THAT URBAN DEATH SPIRAL.

Last weekend came that first hint of summer, just in time for people to celebrate the filing of their tax returns by grilling out or wearing shorts to a sporting event or going for a run.  In Chicago, though, the people who don't worry about tax returns found an opportunity to engage in their favorite rites of summer.

The predictable suspects immediately ran to their predictable corners to issue their predictable talking points, to which we shall turn anon.  

Let me first introduce Chicagoan Pete Saunders, of The Corner Side Yard, who has thoughts.

The animus and hostility being thrown Chicago’s way, from each and every direction, is crazy. It’s outrageous. It really makes me wonder if the national media has collectively deemed Chicago the newest and most salient example of American Urban Dystopia ™ like so many other cities before it. I’ve seen this movie before, and I know how it ends. It’s not good.

Chicago is in the news once again after a weekend of disruption and clashes with police took place in the Loop and nearby lakefront beaches. Warm weather brought out hundreds of young adults who descended on Chicago’s downtown and lakefront.

This came right at the heels of mayor-elect Brandon Johnson’s recent win. This year’s mayoral campaign between Johnson and Paul Vallas, a former Chicago Public Schools CEO, was a referendum on the city’s violent crime and how voters thought it should it be quelled. Voters chose Johnson’s nuanced approach over Vallas’ tough-on-crime tactics.

What bothers me, however, is the crafting of the media narrative against Chicago. Chicago is being thrown under the bus as the example that all cities should avoid.

You know what? Yeah, what took place was wrong. It was ugly. It was disturbing. It was violent – but probably not as violent as some parts of the media make it out to be. However, the demonization of the young people out there makes me question if the finger-pointers really want better cities. If not, they bear some blame.

I’m fed up with this. There’s seemingly this national desire to single out the nation’s “worst” city. I was born and raised in Detroit during perhaps its most tumultuous period, but many other cities have received the same kind of stigma – Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, St. Louis, even New York City and Los Angeles come to mind.

I, too, spent some time in Detroit, after having attended Milwaukee's public schools. What he notes about Detroit is germane to where we find ourselves.

What’s happening now, in Chicago, seems different. There are many cities that have been singled out I don’t think any single American city has received such a perception attack since Detroit faced a similar fate in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

I think it’s instructive to review the events that kept Detroit in a 16-year long doom loop of bad news. The events, but more importantly the reaction and response to them, solidified the perception that Detroit was more than a troubled city – it was a “failed” city. Take note of some global, national and local events that fed into the doom loop.

Within the city, there was the 1967 riots, the "Murder City" reputation, and Tuskegee Airman Coleman Young having a, shall we say, distinctive style of being the mayor. A Motor City redesigning cars in response to rising environmental consciousness and the petroleum-exporting countries discovering the joys of turning off the pumps.  Mr Saunders summarizes, "I don’t view Detroit’s fall as an economic collapse. It was a social collapse in response to events the city could not control – and a narrative it could not shift. Chicago has been increasingly fighting against the same kind of headwinds."  As -- it is worth reading his post in full, as it's not responding to the sensationalism more common whenever the disaffected youngsters show their disaffection -- is the experience of many other big cities.

New York in the ‘70s and Los Angeles in the ‘90s, were able to avoid the fates of cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, St. Louis, and others. Lots of people have come along and talked about globalization favoring cities like New York and Los Angeles and shifting their fortunes. They gained some escape velocity from other troubled cities and, well, ran with it. They certainly had the business sectors and demographic factors in place to benefit from the new era.

But as I look back, I don’t view the media treatment that New York and Los Angeles received during their worst periods had the same enmity that was reserved for other cities. Even at their worst, when blackouts led to widespread rioting in New York or when police beatings triggered outrage in LA, I think both cities were viewed as “cities in crisis”, not cities that “failed”. For whatever reason they acquired a level of empathy that was never given to the Baltimores and Newarks of America. In New York’s and LA’s case, that empathy played a big role in the turnarounds they had. They had an emotional foundation in addition to the business sectors and demographic factors. People wanted to see New York and LA succeed. I don’t know if the same could be said about the Detroits and Clevelands of America, which have had to move forward without the same level of national empathy. I’m fearing Chicago is getting the same treatment.

Also in his post, an observation of Chicago as "one-third San Francisco, two-thirds Detroit," in light of recent developments might be less reason for optimism than it was when he first issued it.  (I think that's a gentler way of saying "fifteen square miles of privilege surrounded by the third world.")  These days, New York's and Los Angeles's troubles might be changing a few peoples' minds about whether those cities are any longer capable of succeeding.

Why?

Let us begin with Mr Saunders's observation,

When I was a senior in college at Indiana University, the Hoosiers won their last NCAA basketball championship. IU’s Keith Smart hit a last-second shot that secured the victory. As soon as that shot fell through, thousands of (mostly drunk) fans and students descended on Kirkwood Avenue just off campus to celebrate. I was there. I personally remember store windows being broken, bars robbed of every bit of alcohol, cars being tipped over, convertible tops being ripped open. I don’t recall any injuries, but I’m sure some occurred.

It definitely was a celebration that got way, way out of hand. But neither Bloomington nor IU earned a reputation of lawlessness because of it.

There are cities that regularly see the kind of frenzy witnessed in Chicago last weekend. Miami during Spring Break season. New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Knoxville, TN when the Volunteers beat the Crimson Tide. Philadelphia when it wins the Super Bowl. Philadelphia when it loses the Super Bowl.

I cannot underscore enough that what happened in Chicago was wrong. People were injured, robbed, arrested. It in no way reflects well on the city. But I think it’s crucial to note this can happen anywhere, has happened anywhere, and will again happen anywhere. Demonizing Chicago for this can score political points for some, but it’s a shell game that allows other city leaders to avert their eyes.

I remember this form of deflection from my college years.  The University of Wisconsin's football team wins a game for the first time in three years, and there's a lot of broken glass on State Street.  Richard Nixon sends the troops into Cambodia, or mines the port of Haiphong, and there's a lot of broken glass on State Street.  Madison's reputation for having unruly students followed from the latter sort of events.

In Chicago, the same sort of deflection might be possible, although recent successes by the Blackhawks and Cubs have involved more illegal parking at the commuter train stops than property damage, and the January 2017 Trump inauguration protest had crowded streets and trains, but mostly people in good spirits on what was a warm January day.  Last Saturday's street parties?  "Chicago’s crowd takeover problem: ‘disgusting, awful, terrible,’ or kids making ‘silly decisions?’ Depends on who you ask."  If it's incoming mayor "Let's Go" Brandon Johnson, it's the latter.

Johnson, speaking with reporters after addressing the Illinois General Assembly, offered his view:

“Look, the violence that happened over the weekend and the violence that happens too many weekends and too many days, of course, we don’t condone that behavior. That’s the first thing that I said,” Johnson began.

“Look,” he said, “demonizing children is wrong. We have to keep them safe as well. Have you ever taught middle school? I have. Have you ever raised young people? Do you understand the risks that young people take just because they’re young? Do you know that home plate is at the bottom of my stairs? I found that out when my son was sliding down those stairs, trying to score. They’re young. Sometimes they make silly decisions. They do. And so we have to make sure that we are investing to make sure that young people know they are supported.”

The heirs to Leon Trotsky predictably suggest no support for the young people will be forthcoming.

Speaking to the tourism business interests behind the loudest calls for law and order, Johnson said, “Our city must work together to create spaces for youth to gather safely and responsibly, under adult guidance and supervision, to ensure that every part of our city remains welcome for both residents and visitors.”

Chicago’s business interests like the Illinois Restaurant Association and the Chicago Loop Alliance have led a campaign to increase police presence downtown and demanded that youth not be permitted to gather at all.

In interviews with local press, downtown business owners complain that young people will scare away their customers and claim that they are investing in their own private security forces. Michael Edwards, president of the Chicago Loop Alliance, said the group plans to hire “security ambassadors” to patrol the business district and to monitor young people on social media planning future meet-ups.

Former Chicago Police superintendent Eddie Johnson told the press that the issue is that the police are not free enough to use force in suppressing teenagers. He explained the position of the police in the following way, “What I’m hearing from cops is that these young folks are taunting them you know ‘ha ha ha you can’t chase me.’” He added that cops want to “do something about it” but are worried that if they chase down and beat teenagers who laugh at them, they might “get in trouble.”

Chicago is frequently portrayed in corporate media as a violent and lawless place. While the homicide rate has fallen from a recent high of 802 in 2021, there were still 688 recorded in 2022. Last year saw a total of over 2,832 shooting incidents.

These statistics, and the violent outbursts over the weekend, point to the immense social crisis affecting young people. Recent studies have found that the median age of a homicide victim is just 27 years old and that black youth, who are overwhelmingly working class and poor in large cities like Chicago, aged 18-19 are at highest risk of being killed, with a homicide rate of 182.7 per 100,000 residents.

The violence in Chicago is but a single indicator of a broader social crisis which weighs especially heavily on young people, the product of decades of economic devastation and class inequality in a city of enormous wealth which is expropriated from workers and controlled by the capitalist class, who the ruling Democratic Party dutifully serves.

The areas of Chicago that see the most violence are those where deindustrialization and disinvestment has been most devastating. Neighborhoods like West Garfield Park and North Lawndale, with the highest homicide rates, once housed workers in the city’s large industrial manufacturing facilities like International Harvester and Western Electric. With these industries long moved out of Chicago, the average income for both neighborhoods teeters at the poverty line.

The result has been decades of deep poverty and unemployment for large swaths of Chicago’s working class, especially for young black adults who at ages 20-24 face an unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent.

Unlike Detroit, Chicago is not a one-product town: in addition to International Harvester with farm implements and truck tractors or Western Electric with its famous Hawthorne Works near Cicero, there's no more Hog Butcher for the World or Stacker of Wheat or building of railroad cars.  What sort of social collapse, if any, antedated the flight of the factories?

I can conclude with one salutary development.

Ousted Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on Democrat mayors to "speak the truth" on violent crime in their cities amid the crime spike in Chicago.

While speaking on a panel at the African American Mayors Association Conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Lightfoot called on Democrat mayors to address the growing crime in their cities.

"As Democrats, if we do not speak the truth about violent crime in our cities, we will be the worse for it," Lightfoot said.

"I come to this conversation as a former federal prosecutor. I come to this as a former defense attorney, I am the sister of a returning resident," Lightfoot continued. "But I know that there are people in my city that are wreaking havoc every day and need to be off the streets. That’s reality."

I did not see that coming.