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Cities in the US seem particularly polarized. Where I grew up there were neighborhoods with better off and worse off people but there wasn't any part of town where you would feel uncomfortable or at risk of violence walking at any time, day or night. I visited Chicago in the early 90's and I remember being told never to go past a certain stop on the train. The US has serious social problems going back a long time and I'm not sure trying to pretend otherwise will help in solving them.


There are bad neighborhoods in Paris and Rio; how does Chicago stand out?


Rio has a reputation as being one of the most violent places in the world. So I guess it'd be hard to stand out against that.

I think Paris is much safer than Chicago: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Uni...

France overall has a murder rate of 1 per 100K. Paris I believe is slightly above average. Chicago is something like 15.

I wouldn't necessarily consider Paris to be some sort of golden standard either. You should aim for much better.

If you feel that having an x15 murder rate isn't "standing out" and it's just that you've got some bad neighborhoods than IMHO you're deluding yourself.

EDIT: And assuming the murders are not evenly spread out but rather focus in the "bad" neighborhoods is support for the polarization argument. We can look at some stats but I'm pretty sure they would support my notion that the bad neighborhoods in US cities are much worse than the bad neighborhoods in safe cities worldwide. Try comparing violent crime statistics of major US cities to major European cities over 50 or 100 years. This didn't start yesterday.

EDIT2: Don't take all this to mean I support Trump's rhetoric or actions on this topic. I do not. But I do think Americans need to do some introspection here


Last year, it had more murders than both Los Angeles and New York combined. Both cities are larger than Chicago.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chicago-murders-shootings-2016-m...


My question was about the good/bad neighborhood polarization issue in the comment above it.


I have difficulty comprehending your follow up remark. If it is smaller than both those cities AND has more murders than both combined AND there are some safe neighborhoods, it seems obvious on the face of it that the polarization there must be pretty seriously extreme.




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