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Is Chicago slowly dying?

batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
edited July 2013 in Strut Central
Sayin'

I grew up in the Crack Era and the latter half of the fading NYC gang era of the mid-late -70's.

This Chicago shit is extra bananas.
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  Comments

  • covecove 1,566 Posts
    46 ppl shot in 72 hours this past weekend?!
    Crazy/horrible
  • JectWonJectWon (@_@) 1,654 Posts
    Yeah, it's really sad. The reports I've read and seen all suggest that most of the gangs represent virtually nothing but their neighborhood...in other words; the gangs aren't really that concerned with profit. Where gangs historically might battle it out for turf to slang drugs, these dudes are just fucking each other up for the sake of fucking each other up. Little to no hierarchy, little to no rhyme or reason to who gets killed...not that those would justify the death.

    I'm not sure if that is accurate or not, just what I've read on the issue.
  • ppadilhappadilha 2,236 Posts
    anyone seen this film? I think it's on Netflix now:



    It's about a group that's been trying to prevent gang violence in Chicago by stopping the cycle of revenge that usually fuels these murders. Been meaning to watch it but haven't worked up the courage really, it looks pretty intense. By the same guy who did Hoop Dreams, among other amazing docs.
  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    Doesn't Chicago have strict gun control laws?

    b/w

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/05/16/more-talk-less-violence-helping-chicagos-at-risk-youth/

    More Talk, Less Violence: Helping Chicago???s At-Risk Youth

    Weekly counseling helped teenage boys in some of Chicago???s most dangerous neighborhoods do better in school and get into trouble less, a new paper says.


    White House/Pete Souza
    President Barack Obama listens during a B.A.M. (???Becoming a Man???) roundtable at Hyde Park Career Academy in Chicago, Ill.Researchers at the University of Chicago???s Crime Lab, who published their findings in a working paper this month through the National Bureau of Economic Research, said violent-crime arrests for participants dropped 44%, to 10 per 100 students, from 18 per 100 students, from 2009 to 2010 ??? the year the program was studied. The rate didn???t register another notable decline the next year, when researchers followed up with students.

    Researchers said students in the program also failed fewer classes and skipped school less. They extrapolated that such improvement in turn could push up graduation rates.

    ???What???s remarkable is that with light-touch intervention, we see really surprisingly massive behavioral changes, especially on violent crime, but even on the school side,??? said Jens Ludwig, a professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Crime Lab. ???This population of disadvantaged teens is a population most people have just given up on???The social energy is being spent on early- childhood education.???

    The findings challenge the notion that the most effective interventions with at-risk individuals are targeted at very young children. But ???there is no empirical consensus,??? on this question, said Grover Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. ???This Chicago study shows that you can get considerable impact from interventions later on.???

    Although promising, the program isn???t necessarily a ???magic bullet for low-income minority youth facing obstacles,??? Mr. Whitehurst cautioned. But ???it has an impact and that impact is cost-effective.???

    The program, called ???Becoming A Man,??? costs about $1,100 per student, Mr. Ludwig said. It is run by two Chicago non-profits: Youth Guidance and World Sport Chicago.

    The University of Chicago Crime Lab team studied almost 3,000 minority youth, half of whom participated in Becoming A Man at 18 Chicago public schools.

    B.A.M. participants ranged from seventh-graders to 10th-graders. They met in groups of 15 or so for an hour or two a week, sitting in a circle with counselors, who talked with them about their lives and emphasized values such as integrity and responsibility. Counselors also coached participants to reflect before acting, particularly when facing dangerous situations in their daily lives. In the activities segment, counselors organized students not in traditional sports but ones where they were all beginners, such as archery and rugby.

    Anthony Ramirez-Di Vittorio, a Youth Guidance counselor who helped develop the program, attributed part of B.A.M.???s success to its ???high coolness??? factor. When coming up with the format, ???I was always thinking??? how to engage these youth so they would want to hang out with me,??? he said.

    The program???s design makes it feel ???authentic,??? to participants, said Michelle Adler Morrison, chief executive of Youth Guidance. ???These young men we???re working with are dealing with a lot of stress, both physical and emotional, and are feeling threatened??? We???re creating a safe haven during the school day that changes their relationship with school.???

    The students entered the program with much ground to make up. More than one-third had been arrested at least once and many frequently skipped school. Their grade-point average was about a 1.7, or a D+, on a 4.0 scale. The Crime Lab researchers found that B.A.M. participants got 16.5% fewer failing grades during the first year of the study and 21% fewer Fs during the follow-up year.

    School attendance improved and the researchers extrapolated that participation in B.A.M. could raise Chicago public schools??? four-year graduation rates between three and 10 percentage points from an average of 51%.

    Although B.A.M.???s effects are still being evaluated, the program has drawn some high-profile allies. In February, President Barack Obama sat in on a B.A.M. circle, just a week after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city would triple its funding for the program to $3 million. In his campaign to curb youth violence, the mayor also is tapping the private sector, through the Public Safety Action Committee. The panel, which was formed in April, is led by Allstate Corp. Chief Executive Tom Wilson and Loop Capital CEO Jim Reynolds. The group is deputized with raising $50 million to fund programs such as B.A.M.

    The Public Safety Action Committee is well on its way to the fund-raising goal, Mr. Reynolds said, and is ???building an infrastructure to administer the funds.??? The panel has issued a call for proposals and expects to start evaluating and funding programs before the summer, he said: ???We want this money to be in the hands of the organizations that will impact these youth.???

    The B.A.M. program itself continues to be studied by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. During the most recent school year, researchers found that combining B.A.M. with daily tutoring had a stronger effect on students??? behavior, grades and absenteeism.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Terrible.
  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    Vice did a pretty good piece on Chicargo recently - Scary how fucked up things have gotten there.
  • motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
    The current violence is in part a result of actual good law enforcement. The cops rounded up a lot of the gang leaders and threw them in jail. The gangs then splintered into small little factions, which are now shooting shit up. That being said, Chicago is my favorite place to visit. Great records, great food, and great people, so I would say no, Chicago is not dying. I grew up with the crack era as well, and it ain't that bad.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    motown67 said:
    The current violence is in part a result of bad drug laws.

    Fixed

    b/w

    No, no I see your point, just saying.

    b/w

    The current violence is in part a result of lack of opportunity.
  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    I was there in October.

    Seemed alive to me.

    Loved it. Can't wait to go back.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I want to go back too.
    Great town.
    Went to a Sox's game last time I was there.
    Cubs were out of town.
  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    motown67 said:
    The current violence is in part a result of bad drug laws.

    Fixed

    b/w

    No, no I see your point, just saying.

    b/w

    The current violence is in part a result of lack of opportunity.
    Y'all should watch the Vice doc I posted, it sums the problems up pretty succinctly. Many places suffer from the issues listed above, without having the violence level Chicargo has.

    One of the most fucked up things the doc brought to light was the fact that several of the hospitals have stopped accepting gun shot victims because they're costing too much to treat. When shit like that happens, you just know the situation is wholly rotten to the core.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    NYC turned this shit around, why can't Chicago?

    Is Rahm Emanuel dropping the ball?
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    I'd submit that the problems in Chicago are not really comparable to NYC in any real way.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    I'd submit that the problems in Chicago are not really comparable to NYC in any real way.

    I'd submit that the problems the South Bronx were not comparable to the problems in Bed Stuy or the Lower East Side etc etc.

    Is Chicago impossible to fix for some reason?
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    I'd submit that the problems in Chicago are not really comparable to NYC in any real way.

    I'd submit that the problems the South Bronx were not comparable to the problems in Bed Stuy or the Lower East Side etc etc.

    Is Chicago impossible to fix for some reason?

    You really think the problems of the South Bronx and those of say Alphabet City had nothing in common? Or you're being sarcastic?

    Chicago's issues are the result of decades of policy, or lack thereof, a lot of which is unique to Chicago. There are no good answers.
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    NYC never had this shit.
  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    Batmon stays trollin'! Although I am okay with the, Is _________ slowly dying? thread format.

    The gang violence is insane yet many Chicagoans are insulated from it in their day-to-day. I don't pretend to have the answers but less easy access to illegal firearms among youth and felons would be a hell of a start. Conceal-and-carry is expected to be the law of the land next year but it seems to me that the people doing the killing - and being killed - already have been tooled up. Unless you are counting innocents taken down in the crossfire and far be it from me to suggest 15-year-old girls should be armed, and I'm not even trying to be flippant. It's a scary world out there.
  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    NYC turned this shit around, why can't Chicago?

    Is Rahm Emanuel dropping the ball?

    NYC did it by adopting the racial profiling technique known as Stop and Frisk.

    Are Chicago's so-called minorities prepared to give up some (more) of their civil liberties?
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Bon Vivant said:
    Horseleech said:
    NYC turned this shit around, why can't Chicago?

    Is Rahm Emanuel dropping the ball?

    NYC did it by adopting the racial profiling technique known as Stop and Frisk.

    Are Chicago's so-called minorities prepared to give up some (more) of their civil liberties?

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Bon Vivant said:
    Horseleech said:
    NYC turned this shit around, why can't Chicago?

    Is Rahm Emanuel dropping the ball?

    NYC did it by adopting the racial profiling technique known as Stop and Frisk.

    I think it was a little more complicated than that.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Jonny_Paycheck said:
    There are no good answers.

    People said the same about NYC.

    Sorry, I don't buy it.
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Bon Vivant said:
    Horseleech said:
    NYC turned this shit around, why can't Chicago?

    Is Rahm Emanuel dropping the ball?

    NYC did it by adopting the racial profiling technique known as Stop and Frisk.

    Are Chicago's so-called minorities prepared to give up some (more) of their civil liberties?

    Guliani did not have a concentrated, well festering gang problem in NYC.
  • DelayDelay 4,530 Posts
    Chicago has a 50 year old gang culture imbedded in its history. Nothing on the east coast can be compared.
  • soupsoup 69 Posts
    I always feel like a chump bringing up NPR but the recent This American Life about Chicago gang violence was pretty bugged...

    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/488/harper-high-school-part-two?act=2
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    Delay said:
    Chicago has a 50 year old gang culture imbedded in its history. Nothing on the east coast can be compared.

    T**, I respect you. But this goes back to the 1800's on the East Coast. Each successive wave of immigrants had to fight against the previous group to earn and own the lowest levels of manual labor. That is the nature of our system. I could tell you the tales of Irish immigrants fighting on the docks in Boston to the death, but it is the same story as the Italians fighting with the Irish. Or the Black people fighting the Italians. Or the current wave of South American immigrants fighting the Mexicans. It's like we're a worldwide gang. Blood in, blood out. Chicago is different in the fact that it is not about that. It's about blood. Full stop. And I don't exactly know why or how how it can be fixed.
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    DB_Cooper said:
    Delay said:
    Chicago has a 50 year old gang culture imbedded in its history. Nothing on the east coast can be compared.

    T**, I respect you. But this goes back to the 1800's on the East Coast. Each successive wave of immigrants had to fight against the previous group to earn and own the lowest levels of manual labor. That is the nature of our system. I could tell you the tales of Irish immigrants fighting on the docks in Boston to the death, but it is the same story as the Italians fighting with the Irish. Or the Black people fighting the Italians. Or the current wave of South American immigrants fighting the Mexicans. It's like we're a worldwide gang. Blood in, blood out. Chicago is different in the fact that it is not about that. It's about blood. Full stop. And I don't exactly know why or how how it can be fixed.

    This Chicago shit is passed down to generations with no ending in sight.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    batmon said:
    NYC never had this shit.

    I thought you lived here?

    In 1990 the NYC murder rate was almost double what it is in Chicago right now.
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    soup said:
    I always feel like a chump bringing up NPR but the recent This American Life about Chicago gang violence was pretty bugged...

    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/488/harper-high-school-part-two?act=2

    That shit was gut wrenching, and incredible radio. I totally endorse this product and event... a gruelling two hours.
  • vintageinfantsvintageinfants 4,537 Posts
    cove said:
    46 ppl shot in 72 hours this past weekend?!
    Crazy/horrible

    that doesn't sound like slowly dying to me.
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    Delay said:
    Chicago has a 50 year old gang culture imbedded in its history. Nothing on the east coast can be compared.

    And they locked up all the leaders so its a bunch of teenagers with a surplus of guns.
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