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Comment by kolbe | Hacker News Reader

You simply did not live in a bad neighborhood by American standards. The worst neighborhoods in Chicago have murder rates far worse than Brazil as a country. For example Brazil has an intentional homicide rate around 30, whereas Chicago has 26 neighborhoods higher, with the most dangerous one, Engelwood, topping out at 172. To put that in context, the world's most dangerous city is Caracas at 120.

http://www.chicagonow.com/getting-real/2017/07/chicagos-safe...

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Comparing a Chicago neighborhood to a South American city seems a little disingenuous.

It might be more appropriate to compare the most violent neighborhood in Chicago to the most violent neighborhood in a similarly-sized Venezuelan city. Just as you would compare the safest neighborhoods in both cities.

Venezuelan here. I was gonna make the same point.

Imagine how bad Caracas is, given that the population is roughly the same (or a little larger than Chicago's). There are no official numbers for Caracas as the government "chose" not to report. But Chicago has a 15.65 murde rate vs. a +110 in Caracas (per 100 000).

I don't even want to think what's the rate for the equivalent of Engelwood in Caracas :(

Exactly. The murder rate in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city was in the 50's. It has recently dropped to 6.1 per 100,000 residents and is quite safe.

So the city is in some cases MORE safe than the less urban areas, the main reason for this drop was a drop in gang violence based on the consolidation and dominant victory of a single gang. That gang is the PCC.

In areas where multiple gangs are still fighting for control the violence can be incredible.

"to put that into context" -me

I was giving context of what that number means. Not claiming Chicago is more violent than Caracas.

At one point during the US military involvement in Afghanistan you were more likely to get murdered in Chicago than get killed in active combat.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/09/08/homici...

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