another day, another mass shooting

iaparent
Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:06:01 +0000

The comments about St. Louis and Atlanta being more than just the “city of” can be said about Chicago as well and that is my issue. Obviously the city of Chicago is what gets trotted out when all of the discussion comes up around gun violence so a comparison to the city of St. Louis makes sense. What gets lost is that Chicago, as large as it is, can easily be broken up, the same way, without even speaking to suburbs.

West Garfield Park (Chicago defined neighborhood) had 139 murders per 100,000 residents and Lincoln Park had 1.5 per 100,000 residents. These neighborhoods are less than 5 miles apart (as the crow flies) less than half the distance between St. Louis and Town & Country. Hermosa has 0 murders per 100,000 and is less than 3 miles from West Garfield Park.

It comes back to the fact that it is never reported how isolated the gun violence is in Chicago, the entire city takes the bad rap. There are 14 neighborhoods with over 50 murders per 100,000 residents and there are 19 neighborhoods with 0 murders per 100,000. Overall the neighborhood at the midpoint is 11.9 murders per 100,000 residents which breaks down to about 0.01% of residents are killed at the midpoint; I would say overall the city of Chicago is safer than many, as long as you avoid 15-20 neighborhoods.