Serious question posed by the Chicago Sun Times: Is Chicago ‘becoming Detroit?’

[iheartthed]

The location of the shooting on Ontario Street just a few feet away from North Michigan Avenue — the city’s marquee shopping district — stunned Chicago aldermen.

“When you start having that [violence] in a place where people generally feel safe, that’s when we start becoming Detroit,” said one alderman, who asked to remain annonymous.
The shooting occurred at 12:33 a.m. The 31-year-old victim was standing outside his vehicle when someone in a sport-utility vehicle pulled up, asked what his gang affiliation is and opened fire, hitting him in the abdomen, according to the police.

http://www.suntimes.com/13339679-761...on-safety.html

[Jimaz]

Ouch. Detroit has become a benchmark.

[313WX]

Ouch. Detroit has become a benchmark.

Detroit is probably used as an example in urban planning classes as what NOT to do with a city.

No one wants to become Detroit, and are doing everything OPPOSITe of what Detroit has done.

[canuck]

I think it is a pretty good example of how hypocritical politicians can be about problems they dont want to deal with. How many times have you read about the 10 to 20 victims a weekend shootouts in various parts of Chicago?

How is it that an archetypal Chicago problem becomes Detroit style?
Detroit again becomes an easy target from lazy shots.

Because this "incident" happened in a ritzy part of downtown? It speaks more to the ghettoized mindset than to the spreading of a foreign problem, come on!

[poobert]

http://www.suntimes.com/13339679-761...on-safety.html[/FONT][/COLOR]

The Chicago Sun-Times did not pose the question. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that some alderman made that observation on his own. Therefore there is nothing "serious" about it.

[iheartthed]

The Chicago Sun-Times did not pose the question. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that some alderman made that observation on his own. Therefore there is nothing "serious" about it.

Well, no... The Sun-Times posed the question. But they have changed the headline since I first posted the link [[probably got pushback from some readers). The anonymous alderman made the statement likening this incident to what he believes is common occurrence in Detroit.

[poobert]

Well, no... The Sun-Times posed the question. But they have changed the headline since I first posted the link [[probably got pushback from some readers). The anonymous alderman made the statement likening this incident to what he believes is common occurrence in Detroit.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Rather silly...Chicago has never been a terribly safe place, as they even mention in the article. Seems like Chicago is just being Chicago.

[iheartthed]

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Rather silly...Chicago has never been a terribly safe place, as they even mention in the article. Seems like Chicago is just being Chicago.

That was my take on it too. From my perspective, people outside of Detroit and Chicago tend to liken the two cities on the issue of crime. The distinction is made on how much Detroit has decayed versus Chciago.

[Meddle]

Safe? Chicago?

Not me.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Chicago has always been a violent city. Think back to the "roaring 20's" when Al Capone and his crew were shooting first, and asking questions later.

[313WX]

Oh god. All of you missed the point.

No one said Chicago doesn't have crime problems.

But the fact is, no matter which way you spin it, Detroit is far more dangerous than Chicago. This is between the fact that the violent crimes in Detroit occur all over town to random people versus to gang members in certain parts of town, and if the police respond at all, the average wait time is a ridiculous 1/2 hour versus 10 minutes in Chicago.

[illwill]

Who cares. What big city doesn't have crime?

Can we move along already...

[brizee]

Some people, and communities obviously, really believe their shit don't stink.

The media is a culprit in this, certain cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia just have to be the boogeyman.

We have 400 murders sure, but that's just in the black part of town! A man gets grazed in Bougieville and suddenly that 401st victim is a problem.

[Chicago48]

Some people, and communities obviously, really believe their shit don't stink.

The media is a culprit in this, certain cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia just have to be the boogeyman.

We have 400 murders sure, but that's just in the black part of town! A man gets grazed in Bougieville and suddenly that 401st victim is a problem.

Exiled to Chicago from Detroit. We have a big gang problem. These killings & shootings are not domestic, but between hot head gang members. We have a strong mayor and I believe he will put a stop to this. He's trying to bring business to the downtown area, and it won't fly if people are shooting each other.
One thing about Chicago, when you call the police, not one cop car arrives, but about FIVE! They are quick response!

what I'm about to write is going to be considered racist....but the majority of these shootings are between black people [[and some latinos), and the sooner we can move the uneducated, poorer class blacks out of the city the better. When the Housing Dept tore down the projects [[Cabrini-Green, et al), the gangs holed up in the projects scattered to the nicer neighborhoods. Those were the nice neighborhoods of black residents who owned property.This is a problem of absentee landlords and slum landlords letting unknowns rent their apartments, charging Little rent, and too many guns.
You won't read it, but the President's neighborhood of Kenwood is also a war-zone for shootings.

[downtown_racine]

LoL at Da Mare fixin the problems, Whats he going to put a tax on gang shootings ? And gary mccarthy and tv tommy dart are busy tap dancing around the issue.
The only things that could put a damper on the problem is ten degree weather.
I heard on the radio that there have been less people killed in Afghanistan this year versus Chicago. The shooters wont being leaving Lawndale or West Pullman anytime soon in my estimation.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

[QUOTE=Chicago48;326897]Exiled to Chicago from Detroit. We have a big gang problem. These killings & shootings are not domestic, but between hot head gang members. We have a strong mayor and I believe he will put a stop to this. He's trying to bring business to the downtown area, and it won't fly if people are shooting each other.
One thing about Chicago, when you call the police, not one cop car arrives, but about FIVE! They are quick response!

what I'm about to write is going to be considered racist....but the majority of these shootings are between black people [[and some latinos), and the sooner we can move the uneducated, poorer class blacks out of the city the better. When the Housing Dept tore down the projects [[Cabrini-Green, et al), the gangs holed up in the projects scattered to the nicer neighborhoods. Those were the nice neighborhoods of black residents who owned property.This is a problem of absentee landlords and slum landlords letting unknowns rent their apartments, charging Little rent, and too many guns.
You won't read it, but the President's neighborhood of Kenwood is also a war-zone for shootings.[/QUOTE/]

I guess you would have 5 cop cars on the scene in 5 mins. Chicago doesn't have the financial problems Detroit has, and Chicago is 3 times the size of Detroit.

[illwill]

Rahm will continue to do what Chicago has ALWAYS done. And that's sweep the problems under the rug. But it's too late, crime in Chicago is WAY out of control and these young black youths are getting more brash, bolder and they DO NOT fear the cops. You mentioned gangs but more importantly you didn't mention drugs. This is what's fueling the gangs of Chicago.

Rahm is all about making money and he is too selfish to permanently address the problems of crime and drugs in Chicago. Crime has NO boundaries and like you said, as long as these illiterate and hungry wolves are roaming the streets the crime problem will only get worse for Chicago. I laugh when I hear all the yuppies crying about crime once it FINALLY crosses into their "so-called" safe communities. As if crime can only be contained to the ghetto's. How Naive! These yuppies were living in a fantasy world, believing the westside and southside were thousands of miles away, separated by a huge brick wall with CPD keeping them safe. How many times have you heard white people say..."as long as you don't cross Ashland, you'll be safe..." Or "just don't go past Western and you'll be cool dude..." Every year the border is pushed out one major block and it's even made its way to Pulaski in some areas. These racist transplants or suburbanites should have never been in Chicago in the first place. All neighborhoods have good people and crime can breed anywhere. ALL OF THE BIG CITIES IN THE NORTH HAVE HIGH CRIME!

How is Rahm going to clean up crime in Chicago? Better yet, how is he going to force out all of the project based black people before all of the ex-pat Michiganders and Big-10 graduate tax payers decide they're no longer going to put up with this violence. I'd like to hear Rahms plan. And I agree with you again, that Rahm is focused on bring tons of businesses and big money into the city but what's his answer going to be to crime? Because crime is out of pockets in all of Chicago's neighborhoods now. The wolves are hungry and they're going straight to the money source now. The white neighborhoods. There was a shooting in LINCOLN PARK this morning...in the park! Earlier this week an innocent white male dog walker on the northside got his throat slashed by an unknown attacker.

Isn't governor Pat Quinn CLOSING the doors to 2 or 3 maximum security prisons this week? Letting these people return to the dangerous streets of Chicago. My guess is, these convicts now having criminal records, mental health issues, substance abuse addictions, no jobs, limited family support, no money, no support systems and a host of other problems. What kind of life do you think they'll return to? A life of crime in the streets of Chicago. Didn't Pat Quinn just shut down a mental facility in south suburban Tinley Park this week? Isn't the State dead broke and now has THE WORST CREDIT RATING IN THE NATION? Believe me, the roof is going to come down on Chicago UNLESS a Chicago politician and the "smart voters of Illinois [[lol)" decides to finally become a law abiding citizen. And I don't think that's gonna happen.

Detroit has hit bottom or we're very close and we're clawing our way out of the hole. Chicago is heading south like a Boeing 747 airplane out of control. Their problems are just beginning. If you believe otherwise you're fooling yourself.

The good thing about the city of Chicago is that, it's already a world class powerhouse city. Even suffering from a lost decade it's still a monster of a successfully, dominant city throughout the world. It's problems are reversible but are you willing to bet on a sleazy, selfish and slimy Chicago politician? I wouldn't.


But there's a first time for everything...

[jpbollma]

I don't know if this is a popular idea, but why do we not tie all government assistant programs to some achievable goals. If someone doesn't have a diploma they should be forced to get a GED if they want assistance. If they don't have a job they should be forced to do job training. We have so many people who have gone through the system and are illiterate with no job skills. How can we ever address crime if we aren't addressing poverty? I consider myself a fairly liberal person, but I feel these programs are given out with too much ease. Poverty breeds crime, until we address that nothing will change. We also need FAR more law enforcement in the big northern cities. More after school programs. Perhaps require that kids participate in at least one after school program of some type in order to graduate. Keep them off the streets and out of trouble. Trying to ban guns, or sagging pants, or the litany of other idiotic ideas cities have come up with will solve nothing.

[LeannaM]

One thing that annoys me about Chicago is that they compile their crime stats differently, so Detroit and St. Louis are on the most dangerous cities list but Chicago is not. I'm not really convinced that Chicago is as safe as their absence on these lists makes them appear to me. St. Louis is usually on the list partially because the city is so small and half of it is bad neighborhoods, so that throws the numbers off. St. Louis has crime mostly in bad neighborhoods, which is how most cities are. I'm not sure about Detroit or Chicago, as I don't live there. People think Chicago is safer because it's not on the list, not realizing that it could deserve to be on the list, but it's not because of the way it compiles its data. I've heard Chicagoans talk about what a dump St. Louis is, but Chicago has a lot of similar problems, they just have a prettier package overall. When a city is that large it's easy to overlook the bad neighborhoods.

[Occurrence]

The first step in becoming Detroit is having a pointless over-paid city council that accomplishes nothing.

[illwill]

One thing that annoys me about Chicago is that they compile their crime stats differently, so Detroit and St. Louis are on the most dangerous cities list but Chicago is not. I'm not really convinced that Chicago is as safe as their absence on these lists makes them appear to me. St. Louis is usually on the list partially because the city is so small and half of it is bad neighborhoods, so that throws the numbers off. St. Louis has crime mostly in bad neighborhoods, which is how most cities are. I'm not sure about Detroit or Chicago, as I don't live there. People think Chicago is safer because it's not on the list, not realizing that it could deserve to be on the list, but it's not because of the way it compiles its data. I've heard Chicagoans talk about what a dump St. Louis is, but Chicago has a lot of similar problems, they just have a prettier package overall. When a city is that large it's easy to overlook the bad neighborhoods.

Wouldn't you say it's smart marketing done by Chicago? Iffalsifying your crime stats helps with tourism and rankings then why not fudgethe numbers. Half of these stupid rankings are inaccurate anyway and people arestill going to judge your regardless, based on their own experiences. IfDetroit were smarter, they'd do the same thing. I hear New York city fudges thenumbers as well. This is just being smart and doing whatever it takes to makeyour city rise above the others. It’s all about the money at the end of theday. Many of us do it in some form in our own personal lives. How often do yougo around telling everyone your idiosyncrasies and faults? Not very often.Otherwise people would most likely avoid you or maybe look down on you. It's nodifferent for a city.

I call it smart marketing.

[wolverine]

This kind of violence has happened in Lincoln Park as well. Hopefully this is a wake up call to the mayor to hire more police. Everytime the city has put more officers on the street, the violent crime numbers decrease.

The reason residents around here could care less about a gang shooting on Mich ave is because the mobs of kids ccoming from the south and west sides to Chicago station downtown have been causing trouble. So far the police have flexed their muscle against these kids and the problem has decreased but it still remains a concern of area residents

[GoGrixdale]

If someone doesn't have a diploma they should be forced to get a GED if they want assistance.

...or pass a drug test!

I used to think that too.

But if they dont then what? Cut them off? ...making them hungrier? They'll be pulled up by bootstraps alright...yours... wrapped around your neck.

This type of violence and crime will not stop and as posted will "spread" until we really address and redefine education. 6-12 grade is whats really broken IMO.

[Meddle]

Rate of Killings Rises 38 Percent in Chicago in 2012


Yup, Chicago's safe as can be.

[rb336]

Chicago seems to be teflon when it comes to crime - or other social ills [[like ugly architecture -esp. the soldier field tumor, although millenium park is starting to grow on me). Remember the rash of school kid shootings a few years ago?