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Old 08-22-2010, 09:33 PM
 
Location: Bradenton, Florida
27,232 posts, read 46,512,258 times
Reputation: 11081

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I don't know, I spent two days in Chicago and never even felt threatened. I thought it was strange that people would walk across a street when the "don't walk" light was lit, and not wind up getting hit by a car.
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Old 08-22-2010, 09:46 PM
 
Location: Chicago - Logan Square
3,396 posts, read 7,174,452 times
Reputation: 3731
Quote:
Originally Posted by coldwine View Post
Chicago is safe. However, Chicago "got stuck" with a lot of poor people due to its overly generous welfare policies in the past. As with many Rustbelt cities, politicians bought votes through race and welfare issues, and a significant chunk of the population stayed put for decades.
For all practical purposes welfare in Chicago is no different than the rest of the state (or most of the country for that matter). The promise of unskilled jobs drew people here before and after WWII, and when the unskilled jobs began drying up in the 70's a lot of people just got stuck. Unlike other Rustbelt cities Chicago had a large number of professional services industries that kept the city afloat through the 70's and 80's, and then helped it rebound in the 90's. The people on welfare in Chicago now are the children and grandchildren of the unskilled workers who were left behind, they were not drawn here by any special welfare benefits.
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Old 08-22-2010, 09:50 PM
 
Location: Chicago - Logan Square
3,396 posts, read 7,174,452 times
Reputation: 3731
Quote:
Originally Posted by TKramar View Post
I don't know, I spent two days in Chicago and never even felt threatened. I thought it was strange that people would walk across a street when the "don't walk" light was lit, and not wind up getting hit by a car.
Agreed - I've been here for 17 years and have never felt seriously threatened, and not threatened at all in over 12 years. The walking through "don't walk" signs is a pretty standard urban thing, it's actually a lot worse in Boston.
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Old 08-23-2010, 12:02 AM
 
Location: Chicago
15,585 posts, read 27,438,384 times
Reputation: 1761
Quote:
Originally Posted by chicago103 View Post
I dare someone to actually look up the crime statistics going back to the late 1980's and then be terrified about what is going on now.

Homicides 1990-2009

1990: 851
1991: 927
1992: 943
1993: 931
1994: 929
1995: 827
1996: 789
1997: 759
1998: 704
1999: 641
2000: 628
2001: 666
2002: 647
2003: 598
2004: 448
2005: 449
2006: 467
2007: 442
2008: 510
2009: 458

Its amazing what you will find out when you actually have a long view looking back, even as recently as 2001 there were significantly more murders than today.
400-500 murders a year is still very much unacceptable. And yeah I remember the 80's and 90's-I was born here.
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Old 08-23-2010, 04:45 PM
 
Location: Chicago
422 posts, read 808,093 times
Reputation: 422
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avengerfire View Post
400-500 murders a year is still very much unacceptable. And yeah I remember the 80's and 90's-I was born here.
Absolutely it is unacceptable but its actual evidence like this that counters the doomsdayers that insist that this city is getting worse as far as violence is concerned or really anything. If you look at the long view things have gotten much better in this city over the past twenty years.

The very question "Is Chicago safe" actually shows a lack of understand of how big cities work, there is no uniform answer because there are so many neighborhoods. Questions like this are not black and white, yes or no. Its stupid to answer "yes, the entire 227 square miles is safe or it is unsafe". It varies from neighborhood to neighborhood but in general the city is fairly safe as long as you avoid certain areas, visitors should feel safe since the tourist areas are not the high crime areas.
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Old 08-23-2010, 07:01 PM
 
Location: Chicago
70 posts, read 152,648 times
Reputation: 30
C'mon guys this is a big city. The fact that we got it down to some of the lowest rates in the last 45 years says something about society. It was much higher in the 80's because nobody cared. Nobody wanted to live in the city back then. Chicago was only for the poor people, and anyone that had money and the means would move to the burbs. We still had the white flight mentality. It's a different world today. The city is again an acceptable place to live so young single middle class people are moving back and therefore crime is more of a concern.
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Old 08-24-2010, 08:42 PM
 
11,973 posts, read 31,635,920 times
Reputation: 4641
Quote:
Originally Posted by chicago103 View Post
2001: 666

Its amazing what you will find out when you actually have a long view looking back, even as recently as 2001 there were significantly more murders than today.
And in 2001 the murder tally was the same as the number of the beast. So, um, that's really much scarier and s***.
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Old 08-24-2010, 09:07 PM
 
8,276 posts, read 11,841,506 times
Reputation: 10075
Quote:
Originally Posted by Attrill View Post
Agreed - I've been here for 17 years and have never felt seriously threatened, and not threatened at all in over 12 years. The walking through "don't walk" signs is a pretty standard urban thing, it's actually a lot worse in Boston.
Very true; people in Chicago wull dutifully wait on street corner sidewalks for the right to cross the street; in Boston/Cambridge, no one waits for permission..
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Old 08-26-2010, 04:46 PM
 
Location: Beautiful and sanitary DC
2,477 posts, read 3,487,517 times
Reputation: 3237
Hey, Chicagoans' standards for "nice neighborhood" sure are higher than others':


(In any case, I prefer "burgled" as the past tense. Sounds fancier.)
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Old 08-26-2010, 08:06 PM
 
1,495 posts, read 2,290,342 times
Reputation: 811
Chicago has to be the second most over-hyped city when it comes to crime (after New York of course). It's often based on a poor grasp of numbers. This town is called the "murder capital" for having the most murders, but that's really trivial because the biggest city will have the most of everything, except that New York and L.A. are extraordinarily safe (by American standards), so Chicago is left with the tag. The fact is, though, that Chicago is way down on the list for actual murder rate. And no, murder is not the only crime, but it's a decent indicator of how things are.

Last edited by j_cat; 08-26-2010 at 08:09 PM.. Reason: clarity
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