Part of what makes it unintuitive is the specificity:
* Why Milwaukee and Chicago instead of everywhere?
* Why carjacking and not a general increase in crimes that could be facilitated by an unassociated car (bank robbery, toll violations, etc)?As the sibling points out: it's a broader issue than just carjackings --- but the carjackings themselves were novel, scared the shit out of people in a way that stochastic-seeming strong arm robberies don't. The headline here is: it was a gravely negligent thing for Kia to have done; I hope they lose their shirts.
For whatever reason, it became A Thing here more than a year before it went national. Car thefts in Milwaukee more than doubled (entirely due to a stupidly large increase in Kia/Hyundai thefts) and we got a reputation for Kia thefts before it became a national issue
Random presentation of car theft stats comparing Chicago to a handful of others. We hear a lot about Chicago because many have a vested interest in deflecting discussions about crime. When was the last time you heard about the insane motor vehicle theft rate of Dallas? https://public.tableau.com/shared/W2KZH4JC7?:display_count=y...
It wasn't just in those cities, it was nationwide. The poster was using those cities as examples because they are familiar to him.