Chicago Reaches 500 Homicides (employment, neighborhoods, law)

[Bluefox]

Originally Posted by citybrah

The real reason is Chicago is a dying city that used to be, while New York is still a leader in commerce and culture world wide. Chicago held the main offices of manufacturing giants in the Midwest but when the manufacturing left for China there was no reason to stay in Chicago. The offices are much better off in port cities where their warehouse's are located. All that's left is people too poor to move away.

Chicago is headed to be the next detroit.

I think that sums it up fairly nicely, brah. Chicago, IL: 2.7 million people too poor to move away. I wish I could move to New York so I can get my hands on one of those coveted superiority complexes, but it'll take me forever to save up for the airfare.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by citybrah

The real reason is Chicago is a dying city that used to be, while New York is still a leader in commerce and culture world wide. Chicago held the main offices of manufacturing giants in the Midwest but when the manufacturing left for China there was no reason to stay in Chicago. The offices are much better off in port cities where their warehouse's are located. All that's left is people too poor to move away.

Chicago is headed to be the next detroit.

That's ridiclous. Have you never been to Chicago? Although a large swath of the south side already is like Detroit.

Chicago is a heavily white collar city in addition to blue collar. Detroit's failure was to rely on one industry. You are clueless if you think Chicago did this..

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by citybrah

The real reason is Chicago is a dying city that used to be, while New York is still a leader in commerce and culture world wide. Chicago held the main offices of manufacturing giants in the Midwest but when the manufacturing left for China there was no reason to stay in Chicago. The offices are much better off in port cities where their warehouse's are located. All that's left is people too poor to move away.

Chicago is headed to be the next detroit.

There is some (a very tiny bit) of truth to this. Parts of Chicago are dying and account for the vast majority of the 500 murders. Other parts are economically very vibrant and even growing in population.

[Heyooooo]

Chicago's diversified economy pretty much prevents it from being "the next Detroit."


We can talk all day/night about why NYC is the way it is, doesnt matter. Its not the city with the best quality of life in this country by a long shot anyway. I like Chicago the way it is (save for the politics).

[chet everett]

There is a little bit of truth to the decline of manufacturing hurting Chicago, this is seen most vividly in the parts of Chicago that had the most capital intensive kinds of manufacturing -- steel mills on the south east side... Fortunately the City worked out deals with Ford to preserve some of that specialized manufacturing and there are a pretty nice array of vehicles rolling out of that plant.

The real issues that decimated Detroit was not just single industry focus but the corrupt mix of a series of decisions that foolishly assumed capital intensive investments by the auto industry would allow Detroit government to "play hardball" with those firms or at least extract HUGE federal subsidies to keep Detroit's bloated municipal union workforce overpaid... The automakers made decisions to instead accept generous tax incentives to de-centralize their manufacturing and left Detroit without a patsy to support its rollover-and-play-dead pro-union ways.

For better or worse Chicago's corrupt leadership has largely "outsourced" much of the work formerly done by unionized city workers to "connected" firms that largely are non-union and have far less generous pay / benefits. Of course the breadth of firms that inhabit office space in Chicago's Loop is more diverse than pretty much any other US city, which would seem to be a big part of the city's strength but don't forget it was not that long ago that the financial mis-management of NY resulted in that city once needing to rely on federal backing of its debts...

The shaky finances of Illinois are pretty similar -- big promises to "keep the unions voting for your pals with (D) after their name" with complacency for "funny business" about never actually putting the money in the bank to fund those sweet benefits...

What does this have to do homicides? Well, maybe if there were enough "blue shirts on the streets" to bust the bad guys Chicago would not have such a shoot-'em-up crime scene. Further if the cops were confident that they'll be able to retire maybe they would not "go drive the other way" when it comes to avoiding the worst of the worst...

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by citybrah

All that's left is people too poor to move away.

That must be why rent is getting so cheap and all the expensive bars and restaurants are closing down. Oh, wait...

[Chicago South Sider]

Originally Posted by urza216

It's funny to me how much ChiNaan and Chicago South Sider argue with each other. They're both good posters. Perhaps ChiNaan is a little too naive and Chicago South Sider is overly cynical.

ChiNaan probably isn't too bad of a guy. He just doesn't understand how the world really works.

[Chicago South Sider]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'm not at all naive about our national problem with guns/violence/murder in this country. It is deplorable and needs to be addressed. Chicago isn't even in the top 10 U.S. cities for homicide rate, though, and is much better than it used to be. It's right in there with dozens of other U.S. cities, worse than some (Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Austin, etc.) and better than others (New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo, Philadelphia, etc.)

It's funny how Chicagoans like to compare this city to other truly world-class cities until we start talking about crime. How does Chicago compare to New York, Hong Kong, Toronto, Los Angeles or even Mexico City? Or ANY first or second-tier world city? Not too well.

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

More than anything I'm just not a fan of misinformation and faulty logic, regardless of how cynical or naive. I call it out when I see it, and CSS exhibits more of it than most.

You're just naive, that's all. You also aren't nearly as smart as you think you are.

[Bluefox]

Originally Posted by Chicago South Sider

It's funny how Chicagoans like to compare this city to other truly world-class cities until we start talking about crime. How does Chicago compare to New York, Hong Kong, Toronto, Los Angeles or even Mexico City? Or ANY first or second-tier world city? Not too well.

I wasn't under the impression that a city's crime rate was a determinative factor in whether a city is world class. If that's the case, I can think of quite a few cities that are more "world class" than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and certainly Mexico City. Chicago has a high crime rate relative to other cities in its class, but it is still exhibiting an overall downward trend just like everywhere else. I could see an issue if Chicago's crime was rising long term, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Chicago South Sider

How does Chicago compare to New York, Hong Kong, Toronto, Los Angeles or even Mexico City?

In population? We're not on par with any of those, and I would never pretend we are.

In murders? We're worse than all of those except for Mexico City, but you probably knew that.

New York and L.A. are the only of those cities that it's fair to compare us to, though, until we get on board with the rest of the First World when it comes to gun policies.