How Chicago Became The Deadliest City In America
Abby Rogers Things are pretty grim in Chicago following its deadliest summer in recent memory. By Oct. 21, Chicago had recorded 435 murders, ahead of 339 in New York and 241 in Los Angeles. The Windy City has the highest murder rate of all Alpha world cities , according to NBC Chicago. And while things are finally starting to slow down, the mood in the city definitely isn't great. As an Illinois ex-pat living in New York and looking on at one of my favorite cities from afar, I have to wonder, how did we get here? Before the bloody summer, things were going well. From 2002 to 2011, crime in a majority of the city's neighborhoods had been dropping drastically. In the Hyde Park-South Kenwood community for instance, crime dropped 39 percent from 2002 to 2011, according to the University of Chicago. And in 2002, the total number of homicides in Chicago dropped below the total in LA with 20 fewer murders that year than in 2001. As of 2010, Chic