Walking around Chicago's poorer neighborhoods as a Canadian tourist (Vienna: houses, unemployment)

[jwaiter]

Originally Posted by Tuco

Beauty's Ghetto Bus Tours

This would be perfect for the OP, s/he can see the high crime areas in relative safety.

Try it!

[mikeg453]

Originally Posted by scottyr

Thanks for all the replies...I just don't understand why Chicago is so much more dangerous than Toronto...i'm not saying that it is'nt more dangerous...it clearly is...but why?

Maybe Canada is a little safer because some of the Canadian criminals are coming to Chicago. Here is a link to a Sun-Times article where a Canadian criminal hooked up with two local criminals to rob a man of $27.

Loop man robbed of $27 during attack early Sunday: cops :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Chicago Crime (http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2466320,loop-robbery-sunday-wells-wacker-070510.article - broken link)

[xavier xerxes]

The name of the thread
sound like a good subtitle
in parathenses
for a book or movie

[Chicagoland60426]

I got a feeling that the worst neighborhood in Toronto is about as hard as Pilsen. Sorry OP, but Toronto and Chicago bad areas are not the same. Toronto peaked at 89 homicides in 1991 compare to Chicago's 927 in the same year. Chicago saw its lowest count with 448 homicides in 2004 since the mid 1960s. And yeah Cabrini isn't much anymore. Its rare nowadays to hear about a shooting or homicide in Cabrini watching the 9 o' clock news.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by tb4000

Whenever I see white people that are obviously not from that neighborhood walking around an impoverished place, it does appear like they're treating it as a zoo.

This or trying to buy drugs. In some south suburbs I'm familiar with, the cops will reverse profile and question whites in certain areas, because they know darn well what they're there for 95% of the time.

[Tuco]

Originally Posted by Youcanthandlethetruth

I add further:

We lost another police officer (who I believe was Black) in Englewood (3 from the district have been killed in a little over year) today. Anyone that says a tourist of ANY race or from any country should walk around there is a fool. That neighborhood like Garfield Park,E. Garfield Park,Austin,etc. is filled with savages.

"Alejandro “Alex” Valadez was the last Chicago Police officer killed in the line of duty. He was fatally shot on June 1, 2009 — also in the Englewood District.
An off-duty officer — Thomas Wortham IV — was killed in May outside his parents’ South Side home, allegedly by thieves trying to steal his motorcycle."


Sources: Chicago Police officer killed with own weapon :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Chicago Crime (http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2475692,chicago-cop-shooting-070611.article - broken link)

Since Humboldt Park has the most murders of any neighborhood, you can say the same about Humboldt Park. You'll get your a$$ killed in Humboldt Park.

[temp2290]

Sorry to berate you but wanting to walk around the "poorer neighborhoods" is called poverty tourism and frowned upon. I mean, I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Springfield IL. What did I do? Went to Aldi for food, bought clothes at garage sales, turned in my recyclables for money, shopped Dollar stores. What are you looking to see? The poor are simply trying to make ends meet each day and they don't take too kindly to rich people gawking at them like animals.

[HumboldtParkShiner]

I used to live right around the corner from Cabrini (near the corner of Mohawk/Blackhawk) from 1997-2006. Me and my mom were one of the first white people to ever move into the neighborhood. It is barely recognizable now from what it was back then. Seriously, it's like a whole different neighborhood, might as well be in Lincoln Park for the most part. Anything even slightly blighted has either been torn down or replaced with expensive town homes and condos. That being said, believe it or not, even back 1997, though gun shots were heard every night and crime was out of control, we didn't even have any problems in the neighborhood then. These days, it might as well be called Lincoln Park 2, just stay out of the low rise projects located near the (abandoned) red brick buildings, kinda hard to get to though, you'd have to really be trying and digging deep into the project core to get to it. I only bring it up because it is the only section of Cabrini Green that remains really occupied and where gang banging/crime is still an issue.

[Citybythelake]

Originally Posted by HumboldtParkShiner

I used to live right around the corner from Cabrini (near the corner of Mohawk/Blackhawk) from 1997-2006. Me and my mom were one of the first white people to ever move into the neighborhood...

Ok wait a minute here. If you are white why is your screen name HumboldtParkShiner?

[HumboldtParkShiner]

Originally Posted by Citybythelake

Ok wait a minute here. If you are white why is your screen name HumboldtParkShiner?

Yes i lived in Humboldt Park for some good amount of time as well as Bridgeport and even a year in Lakeview too. I loved living in Humboldt Park, some good memories I had there.