Not at all, it's structural problem. I've seen this in LA as well and it's the number one reason I left. Since I lack the personal capacity to fix LA, I no longer live there.
If anything if you live in a city or a nation where unemployment is rampant , you just need to leave. Not worry about what the government is going to do to fix it.
I'm voiding the HN policy and assuming bad faith since you either lack the empathy to see that not everyone is able to "just leave" or you have an agenda to make this a talking point. I'm hoping it is the later.
Wondering where your bad faith come from.
Back in the old days where I live in China, there were plenty of situations where people had no other way to engage the economy, and had to be lazy. They gamble, they prostitute, they murder as well. The government was absolutely powerless to do anything, simply because they had no whatever resources to fix those. Then people just left. Look at what's happening in China's north east provinces. Same situation.
What I am getting at is trying to figure out which city minimizes the types of "idiots" you are referring to and i'm finding that no city is really like that. Every city has these kinds of problems to some extent as well as positive aspects.
Maybe you just like a smaller city? ~2-3 vs ~12 million is a big difference.
Chicago is also huge- maybe you just got lucky in making your move?