You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Our inner cities became the safest places
2013-09-17
Doug Sanders at The Globe and Mail explores how it is that Chicago is really a safe city -- compared to the world outside of North America. By the data, he's right.

Turns out that Chicago is safe indeed, as long as you're not a gang-banger or drug dealer (or in their line of fire). Understanding why is useful when we consider the rest of the world (Cairo or Peshawar or Mogadishu).

Though we at the Burg will still snark about Chicago.
Posted by:Steve White

#12  Many good comments here today but the last line of this piece is the one that resonates with me: "Crime happens in those unwatched, unowned empty spaces. Filling them in with fully owned housing makes streets safer. When we create pride in ownership in our cities, we create an appetite for safety – something the whole world wants." The key item being 'pride of ownership'. But to have pride of ownership it means one has to have worked for it, not taken handouts for it. We are not currently engendering that in our big blue cities.
Posted by: warthogswife   2013-09-17 17:37  

#11  Not to the Mexicans...
Posted by: Pappy   2013-09-17 16:21  

#10  last i heard juarez was still in north america
Posted by: Slinerong Elmegum4754   2013-09-17 13:48  

#9  "Appease the violent ones with government handouts and they won't riot and walk the four blocks to my tony apartment and kill me and my family or burn my status-inducing oh-so-cool condo".

There was an article about two years ago, that chronicled the doings of a NYC mental health provider. Basically it was "they come in every other day and say 'I hear voices' and I give them a prescription for meds," with the acknowledgement that perhaps the walk-ins aren't necessarily mentally ill. It more or less wrapped up with "whaddya gonna do if we stop handing out sedatives?"
Posted by: Pappy   2013-09-17 11:33  

#8  The term is 'relative depredation'. He should have also noted that poor in Cairo or Peshawar or Mogadishu is a hell'va lot different than poor in the United States. However, don't expect the plantation owners ever tell those up in the big house how damn good they got it when they need to strip the workers in the field of more of their labor to keep the party going.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2013-09-17 09:11  

#7  The problem with crime in Chicago, as in most cities, is location, location, location. If you live in Englewood, not so safe. If you live in Edison Park, pretty safe.
Posted by: Spot   2013-09-17 08:23  

#6  Those of us who live in suburban/rural America to escape the violence of the city or simply just because we like the environs are being taxed to provide a protection for wealthy urbanites we don't use and which benefits us not at all. In many ways this is the urban equivalent of farm subsidies, which end up costing urbanites tax money with no direct positive impact on their own wealth in their community.

This only works until the nouveau riche BMW and Escalade driving inner-city EBT buyers decide to take advantage of the no-money-down home loan and move in next to you, sending their hip-hop spawn to your once high ranking local high school. Of course, this is all in the gov't plan to divide and destroy conservative suburbia.
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-09-17 07:53  

#5  New Tourism PR push...
Chicago "it's Not as bad as Mogadishu!"
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2013-09-17 06:45  

#4  And in how many US cities do you have to pass through or near dangerous areas to get to the "good" parts? Pffft.

I would also point out that it is the crime and violence ridden parts of the cities that help keep wealthy urbanites on the Dem reservation.

"Appease the violent ones with government handouts and they won't riot and walk the four blocks to my tony apartment and kill me and my family or burn my status-inducing oh-so-cool condo".

Our welfare state is, among other things, a means of using everyone's tax money to bribe slum dwellers in order to protect a small number of wealthy elites living in cities. In some cases the system has broken down like Detroit. But in most cities it is still up and running.

Those of us who live in suburban/rural America to escape the violence of the city or simply just because we like the environs are being taxed to provide a protection for wealthy urbanites we don't use and which benefits us not at all. In many ways this is the urban equivalent of farm subsidies, which end up costing urbanites tax money with no direct positive impact on their own wealth in their community.

My solution is to get rid of both the farm subsidies and the welfare state and deal with the consequences and the anxiety like grownups.
Posted by: no mo uro   2013-09-17 06:17  

#3  And I doubt Chicago is safer than its suburbs, and that the farther out you go, the less crime there is. That's one of the drivers of 'sprawl'.

What the author is really saying is that third-world cities are experiencing the same "growing pains" as American (and probably European) big cities did a century ago.
Posted by: Bobby   2013-09-17 06:15  

#2  As compared to what?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2013-09-17 01:44  

#1  An attempt to change the truth, to a lie, Won't work.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2013-09-17 00:14  

00:00