https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5
My first blog post on the subject of Chicago was way back in 2012. In that post, I placed Chicago in the special category of American cities that I called the “basket cases” — places with declining populations, astoundingly high rates of violent crime, in every case mostly black on black, and, of course, uninterrupted rule by leftist Democrats for generations. I had this to say about Chicago:
You may ask, is Chicago really basket case? . . . The downtown is in good shape, with new condos and office towers; the near north side is upscale and attractive. But the population has gone from a peak of 3,620,962 in the 1950 census to just 2,695,598 in 2010. [And if instead of staying downtown you take] the Green Line el south from the loop to the end of the line, . . . you will observe huge deteriorated public housing projects surrounded by vast vacant areas and abandoned private buildings.
The violent crime rate also clearly qualifies Chicago for the label of basket case. Murders hit a peak of 756 in 2016 (about 28 per hundred thousand people, compared to a rate for the U.S. as a whole of about 5 per 100,000). After a few years of modest declines, murders are on track to equal or top the 756 this year, with 440 through July. In fact, July 2020 just set a new record for most murders in a month, with 105.