I have to say America just seems like a dreadful mess.
People have no clue how large and diverse the place is and are always generalizing.
and I have very rarely come across police misbehaving the way I read here or even come across violent street crimes. I am sure it occurs though as the films love portraying the extreme scenarios but the ordinary person isn't scared for his/her life or safety.
For example New Hampshire has a murder rate much lower than Serbia, England, or France. It is more on lines with Germany.
Also, everyone collects murder states differently. The US usually publishes states from the FBI, whose logic is basically "there is a dead body and it looks like someone else did it". The UK, on the other hand, has the Home Office publish murder rates in terms of convictions, which necessarily will be less than the number of bodies.
(http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/t...)
So, I'm thinking, branchless' thought process probably goes something like this... "If Chicago is this bad with crime and corruption... what must the rest of the US be like???"
Having mentioned that, other people are correct as well to point out that not ALL places will have the same level of corruption. Many, many places have far more corruption and crime than Chicago. And many, many places have far less corruption and crime than Chicago. But if you are from Western Europe, the mean level of corruption here in the US may be discomfiting to you.
It's Chicago HEIGHTS, IL.
Different city.
And EAST Chicago, IN.
Different STATE.
You have to be careful when you read these lists. For instance, there are a lot of Pine Bluffs in the United States, so you want to be sure that you talk about the right one when discussing murder rates.
But even if you only count the murder rate...
Chicago... the Chicago that we're discussing on this thread... would not make the list of the top 30 as is plainly evident.
there are far, far worse places than Chicago in the US. Lots of them. And there are far, far better places than Chicago in the US. Lots of them.
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/29/5850100/chicago-brought-its-mur...
But why stop at the title?
> they find evidence that while Chicago reported 414 murders in 2013 they really had at least 432 through what, if you read the article (and you should) looks like pretty deliberate malfeasance.
> For example, Patrick Walker was found injured and unresponsive in a crashed automobile, taken to a hospital where he died, then during an autopsy they found a gunshot wound in his head and a bullet casing in the back seat of the car. Owing to the fact that he was clearly shot and killed, this was filed on his death certificate as a murder. But the Chicago Police Department has classified the case as a death investigation, making it disappear from their stats.
But that part of America is shockingly isolated from the rest of us. Chicago is a great example. There are blocks where on side of an intersection it's gang territory and the other is totally safe.
There are huge swaths of Chicago that are rich, peaceful, and probably the best city living in America. There are also huge swaths of pure poverty and gang warfare.
If you are born on the right side of the tracks, it's a great place. If you aren't, well, good luck.
This is absolutely not true. Have you ever lived in an inner city? Yes some people are fighting with each other but if you act respectfully, you'll be left alone.
The police aren't cracking down because they "have to". They're cracking down (e.g. stop and frisk) because they're power hungry and ignorant.
As someone who's lived in all manner of socioeconomic areas of the US, I would say without hesitation that the biggest problem here is the cost of healthcare, education and housing. NOT any segment of the population.
I've lived in downtown areas of Chicago and DC, but never what people mean when they say "inner city" (i.e. ghetto).
They won't leave you alone. They'll rob you or break into your car. Criminals murder and steal from the people who live there at alarming rates.
They don't really leave the ghetto (other than one summer when kids did flash mobs in Chicago). So I could live in Chicago and feel entirely safe.
But last time I spent time in Englewood--a woman I was meeting with had her car broken into within 15minutes of parking on a major intersection.
>As someone who's lived in all manner of socioeconomic areas of the US, I would say without hesitation that the biggest problem here is the cost of healthcare, education and housing.
These are extremely middle class problems. Most people don't need or want a post-secondary education. 85% people have healthcare coverage. Housing is only bad in a few upper middle class areas.
No "they" won't. Sorry your friend's car got broken into but that happens everywhere, not just the inner city.
> 85% people have healthcare coverage.
Pretty sure it's not the middle class that's not insured. Also rent prices absolutely are a poor problem. That's what gentrification is all about.
I moved to Brooklyn from Texas last June. Moved to a part of Crown Heights that my coworkers said was probably fine. Kind of on the edge of where things get genuinely sketchy.
Yes, I'm from Texas, and I'm white. My GF says I'm the whitest person she's ever dated by far. Not sure what that means, but apparently I stick out like a sore thumb of white-ness. Maybe that's some of it. I don't know.
But the guys at the corner grocery/deli/convenience stores wouldn't sell anything to me. Not even water. There were a lot of gunshots on the block in the evenings. I really hated walking home after working late--and it being a startup I was working for, that was almost every night.
At the end of my second week there, I was up on the roof of the building having a smoke (because I was tired of being harassed by everyone in the neighborhood when I would go smoke out on the stoop, and I just wanted to smoke a damn smoke without having to talk or listen to anyone) a couple of cops walked up to a guy (guess what color his skin was), chatted with him for a minute or so and then shot him. Twice in the torso, and then after he was on the ground, once in the face. Right in front of my place. When the crime report got to the news, it was literally my address they used when they said, "A man was shot last night just outside #xxx Troy Ave. in Crown Heights"
That, at least somewhat understandably, pissed the neighborhood off. For a week after that, thugs were stabbing people coming off the 4 train at Franklin during rush hour. Just stabbing white people. Not even mugging them. I was getting off two stops from there and ubering home for the remaining week I lived there before I moved to a different place.
A place that has about the same racial makeup. I'm still in the minority by a long shot. But the culture is entirely different, and a much happier place. A mere 2.8 miles from where I was living. NYC is such a weird place.
I am not a jerk to anyone, and I'm not the racist you might think I am because I'm from Texas. I had a remarkably multi-cultural upbringing, considering where I grew up. But the reality is that there are places where simply being white can get you in trouble.
Please understand I'm not complaining about this. The fact of the matter is that there are far fewer places in this country where being white can get you in trouble than there are places where being black can get you in trouble. I get that, and I'm not all that upset about it. Except for the cops shooting the guy for apparently no reason. That part does upset me.
My point is that you are simply wrong with your assertions that all you have to do is "respect the neighborhood" or whatever. That's bad advice for very many people.
That being said, I have experienced something like the racial tension you say happened after that incident. It was scary but in the end I was safe partially because I made the time to get to know the people who lived around me. Not even hanging out get to know, just nod when you walk by.
If you're a good member of the community, the community will work to protect you if it can. You absolutely do need to keep your wits about you and be street safe though. I admit that's definitely not for everyone.
I was a good member of the community in the sense that I paid rent on time, I helped my elderly neighbors get their groceries up the steps and into the house.
But I don't want to hang out with anyone. I am not a particularly sociable person. I'm an extreme introvert. I play the violin and write code.
I'm not going to hang out with the local people in the neighborhood and smoke weed with them because I'm on probation for a DUI, and any interaction with drugs or alcohol could land me in state prison in Texas for 18 months.
What exactly is it that you mean when you say be a "good member of the community"?
I don't think it's particularly good advice to tell people that they're safe in bad neighborhoods as long as they're "respectful".
Ask people who bike from the loop to Oak Park if they've ever been fucked with in Lawndale. I have a friend who was ambushed and knocked off his bike right by Garfield Park.
I have never been mugged in Lakeview. I have been mugged in Austin.
Dangerous neighborhoods aren't a classist myth. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that part of "respecting" the poorer neighborhoods is not pretending like you can walk in front of a crowd of young men hanging out on a corner as if you have just as much a right to be there as they do.
One thing that is for sure, young black teens/men have a much, much more dangerous time of it, regardless of neighborhood than anyone else, and that is tragic.
And while we are adding anecdotes to the thread, I've lived in a "bad" neighborhood on Chicago's South Side for over a decade and I've never had a single violent incident (property crime has occurred). In that same span I was attacked in Lincoln Park and Streeterville, and had an attempted bicycle incident near McCormick Place.
I routinely walk in front of crowds of young men hanging on corners (its daily for me as I pass by a couple of schools) and have never had an incident (and I in fact know many of those young men). But there are also neighborhoods less than a mile away where I would not be comfortable doing that.
You don't think those two things might be related?
> But its also true that the actual incident rate is much exaggerated by the media and perceptions of neighborhood differences are greater than reality.
"Reality" is a tricky concept here. Public (out-of-neighborhood) perception of risk will depress the incident rate by keeping victims out of the area. If you magically caused people to believe that the risk was at some level that you felt reflected the current incident rate, and the incident rate rose because people started going where they shouldn't have, whose beliefs were more accurate?
People don't really care about "how often do muggings take place in this neighborhood?". They care about "if I go in there, am I going to get mugged?".
Also, can we all agree that we'd feel a lot less safe in Wrigleyville after a Cubs game than anywhere else in the city?
Edit -> forgot LoganSq!!!
Well this is part of what I mean by treating people respectfully. As an outsider I always respected that the locals "owned" the neighborhood. You have to be cognizant of the local culture and try not to clash with it.
Any neighborhood can be "dangerous". I'm pretty sure you're more likely to get in a car wreck in the suburbs than mugged in the inner city. Just as you have to practice safe driving in the suburbs, you have to be careful of different things in the inner city.
interesting that this is the same social dynamic that police create in less poor neighborhoods, almost as if the poorer areas were filling some sort of tribal, no-outsiders-aloud enforcement role that the police generally fill, but have neglected these areas.
And I'd regard that as a total failure. It's sad. It was the new land and here we are thanks to the lack of land value tax with the very rich and a large underclass with little social mobility.