A Weekend in Chicago: Where Gunfire Is a Terrifying Norm

I used to live in Menlo Park, about a mile from downtown Palo Alto. In the 1980s, I heard automatic weapons fire most weekends from the Whiskey Gulch area of East Palo Alto, the tiny bit of East Palo Alto on the west side of 101. People were complaining at city council meetings of finding bullets on their roof.

This was eventually solved by evicting all the black people, leveling the entire area, and putting in a Four Seasons hotel and several office buildings full of lawyers and doctors.

The modest house I lived in is now valued at $2.9 million.