Gangsterville: How Chicago was lost
“The purpose of tearing down the projects was to regentrify the neighborhoods. And now, where there had been projects, you have chain stores, exclusive restaurants, delis, everything people want. But it also sent those gangs out into the neighborhoods, into new places in the city and the suburbs, places where they had not been.” He estimates that about 80 percent of Chicago’s homicides are gang-related…
Worse, the move out of the projects has made it easier to bring juveniles into the gangs. “In the homes, they had a limited number of juveniles at any given time. Now, it’s unlimited,” he explains. “You have juveniles rising to positions of power, and they just don’t have the street smarts or wisdom that even a Jeff Fort would. They’re doing impulsive things that the old guard just wouldn’t have dreamt of. And the money is bigger now, too. Before, the money went straight up to Hoover, Barksdale, or Fort, but now you have 1,000 leaders all competing for that. And you have the street gangs, the Mexican cartels, the narcotics, and the violence forming a unitary cultural phenomenon.” He’d like to see stricter gun control and stiffer sentences — “burying them” — for violent offenders. He cites procedural changes in the legal system making it more difficult to secure charges as a factor in the growing violence.
Chicago was the only U.S. city to break 500 murders last year, and that is a spike — but a spike only over the past few years. Chicago has seen these waves before: In 2008 the city saw 516 murders, and it had nearly 1,000 in 1974, the year David Barksdale’s past finally caught up with him and he died of kidney failure resulting from a gunshot wound suffered years before. Things have been worse in the past, but there is a sense that Chicago is moving in the wrong direction. New York City had nearly 2,000 murders in 1974, and more than 2,000 the year before. But those numbers are unthinkable today: New York City finally got control of itself, which is a big part of the reason why Rudy Giuliani, a thrice-married recreationally cross-dressing pro-choice big-city liberal, was taken seriously as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Rahm Emanuel would need a miracle worthy of his surname to follow a similar path, to get Freckles to give up commerce and to get Mr. Butt to regard him as something other than a municipal joke. Chicago may have torn down the projects, but building the city is a different thing altogether.
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ted c on February 18, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Must be those inanimate objects that are the problem, just like every other city where the people can defend themselves – NOT!
Galt2009 on February 18, 2013 at 6:54 PM
We must reach the point where we can honestly about urban Black criminal and generally feral behavior. The wound that cannot be touched cannot be healed.
Mason on February 18, 2013 at 7:00 PM
It’s not going to change and just get worse. The culture has gone to hell in a hand basket and the other ways to reduce crime, i.e., strong support of the police, long sentences, 3 strikes out sentences, death penalty, — Illinois has done everything to oppose.
Blake on February 18, 2013 at 7:00 PM
The problem isn’t guns in Chicago. It’s Chicagoans.
ted c on February 18, 2013 at 7:03 PM
Are you actually saying that the Progressive ideology and Leftist judges are bad things? You must be one of these extremists….
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visions on February 18, 2013 at 7:09 PM
Actually, I blame the culture, the community, local government, the churches, and the legislature.
Blake on February 18, 2013 at 7:15 PM
I guess that would mostly fall under progressive ideology…
Blake on February 18, 2013 at 7:16 PM
Dude. Make it simpler than that. How many real “families” do you think lives in Cabrini-Green? Very few. When men marry women, then have children, it results in stability. When they don’t, it results in instability. Social pathologies stem from familial pathologies. Government programs such as welfare, food stamps, WIC etc etc are all symptomatic of men and women just hooking up, doing the nasty, and the results are what we see in Chicago at critical mass.
ted c on February 18, 2013 at 7:22 PM
I’m not sure, but I think this article is like racist and stuff.
Pork-Chop on February 18, 2013 at 7:23 PM
In other Chicago NEWS:
Jesse Jackass Jr. under
‘tight medical supervision’(suicide watch).http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-jesse-jackson-jr-medical-report,0,5540026.story
LOL.
Pork-Chop on February 18, 2013 at 7:28 PM
No worries, pal. Mark Sanford says that God gives everyone second chances so see if that gives you some hope while you’re
planning your reelectionspending time in federal pound me in the ass prisonted c on February 18, 2013 at 7:31 PM
er.. thanks for the linky pork chop.
ted c on February 18, 2013 at 7:32 PM
Two more decades of voting straight democrat should solve every one of their problems.
tom daschle concerned on February 18, 2013 at 7:33 PM
As the eyes of the nation, once again, turn to Chicago and its out-of-control crime and gang activity and the city’s Mayor and other “community leaders” like Jesse Jackson and David Axelrod call for nationwide gun control because their gun control laws, which are the strictest in the nation, are failing to reduce shootings, it is the perfect time to take a look at corruption in Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois.
People, especially young people, look at the individuals that represent them as role models. If their politicians are corrupt and lawbreakers, then it is more likely that they will be as well. Political leaders create the climate of the areas that they represent.
The tale-of-the tape from the most corrupt state, county, and city in America:
ONE (1 each): Number of state treasurers, attorneys general and Chicago patronage chiefs EACH convicted of corruption since 1980.
THREE (3): The number of Congressmen convicted and imprisoned since 1972 – Dan Rostenkowski, Mel Reynolds and. Jesse Jackson, Jr.
FOUR (4): The number of Illinois governors since 1960 that went to the Big House – Blago, Ryan, Walker, and Kerner.
FIFTEEN (15): The number of Illinois state legislators that have been convicted and imprisoned since 1972.
NINETEEN (19): The number of Cook County judges convicted of corruption since 1972.
TWENTY PERCENT (20%): Percentage of elected Chicago aldermen convicted of crimes since 1970.
TWENTY (20): Number of suburban Chicago mayors and village presidents convicted of corruption since 1972.
THIRTY-ONE (31): Number of Chicago aldermen convicted of corruption since 1976.
FORTY-SIX (46): Number of public officials convicted of corruption in the Chicago area in 2010, ALONE.
SIXTY-ONE (61): Number of corruption scandals in Chicago and its suburbs since the 1970s.
SEVENTY-NINE (79): Number of then-current or former Illinois, Chicago or Cook County elected officials that were found guilty of a crime by judges, juries or their own pleas between 1972 and 2006.
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY (130): Number of elected officials from the suburbs of Chicago convicted of corruption since 1980.
ONE HUNDRED FIFTY (150): Number of TOP Cook County officials that have been convicted in the last 140 years.
TWO HUNDRED FIFTY (250): If the number of Chicago alderman sentenced to prison since 1972 was extrapolated to the US House, it would be as if roughly 250 congressman had gone to jail in the same period.
THREE HUNDRED (300): Number of Chicago police officers convicted of corruption, including gang protection, since the 1960s.
FOUR HUNDRED SIXTY-NINE (469): Number of politicians from the federal district of Northern Illinois that were found guilty of corruption between 1995 and 2004.
FIFTEEN HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE (1,531): Number of federal convictions of public officials and businessmen in Cook County for corruption or corruption-related crimes since 1976.
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT (1,828): Number of total convictions of Illinois politicians for corruption since 1972.
And they wonder why there is so much crime and violence in Chicago…
Resist We Much on February 18, 2013 at 7:34 PM
Oh, come on.
Now they’re telling us blowing up Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor was a bad thing? This could only be said by someone who never went into either of those places. They were hellholes. I might buy the argument that they bred some real bad people who took their badness to wherever they moved, but seriously most Americans would not have believed that such places ever existed in this country. That was an era that needed to end, and thankfully did.
rockmom on February 18, 2013 at 7:34 PM
WHERE IS BATMAN!?
El_Terrible on February 18, 2013 at 7:43 PM
As someone that has lived in Chicago and the Chicago area my whole life, these people believe that corrupt, Big Government Democrat politics is the norm…that there is no other option. So, they just live with it. It’s the prototypical Leftist “insular bubble.”
visions on February 18, 2013 at 7:55 PM
also known as “Stockholm Syndrome”
ted c on February 18, 2013 at 7:59 PM
Jackson should surrender to federal custody immediately. They provide excellent supervision and they have psych hospital prisons, too.
These charges of corruption are rather old. Jackson has been dodging the bullet for over a year. When he was released from a hospital, allegedly, last Sept, he was spotted in a DC bar drinking and yukking it up with a couple of female lobbyists. After that got out, he “relapsed.” So, pardon me if I appear skeptical of his latest relapse.
Blake on February 18, 2013 at 8:07 PM
Batman would be wasting his time doing anything other than setting fire-bomb Batarangs all over the place, giving the handful of lawful citizens prior warning like Lot and his family were, and burning the place to the curbstones.
MelonCollie on February 18, 2013 at 8:21 PM
.
For the record, this happens everywhere, even so-sanctimonious suburban Atlanta.
ExpressoBold on February 18, 2013 at 9:53 PM