Many cities are renowned for various reasons. Boston is famous for its beans, Philadelphia for its cheese steak sandwich, Memphis for its barbecue, Los Angeles for its entertainment industry (and large homeless communities), and San Francisco was once known for its fine dining but is now infamous for its maps tracking locations of human feces.
Chicago used to be recognized for baseball, a unique type of pizza, and its museums. However, nowadays, Chicago has gained another kind of recognition; for 13 consecutive years, it has held the title of the city with the highest number of murders in the United States.
For the 13th consecutive year, the city of Chicago once again reigned as the nation’s homicide capital in 2024 with 573 murders.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski views that as a sickness he argues has been allowed to fester for too long.
Despite a decrease in the nationwide murder rates, Chicago has maintained its position as the city with the highest murder rate per capita among major cities, with 21.5 murders per 100,000 residents, which is three times higher than Los Angeles and almost five times more than New York City.
“It means we have a real problem and we’re sick,” Dabrowski told The Center Square. “Until we get serious, this murder problem is going to be a drag on the city in terms of attracting people, attracting businesses and, worse, it’s going to keep chasing people away and chasing businesses away. It’s something we have to get our hands around.”
Calling the homicide problem in Chicago a “real problem” is something of an understatement. This is an existential problem, causing people and businesses to head for greener pastures. The result of that, of course, would result in only three kinds of people left in the Windy City: The criminals, the politicians (and in Chicago, a Venn diagram of those two would be very nearly a circle), and the few helpless innocents who simply can’t afford to get out.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to call this a win.
Dabrowski adds that while Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson often talks about crime being down in the city, the truth is numbers are down across the country, just not nearly as much in Chicago.
“It’s true the crime is down somewhat, but it’s down dramatically across the country,” he said. “It’s barely down here. You’ve got places like Jacksonville where murders are down 50%. You’ve got places like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., where it’s down 30 to 35%. Our murders are only down 8%. We’re just part of the national wave, but we’re almost not participating in that national wave.”
There are a few reasons why this is happening.
