Chicago isn't particularly more violent than other places, that's a meme propagated by the President because he hasn't paid attention to real news in decades.
The police department however has had numerous scandals.
The police department however has had numerous scandals.
It is worth noting that, earlier this year, when property crime briefly became popular in certain rich areas, the response of the city government was to deepen segregation by raising the bridges over the Chicago river, which serves as a boundary between the poor south/west and the rich north. Chicago's inequality problem is more serious than its crime problem.
But I'd contest that the bridges that separate the Loop from the rest of city is symbolic as a divide between rich and poor. Plenty of the near west side across the river is affluent, as are the near west suburbs, and the lower north side. It's remarkable how much of the violence (especially homicides) are concentrated to East and West Garfield Park outside the south side where it's less concentrated. Raising the bridges doesn't really inconvenience anyone but commuters going between the Loop, West Loop, and River North. The bridges were raised to prevent looting of the store fronts, not stop violent crime. I wouldn't compare the boarding up of stores in Emeryville at the same time as symptoms of the divide between rich and poor in the east bay.
All that said, the violence is much better today than it was even a few years ago, and orders of magnitude improved over 30 years ago. Though there is debate whether crime was reduced or just spread out to the suburbs after the demolition of housing projects like Cabrini Green.
And while property crime and violent crime are separate to a degree, I think the city's response says a lot. My experience in Chicago is that the police are more interested in keeping crime contained than truly eliminating it.
This is pretty silly. The highways were open between the north and south sides (I crossed the river the next day without issue); they were only isolating the hardest hit commercial districts to dissuade more damage. It wasn’t some ploy by our Black mayor to increase racial segregation.