population consists of hard-working immigrants as opposed to multi-generational welfare leeches.
This is a great list. In reference to the bolded segment, I grew up in Washington Heights during the height of late 80's - early 90's drug dealing. When you can sling drugs and STILL not make rent ...it's time to move.
The two were on the same trajectory with regards to crime through the late 90s through to the 00s—basically, crime rates were plummeting. Chicago then saw its crime rates stop dropping as much and then a reversal though still nowhere near its peakrates.
There’s the different taxbase and amount of capital investment domestically and abroad, but Chicago is no slouch relative to its population and there have been cities with far smaller taxbases and amount of investment elsewhere which didn’t hit a new spiking of crime rates. I think those are likely to play some role, but aren’t the entire picture. As for size of police force, the relative size difference in be police force is about proportional to the size difference in population as well.
There are some other things that Chicago has done which diverged since the 00s alongside with the crime rate drop that migh help explain parts of it and there are some other differences.
One is that Chicago did a wholesale and rapid teardown of its housing projects as did St. Louis and possibly some other cities. Chicago had a lot of projects and they en masse rapidly tore them down. The projects weren’t great, but there also wasn’t a particularly well thought out plan for what to do with them all emptied suddenly. The people needed to go somewhere and a lot of them filled into the nearby neighborhoods in a rush of section 8 and other mechanisms (like living with relatives). That might have contributed to the difference.
Another difference is the ease at which firearms are accessible and easily trafficked. While certainly criminals can and do get access to guns in NYC, there’s a slightly greater impedement to doing so as NYC does not border areas that make it as easy to purchase as Chicago. Meanwhile, the Indiana border touches upon Chicago and Indiana is a comparatively very unrestricted when it comes to buying firearms.
Chicago and its general environs also had a comparatively larger manufacturing base than NYC did. NYC had more manufacturing overall, but in proportion to the makeup of its economy, NYC had proportionally quite a bit more of other industries to go by.
Every other major urban area began tearing down "projects" because federal government either cut back funding and or told them it wasn't giving anymore. Piled onto this many buildings had been ridden hard and put away wet. That is they were beat up/run down and required massive funding for major repairs/maintenance. It was just cheaper to tear them down and give vouchers or whatever.
Indeed not long after "projects" went up federal and local governments (along with others) began to realize maybe they made a mistake.
However good many of these public housing estates started off, within a decade or two afterwards many if not most became bad as the hoods/slums/ghettos they replaced.
This is why federal funding for decades now has shifted to vouchers and other schemes, but *NOT* building any more housing estates/projects.
New York City for various reasons of its own has clung to NYCHA/projects model and likely will for foreseeable future.
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