McDonald's CEO sounds the alarm over crime in Chicago
cnn.com
cnn.com
That's certainly the case for McDonalds Corporate, which has its headquarters in the heavily-patrolled, maximally gentrified West Loop. Nobody who works in McDonalds HQ is worried about crime near their building.
Where crime in Chicago is a real problem is in the south and west sides of the city, where white people don't live. Those areas are playing out a slow motion mechanistic tragedy set in motion a century ago when they were redlined, sliced in half by the Dan Ryan, evacuated by white people, and disinvested. A map of Chicago violent crime is, roughly, a map of redlining.
The city can make no excuses for this. It's an ongoing human tragedy running at a scale that is hard to get your head around. At the same time, it's hard to take the CEO of McDonalds seriously, because the crime problem in Chicago is mostly segregated away from him and people like him (and me).
> “We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants … we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants,” he said. “So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what’s happening in society at large.”
> “It’s more difficult today for me to convince a promising McDonald’s executive to relocate to Chicago from one of our other offices than it was just a few years ago,” he said. “It’s more difficult for me to recruit a new employee to McDonald’s, to join us in Chicago than it was in the past.”
> And when it comes to returning to the office, he said, “one of the things that I hear from our employees [is] … ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to come downtown.’”
> Kempczinski pointed to several high-profile corporate departures from the city, including Boeing, Caterpilllar and Citadel, which all recently announced plans to relocate their headquarters. He said that mayors and governors from other cities and states have reached out to McDonald’s to consider doing the same.
Certainly, violent crime is happening in McDonalds restaurants. There are McDonalds all over the place in the south and west sides of Chicago. I'm sure homelessness is a problem in all their restaurants. Note that he brought that up, because it's a tell: Chicago's crime problem has zero to do with homelessness (that might not be the case in other cities, but it isn't here.)
If you don't have an actual solution for the impacts of redlining in Chicago, you don't have a crime solution. Chicago has tried everything short of that. It's broken up the major gangs; we got a nightmare of tiny little idiot gangs. It's flooded the zone in Englewood and Austin; you can suppress crime for a time, but it just squeezes into other neighborhoods.
Are you saying that the crime he refers to is not as bad as he makes it seem?
What does HQ have to do with his comments that the restaurants are dangerous?
> empczinski said that McDonald's (MCD) restaurants in the city are suffering,
> "We have violent crime that's happening in our restaurants ... we're seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We're having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants," he said. "So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what's happening in society at large."
Sounds like he's addressing more than HQ in his assertions.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-is-raising-wages-b...
I was unable in 5 minutes to find out how many of that 5% is in the Chicago area.
† Except to the extent that the police won't give chase in Chicago, just like pretty much every other major city, since police chases were killing innocent bystanders on the regular before they were essentially banned everywhere.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/chicago-police-sta...
I don't know what the loop is, but could probably find Lincoln Park, but in general looks like you could use official data to disprove the claim: https://data.cityofchicago.org/widgets/dfnk-7re6?mobile_redi...
I grew up in Chicago, many of my family and friends still live there. I would categorize your experience as both atypical and extremely privileged. You should hesitate before extrapolating.
The original comment just says the cops refused to chase... which you yourself acknowledge as likely in a child comment. If you believe that carjackings happen and that the police are unlikely to chase, I'm not sure what else there is to deny.
That is, other than the implicit challenge to the idea of an extremely safe gentrified Chicago. Violent crime doesn't only happen in Englewood. There's a pretty wide range of neighborhoods between Garfield Park and Edgebrook.
I did some Googling and found this 2013 policy order: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/2018-...
TL;DR: Pursuits are only authorized, if at all, in the case of violent felonies or when there's immediate risk to public safety. See section IV.
Moreover, even if a pursuit is authorized, the rules stipulate that they have to break off the chase if there's a risk to public safety. (This is also stated in the above order.) And as compared to years prior and oh-so-many-famous car chases in California, tolerance for the risks in car chases has plummeted. (If we're being cynical, mostly out of concern for the criminal, not the public; or at least concern regarding the ire of criminal rights advocates whenever a chase results in the death or injury of the suspect.) For example,
> Officers responded to a call Sunday evening of a Tenderloin robbery and auto theft, but were forced to end their pursuit when the suspects began driving the stolen vehicle in an erratic and dangerous manner.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/tenderloin-vehicle...
People complain about, e.g., "chilling effects" on legitimate free speech rights stemming from policies designed to restrain unprotected speech. Well, all manner of policies can have "chilling effects", sweeping more broadly in practice than they were intended. Such effects are modulated by various norms. In San Francisco a growing chorus of people (across the political and social spectrum) are complaining about cops failing in an unprecedented manner to investigate, detain, arrest, or otherwise enforce laws as dictated by formal policies (i.e. excluding cases where city policy clearly required abstention), and to the extent it's true (some of it is demonstrably true), part of that is because the political culture in SF causes police to be excessively risk-averse regarding modern reform policies. If you follow seemingly inconspicuously, or your pursuit nominally meets policy but things go sideways, that's your job on the line, and cops enjoy much less deference administratively than in other cities--certainly the DA, but even the Mayor and Police Chief in SF are less tolerant of cops who create controversy, whether or not negligent.) The situation in Chicago might be similar to some extent, especially as of the past couple years.
The new equilibrium might still be preferable, or if not there may be ways to reach a better equilibrium without revisiting sins of the past, but this sub-thread began from you saying that you didn't believe a poster who claimed a police officer deliberately abstained from pursuing a suspect getting away by car. You apparently believed such events are so rare as to be fictitious. But they absolutely do occur, with increasing frequency, and in no small degree driven by changes in formal policy. Maybe the poster is being misleading, but on its face nothing about it seems implausible; quite the contrary.
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/09/man-charged-murder-robbery-ch...
Everywhere in the US maybe. I couldn't imagine normalizing this sort of behavior. Peace is definitely a huge blessing that many people take for granted.
It's a big city. People get mugged here. I'm not claiming otherwise.
But when people talk about out-of-control Chicago crime, they're talking about the shootings, 100%. This isn't San Francisco. There isn't a narrative about crime here where like, nobody can operate a Walgreens here because of organized shoplifting rings (I'm sure they exist!), or out-of-control homeless tent encampments and street drug use. The narrative here is gangs randomly and prolifically shooting people in gang squabbles.
And that narrative plays out in Lawndale, Austin, Garfield Park, Englewood, Grand Crossing, and Chatham, not Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Logan Square, and Bucktown.
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/09/four-months-after-being-shot-...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/10/more-than-50-shots-fired-outs...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/10/online-sale-meet-ups-turn-int...
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/03/woman-72-shot-while-walking-i...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/10/boy-16-critically-wounded-in-...
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/05/robbers-who-shot-a-man-in-lin...
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/08/man-who-killed-partygoer-at-l...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/02/7-teen-accused-of-shooting-dr...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/woman-shot-during-a-robbery-b...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/03/shots-fired-near-mayors-home-...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/08/2-shot-outside-diversey-river...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/10/video-shows-wicker-park-mass-...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/bucktown-restaurant-owner-is-...
https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/shots-fired-during-bucktown-r...
Your theory that the existance of white people in an area establishes an anti-violence forcefield is not sound.
Also Lakeview is not a "white neighaborhood"
• White 77.6% • Black 4% • Hispanic 8.6% • Asian 6.9% • Other 2.9%
You get that I've, like, been to Lakeview a bunch, right? Like, I used to live there? My favorite bar in the world is there? I never know, when I'm talking to people on HN, if Chicago is an abstraction to them and they're just trying to pull facts out of Google or whatever.
Let's grant these are the sole and entire reasons for crime. This historical analysis is entirely and fully correct.
What does it imply, going forward? What is the solution?
Fwiw I’ve talked to some very in the know locals, one who owned a ton of liquor stores all around those parts, and the common knowledge is that the police basically don’t have any control and won’t engage on just about anything. It’s essentially run by gangs at this point.
At the same time, there are drug corners all over the west side; there's a gas station in Humboldt Park on my commute that is occasionally an open-air drug market, with dealers literally out in the street doing traffic control. I'm sure that's shocking and upsetting to very in-the-know west siders who own liquor stores. Will CPD really engage over small groups of people selling heroin on a corner? No, I doubt it: I see the same groups day after day on my drive into the office.
Those parts of the city are not safe to be in. It's not OK that there are parts of the city that are not safe to be in. I'm not making excuses. But that absolutely does not describe the area around the McDonalds HQ, or, for that matter, almost anywhere in Chicago that middle/upper-middle class white people live.
I was mugged about ten 8 years ago on a Friday night by three people after they cornered me and threatened to shoot me if I did anything stupid. After they stole my stuff, I went into the nearest Cheesies and called the cops. The group that mugged me told me they'd shoot me if I called them, but meh. They took took a police report, and that was that.
Even though they knew my phone was stolen, they didn't do anything like what they did for you, nor even attempt to. I ended up keeping the phone activated for about 48 hours so I could figure out who had my phone with the hopes that I could my stolen stuff back. The person who stole the phone called a lot of people in that time: their parole officer, an HIV specialist, family. Tried to pass that info onto the police and they wouldn't take it. Parole officer refused to even listen.
So I submitted some FOIAs for the camera footage of the area -- it was right off the red line at Sheffield and Belmont: no footage they said. When I called the investigator who told me that the investigation was suspended and they weren't looking into it anymore (not shocking). But I still persisted on the call to try to get some semblance of traction to get my stuff back and asked why there was no POD footage -- investigator said it moves randomly and didn't catch me getting mugged. Not sure I buy that, but whatever.
To get me off the call, the investigator asked if I had anything to drink the night I was mugged. I said I had a beer about four hours earlier. He used that as a means to say that anything I said about that night was unreliable and then ended the call.
Central and South America and Africa are notorious for having weak policing and high crime.
Meanwhile those famous Nordic and European countries that some like to think prove the softer on crime hypothesis happen to be completely homogenous, low population and high wealth areas. And of those same places that do have bigger cities with less wealth and homogeneity, there's big problems with crime.
Even within the US tougher on crime correlates with less crime once you control for a few things.
Tough on crime -> more people in prison -> criminals are treated like dogs -> significantly more likely to reoffend upon release, and thus we have a cycle.
It's often interesting how much wisdom there is tucked away in simple, old, folky sayings that one only appreciates much later. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."
As an outsider, I suspect the lack of meaningful accountability for police allows them to be both excessively violent and not actually any good at preventing crime. It's a notoriously corrupt city: https://news.wttw.com/2022/05/11/three-peat-chicago-ranks-no... . Of course, the McDonald's CEO isn't going to call out this kind of crime, even though it's arguably responsible for allowing the other kind of crime.
I don't think I can offer any solutions other than the long grinding work of local politics. There are solutions available (e.g. Glasgow's long notorious gang problem was addressed by the Violence Reduction Unit, which offers a successful strategy), but probably not the will to use them. Like Russia, you can't win a war if the first priority of too many administrators is stealing from the system.
I do think school voucher programs is a promising direction, but like anything that becomes a pawn in the culture war, it becomes difficult to discuss it without FUD.
Can’t take him sincerely. He states his motivation in the article but it’s easily buried in insincere fluff and more than enough victim blaming. It’s clear he wants corporate employees back in the office, and wants to frame crime as the reason for that not meeting his preferred expectations. But crime, which he speaks of the same as overdosing and homelessness “issues” are what he’s addressing, rather than actual reasons people don’t want to work in his corporate offices. And more importantly to me, rather than addressing the real suffering homeless people and addicts are experiencing and real solutions to help them.
But why are you addressing your problems with what he’s addressing instead of addressing the real suffering homeless people and addicts are experiencing and real solutions to help them? /S
Though to be real, yes, he’s addressing the problems he’s experiencing and that’s perfectly fine, we all should. If you hold people to the standard that no one can sound the alarm unless they have found solutions to the root causes then the only thing that would happen would be that there would be silence around the issue.
That seems like a very strange assignment of blame.
There is something really wrong with that logic
Once again, your logic is somewhat twisted: are you really blaming people that left an area for the violence in that area?
You're effectively saying "White people shouldn't have left because the all-black area becomes crime-ridden", which is obviously nonsense.
When people leave an area, regardless of the reason, you cannot blame the leavers for the area getting more violent.
They're literally not there any more to influence things!
U of M has a whole website mapping racial covenants[0] here in the Twin Cities, and the Wikipedia article about redlining[1] is pretty thorough, discussing exactly what you're bringing up.
Do people just not actually believe how racist everything used to be? And how decades of disinvestment leading to violence just might possibly lead to generational issues?
Lincoln Park was redlined. Gold Coast was redlined. Old Town was redlined. Wicker Park was redlined.
The redlined neighborhoods on the north side also weren't black (Lincoln Park was Puerto Rican). People have written books about how the gentrification of the north side happened; you can consult them.
In the 1930's there weren't many Puerto Ricans in Chicago, the ones that were there lived on the south side. They didn't start coming in numbers until the late 1940's, they moved into Lincoln Park in the 1960's.
So, Wicker Park was white when it was redlined, Lincoln Park was white when it was redlined, West Garfield Park was white when it was redlined.
It's a bit fuzzy, yes. It would clarify the argument to replace "generational issues" with a specific concept, and skip the performative hedge.
The bailey seems to be "poverty implies violence." What's the motte?
My reaction is literally one of confusion, not "performative hedging". The charitable read of most of the comments here is a profound lack of historical knowledge ("these areas were classified as hazardous, and the violence there is why white people left"), and an uncharitable one is thinly veiled racism ("minorities by definition are violent").
That still does not make the people who chose to leave responsible for violence that developed only after they have left!
Are you happy being held responsible for the development (or lack thereof) of the place you last lived in?
I think it's fair to say that race caused the riots, but to say that racism caused people to move is just silly. I don't care if black or white people are setting fire in my neighborhood, if I can move somewhere safer, I will.
I don't think that makes sense in context of GPs argument, as GP also argues that "more policing" did not help alleviate the violence problem.
The assertions "police were defunded, therefor the area got more violent" and "policing was escalated, and still the area got more violent" cannot both be true at the same time.
> Black people were locked into specific neighborhoods, and were generally not allowed to own their homes and instead locked into rapacious "contracts" for their houses
Redlining meant certain areas were deemed hazardous to investment. Maybe the "deeming" was accurate; maybe it wasn't. It certainly made loans more difficult for anyone in a redlined area (of any race).
But it didn't mean Black people weren't allowed to own homes. Many millions did and do.
My parents moved to the United States nearly penniless from India. I am very privileged thanks to them; they were not privileged, especially not when they first arrived. All of the arguments about generational wealth are compelling at first exposure, but they ignore the control group: Poor as dirt, strange-smelling, English-deprived immigrants like my parents.
I don't think it's healthy to blame white people for depriving an area of themselves. Proximity to white people isn't a human right.
This is literally a defense of segregation.
This was taken to the US Supreme Court.
At the same time mega public housing projects were built for the same purpose going against the best practices then and now.
It’s not surprising that 2 of the biggest infrastructure projects in Chicago history that were used with the express purpose of isolating and disempowering specific neighborhoods should have the effect of doing just that.
Maybe you should define what redlining means.
Korea, Israel, Czech, Hungary, Poland, etc etc. The data strongly contradicts your implied thesis.
But you think people born in what is one of the wealthiest cities in the world shouldn't be compared to urban Indians or people (like my dad) born in a mud hut.
The HOLC did not use the redlined maps to deny loans. For one thing, they couldn't have, the HOLC was a temporary program intended to deal with the Great Depression and the maps weren't completed until the HOLC had made 90% of the loans it ever made. And second, it did make loans in the redlined areas, and it made a higher percentage of loans to black borrowers than other lenders.
The HOLC did share the maps with the explicitly racist FHA, but the FHA didn't use the maps to deny loans. It couldn't have, the FHA insured loans, it didn't make them. It also focused on financing new construction, the redlined areas were already built up. And when it did refuse to finance black borrowers, it appears to have used block by block census data, not the HOLC maps. Outside of the FHA, it doesn't appear that the HOLC shared their maps with private lenders.
If you're using the HOLC maps to measure the effect of something, you're measuring something other than the effect of lending decisions. If the HOLC map of Chicago is a map of Chicago violent crime that is correlation rather than causation. There must be other factors that explain the correlation.
Did the HOLC draw maps with red lines on them around neighborhoods where they thought mortgage loans were going to go bad? Yes.
Were those maps used to deny loans in the areas with red lines around them? Certainly not by the HOLC, and almost certainly not by the FHA or private lenders.
Was there racial discrimination by the HOLC? Maybe. Less than with other mortgage lenders of the day.
Was there racial discrimination by the FHA? Yes. Mostly block by block based on census data and New Deal projects that collected data. They did make their own maps, but that's hard to research since those maps were mostly destroyed in the 1960's. The ones that survive don't match the HOLC maps. There's some overlap.
Were there racial covenants? Until 1948, yes, that's not redlining though.
Do the maps made by the HOLC in the 1930's explain violent crime in Chicago in the 2020's? No. Not at all.
Yeah. Ok. They literally cited the presence of racial covenants in neighborhoods as a reason to rate them more highly. There are HOLC maps that reference neighborhoods as "threatened by negro encroachment".
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously with this stuff?
You can of course content yourself with your victory on this thread. It'll be valuable currency in your effort to convince the world that redlining was overblown, and likely of little long term impact on American cities.
Mind you here in the UK it wasn't much different in the 70s where I remember signs outside houses for rent stating "no blacks, dogs or Irishmen"
I agree with this. People are and will be the the way they are, we can't exactly fix that as a whole. What we can make better for sure, is the system. And so, systemic issues should be fixed on the system's level.
We’ve heard enough about the crime in Chicago over the last few years that we’ve agreed to stay away for a while.
I'm not sure why I feel the need to mention this, but without doing a deep dive on the statistics, we hit the tipping point to not return.
The 2005 crime report has homicides at 448. There have been over 500 so far this year with over 3 months left.
-- https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/20...
Deindustrialized - the South Side has never really recovered from the Stockyards and the US Steel South Works closing. Even the hospitals are closing or are closed already.
Losing population - The Englewood neighborhood in Chicago, one of the most violent and poorest in the city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englewood,_Chicago#Demographic... population peaked at almost 100,000 in 1960, now around 25,000.
Hard to think of a solution except to subsidize economic activity in such neighborhoods.
The Obama Presidential Library may have such an effect for Woodlawn, though it's worth noting that it is sited so that it can be reached by car without actually traveling through Woodlawn.
And yes, for the Dan Ryan.
1. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-cop-break...
2. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/afghanistan-war
They inevitably crop up everywhere where police represent more of a threat than protection. Kind of like the free market springing up to meet demand, in a kind of sick and twisted way.
Gangmembers are older(and less dangerous by themselves) and some have gone through 'banging', others have joined through other means. They used to have the kids do the banging since laws are more lax on minors, and the kids are usually the hot heads who need to prove themselves. Members count the money and are in charge of administration, when organized proper. Im sure there is more to the heirarchy but usually a member wont come at you by themselves. they send the foot soldiers if they have beef with someone. Members are fairly weak, drugged up, care about the money. They come at you with numbers. Bangers are extremely dangerous by themselves.
This is the product of adressing housing wrong and modern segregation. They have a lot of well funded cops, that and prosecutors are responsible, the buck stops there.
https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/CompStat-P...
And, for more easily visually parseable statistics on homicides, let’s link to…
…though the commentary there is, let’s just say, less than neutral.
I grew up and went to school in downstate Illinois. Having lived in Chicago for 7 years, and having lived in large cities now for 10 years, I do feel there’s been a shift in perception both in the city and outside. I definitely get nastier vibes from family, and the city does “feel” a bit less safe living here now. (Bit spooky seeing someone drive by at 2am and saw a catalytic convertor right off a car on the street…)
I wish I really knew what this vibe shift (ugh, sorry) meant for the future of the city. I love it here—wouldn’t live anywhere else in the USA. The architecture, the transit, the arts and entertainment, the beautiful lake front…there’s just so much going for it. But perception becomes reality when it comes to things like this. If Chicago becomes truly notorious for crime, there is less investment, and thus less development, and everything comes tumbling down.
(And seriously, I would not move. I live in Uptown, which is, oh, not the safest of neighborhoods. I’ve seen some gnarly crimes and scenes here, but the benefits just so outweigh the potential costs in crime. I am quite willing to gamble a bit of safety so as to not succumb to suburban ennui.)
HOLY SHIT those stats! Great website to put it in perspective.
The reader is left to assume these are emotional benefits, is that accurate?
2,606 people (that we know of) were shot so far in Chicago this year. That's over 10 per day. That's insane. And it's even crazier that it's so hard for anyone to discuss it without the carnival of canards that get bandied about every time. It seems like some people are practically trained to divert away from the actual subject.
Do we need to send international peacekeepers to Chicago? Send in some blue helmets?
> It seems like some people are practically trained to divert away from the actual subject.
That is a succinct description of American politics and "news" media.
One thing that’s affecting peoples perception of safety is an increase in violent crime in previously safe neighbourhoods such as River North. Folks who felt safe because they could avoid the more violent areas of town are reading about (and witnessing) shootings and car-jackings occurring near where they work and go out to eat at restaurants. That changes calculations away from feeling some semblance of control over the situation towards feeling like violence might randomly happen to me or my family, which increases fear disproportionately compared to the raw statistics.
[1] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/billionaire-hedge-fund...
Clearly there is a problem, but how the hell do we fix it?! Stop and frisk? All the authoritarian shit New York did in the 70s and 80s? That's not politically feasible AND it's unconditional.
In all seriousness I think unlike other local (ex) CEOs, he's committed to staying and seems to be trying to talk about it productively. The others seemed to hide behind crime rates to cover up their hiring issues and ran away.
Still, part of the problem is that they're going to have trouble recruiting because of the perception of crime / safety based on how its reported and he never seems to acknowledge it in any statistically meaningful way; I don't think the areas the HQ is in for example are as bad as some of the other neighborhoods further south or west.
Bit of a shame because it sort of reinforces the bad perception others have, when he could be combating it and trying to address the issues simultaneously.
Or so says Channel5 youtube channel with an interesting take on one of the drivers of the increased murder rates[0]
TLDW: Drill rap is a very aggressive style from the projects, the same ones Michelle Obama grew up in. A few of it's rappers got really famous and rich because a bunch people seemed to really like it and the atmosphere behind it. This atmosphere is known as Chiraq (pronounced 'Chai-rack', for CHIcago and iRAQ, and the dangerous nature of area). There are many people documenting the Chiraq scene. As many of the Drill rappers produced music to YouTube, the algorithm caught hold. Viewers seemed to watch the more aggressive videos, commentary, and dis-tracks. Rappers saw this and produced even more aggressive and violent content. Quickly, content about murder and the like became top hits. Rappers found that hyper-violence got big views and therefore money and fame. YouTube, in a small way, incentivized the murder rate to rise, or so is alluded to in Channel5's video.
After that they go to a White Sox game and talk about flat-earth and condoms.
This seems like the wrong action to take if they actually want to put any pressure on the government to address this.
Miami, FL: https://www.local10.com/news/florida/2022/09/14/watch-allege...
Oklahoma City, OK: https://okcfox.com/amp/news/local/oklahoma-city-police-seek-...
It's not entirely unexpected that our largest cities get the most attention.
See also: All the talk about Detroit, a very small city.
A hundred years ago Dallas was a small city of less than 200k people, not particularly relevant to anybody outside Texas, but Chicago had a population of 2.7 million and was the economic powerhouse of the entire midwest. And Detroit seems like a generally irrelevant city by the numbers today, but 100 years ago Detroit was America's 4th largest city and in the subsequent decades rapidly became an industrial powerhouse with the rise of the automotive/war industry. Detroit seemed like the future of America, it became very prominent in the American zeitgeist at this time. When people express dismay with Detroit, they're not merely responding to the present conditions of Detroit but also Detroit's failure to make good on the expectations people used to have for the future of Detroit.
If it makes you feel any better, I think 100 years from now people will probably talk about Dallas like they talk about Detroit today.
https://qz.com/2077384/why-is-walgreens-really-closing-its-s...
McDonalds and other companies do wage theft because it's profitable. Having to pay out a couple of times whenever someone raises a fuss is already paid for by all the times someone didn't notice. Unlike violent crime it affects nearly all of us directly and represents a larger monetary value than all burgarlies and larcenies put together.
"The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy."" - Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah
anyway, I don't think they're "weaponizing disinformation" this seems like hyperbole (but I'm not sure if this is satire either)
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago!
Some fats are healthy. However, I would not be surprised if the fats found in McDonald's are predominantly unhealthy.
Over consumption of salt is far more harmful to one's health than over consumption of fat in general, as far as I'm concerned.
[1] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/diet-cri...
also, just to entertain this notion, fast food is interlinked with poverty and substandard living conditions, too -- most folks tend to think that rather than being the cause of these conditions that fast food is simply the available option.
It's a special kind of privileged to be able to yell "Shut these places down that serve unhealthy food." without first securing healthy food for those in need.
Let's first think about what happens when the only food source available to certain groups gets regulated out of existence.
I'm not saying that they don't hold a level of responsibility -- what I AM saying is that no food is worse than bad food.
1. Shut down McDonalds! 2. But then poor people will starve to death!
I imagine there’s a solution somewhere in the middle. Perhaps McDonalds is taxed higher, banned from advertising. Subsidies are pushed for healthier lifestyles in those neighbourhoods.
1 in 5 children are food insecure on the wealthiest nation in the history of this planet. It's an absolute disgrace and the children getting permanent learning disabilities due to malnutrition don't have decades for the free market to humanely allocate resources (something it's entirely incapable of doing unforced).
McDonalds has employees qualifying for food stamps. On top of that we give them tax incentives for "creating jobs" as they spend all their R&D trying to maximize their food's "craveability" (addictiveness). More to the point we've made it illegal for food companies to not optimize for that because they've have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders.
It's not a money problem. Heck, we could solve global poverty with <5% of "first world" GDP. It's an incentives problem. There's no incentive to feed Americans healthy food. There's not even an incentive to feed Americans. Which is why you get headlines like: https://apnews.com/article/portland-storms-oregon-4eebd2cd2f...
Part of the reason healthy foods are more expensive is indirectly due to the junk foods industry, which has caused our supply chains to be tightly optimized around provision of unhealthy foods.
It also likely causes crime. Metabolic syndrome -> psychiatric conditions && debt to pay for insulin && lost productivity --> crime.
What the GP is wrong about is the solution. We're trapped in a bad local optima here. Just immediately shutting down fast food isn't an exhaustive solution, because you suck jobs out of the local areas and it takes time for the supply chains to reoptimize around healthy food. Some kind of gradual systemic change over multiple decades is needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie%27s_School_Dinners
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Oliver%27s_Food_Revoluti...
Special kind of privileged? I moved from the Bay Area to Vietnam. I've lived and traveled all around SE Asia for many years. I've seen the poorest of the poor, in the most remote places possible. I've eaten the same food. One thing they have going for them is that food is inexpensive and food is available. It is also not fast food.
It is possible to feed people food that isn't crap McDonalds. The concept that it is the only thing available, is completely manufactured. The fact that people give up production of good food, for this crap, because it is cheap and easy, is a big part of the problem.
Is alcohol and marijuana prohibition "clamping down on little people"? I'd say yes.
Clearly there are shades of grey here that need to be worked out and there's no substitute for a first principles analysis of each case on its own merits.
If you are worried about the unintended consequences of prohibition, then there are many other avenues without that downside, such as taxing fast food and using that revenue to subsidize healthy food, or mandatory packaging labels, or public health education efforts.
Of course there is no incentive to hurt the poor, the debate is over what is the correct way of helping them.
Saving a few bucks on a big mac meal, in exchange for their health and crime, may not be the best way forward.
From a non-us perspective it's a bit odd that a CEO has to point out that violent crime is happening too much, that it's bad and that something should be done about it. That's the gov's job?