From The New York Times: "Chicago’s Murder Problem"

This NYT article hits hard. It takes on a very tough topic: race, segregation, and homicide rates.

Chicago is compared with New York City and the reporters come up with interesting observations why the murder rates are so different. They're both large cities, very racially diverse, and have populations from all socioeconomic levels. But why is the homicide rate so high in Chicago? Here are three short excerpts from the article written by Ford Fessenden and Haeyoun Park:

     There was a time when it looked as if Chicago would follow New York and Los Angeles into a kind of sustained peace. Then progress stalled in 2004, and the city has been through some harrowing years leading up to another alarming spike in homicides this year.

[and on segregation. . .]

     But segregation in New York is nothing like in Chicago: The perfectly isolated neighborhood – where every man, woman and child is the same race – is rare in New York. Less than one percent of the population lives in such areas, and most of them are white. In Chicago, 12 percent of the black population is in a census block group that is 100 percent black.

[and. . .]

     “The major underlying causes of crime are similar across cities, but the intensity of the connection between social ills and violence seems to be more persistent in Chicago,” Professor Sampson said. “You don’t get that kind of extensive social and economic segregation in many other cities.”

Scroll down this blog (or use this link) for "Interactive map of Palm Beach County homicide victims" and draw your own conclusions. Here in Palm Beach County too many in the press are focused on scoring political points than creating any space for a serious conversation about our homicide rates and those who are most at risk. That's very sad to think about.