this is mine! thanks for the share. code for the project is all open source here: https://github.com/chicagomaroon/data-visualizations/tree/ma.... this was my first larger custom story project. maplibre for the map, waypoints for scroller helper and the rest just vanilla js/html/css. hosted on github pages. i have another project that has lots of other examples of cool viz i like (filter to about visualizations) https://content-we-love-54fa79867044.herokuapp.com/
Thank you for working on and sharing this project, it's a wonderful example of how maps help tell / connect the stories through the years. It was also nice to see the piece you drew inspiration from that you linked to in another comment.
I'm curious -- each section (after the transitional animation) seems like it translates quite well to being a fixed page, and I'm wondering if you've looked at there being an easy way to generate a version that could be printed?
The reason I ask is that I'm working on a family history project which involves various locations, maps, newspaper stories and old photographs, and whilst something interactive feels like it would be an engaging way to do it, for the long term it's always good to have a printed copy of anything :)
I could imagine if there was an easy way to generate a print version of your articles, some people would pay for a copy (that was printed professionally in a suitable photobook-style format).
Apologies if there is a simple way to generate this and I've missed it in my cursory glance around the code :)
I have not but this is a good flag and will think more about it! i think newsrooms have spent a lot of time thinking about how to translate online first material to print and vice versa so there may be some ideas to draw from. The freedom and creativity that comes with bespoke online first projects does cause some challenges to easy exporting to print versions.
The underlying map is modern across all timelines. What would be super awesome is if the underlying map would also change, based on historical propery deeds, maps and ariel photos. For example, the 1893 world's fair is when much housing was constructed. The entire coastline also changed during this timeline. This would be an order of magnitude more work...
Is there a place to submit an issue with the data? The final map makes it look like a bunch of properties around the neighborhood were purchased by the University between 2004 and 2005. But I recognize one of them (5125 S. Kenwood, just south of Hyde Park Blvd/51st St.) as my first grad school apartment: I lived there throughout the 1998-99 academic year, and it was definitely a university-owned/managed building at the time.
yes, can send an email to data@chicagomaroon.com! there are a chunk of apartments that were very hard to get exact dates for so a few are approx but would love to improve the accuracy.
This is incredible scrollytelling map work, especially for a student newspaper, I'm pretty amazed.
Great job using MapLibre too, glad it is getting more and more popular.
For others in the thread wondering about other examples of this kind of journalism/mapping/data work, to my knowledge the best term for it would be 'scrollytelling' or 'storymapping' (which is an ESRI term but is used generally as well).
There are a ton of examples out there, but I'm sad there isn't a central repository of really great ones. The NYT and The Pudding are two places that do pretty cool stuff like this.
This is great. My only complaint is that I have literally never been to that part of Chicago, which obviously isn't their fault. I would be fascinated to see this for the urban universities I'm personally familiar with.
I hear you, but I live in Atlanta. Now maybe if they found some way to do some sort of Indian - soul food fusion instead of every dish being clearly one or the other...
Tangentially related, but still worth checking out: the book "Gang Leader for a Day" [0] touches on this topic of how the university interacts (or doesn't) with its poorer neighbors. Highly recommend the read.
I second this recommendation. Perhaps most interesting is that despite the author literally spending thousands of hours with literal gang members, the only time he's truly afraid is when he's describing the police gang that's been shaking down drug dealers and ordinary residents of the public housing in which he does his research.
I just moved away from Chicago but it took me a few years to appreciate the city (and I never found visiting that compelling). I miss it now though, I think the best way to learn to appreciate the city is to go out and do things in the city and find the stuff you like. There is tons of great music, food, art museums, shows (especially improv, idk if the IO Theater is back running but the Improv Shakespeare that they did was amazing). You can find pretty much anything there, the only thing I struggled with is I like the outdoors and there isn't good hiking (but Chicago actually has really good birdwatching in the city).
The easiest bit of advice is to get out of the Loop; the city Chicago boosters won't shut up about is mostly out in the neighborhoods. Also: our real pizza is thin-crust.
Tavern style is what I always saw there (though I like deep dish). Also I'm surprised people always talk about deep dish pizza and not the clearly superior Chicago food: dipped Italian beef with hot peppers.
This is a bit of my own biases showing but I've found being very into deep dish or calling the loop "downtown" were ways to know who is new to Chicago
> You can find pretty much anything there, the only thing I struggled with is I like the outdoors and there isn't good hiking (but Chicago actually has really good birdwatching in the city).
Lincoln Park north is not what I would call "good hiking", but I think it's nice for those who like the outdoors. Good for daytime walks, large beaches, dog beach, bird sanctuary, some small natural areas, lakefront trail (paved).
For good hiking, yes you'll have to drive out of the city.
You don’t have to go too far out of the city - more than 10% of the county land area is forest preserve. Inside the city, the far northwest side (along the river) and the far south side (big marsh/beaubien woods) are probably the best bets.
I know that the wooded section between the IC tracks and LSD from 47th street up to Oakwood/Pershing is a hiking trail very popular with birdwatchers. You can keep walking up to the 31st street beach parking lot, but I think it might technically be trespassing ;)
Naturally, if you want really good hiking, there is a daily train from Union Station that stops at the front gate to Glacier National Park. You can also take the South Shore train eastwards - there are 3 stops adjacent to the Indiana Dunes (both the state and national parks).
No problem. You know, the whole area is very flat. There’s no getting around that, and some people will never accept that any hiking trail can be good if there isn’t a lot of elevation change. That’s their loss.
I remember going to a talk at the cultural center ~10 years ago where some lady, who was apparently very famous in her line of work, talked about moving to Chicago because of her husband’s new job and spending many years hating the natural surroundings. Until one day she was in a prairie west of the city and decided to really look at the wildflowers. And that was the spark that got her to start drawing the flowers, and eventually made her famous for it.
Anyway, it’s no Coastal California or Colorado mountain meadow. But if you go out and explore with a desire to find beauty in it, you will :)
Edit - and by the way, on the South Shore train, Dune Park and Beverly Shores have trails you see from the train platform. Ogden Dunes is a bit trickier, the open space west of the train station is all national park service land, east is private property except closer to the lake. The town itself tries very hard to make it look like a private gated community but the roads are all public and you are free to walk right in. Miller Beach I’d say the train is too far from the parkland, but if you have a car, the area due north starting about a mile from that train station will blow apart every stereotype you’ve ever had about Gary, IN.
Hah, there's my only lament about Chicago: no pet-friendly public transit if you have a large dog. I don't really have the stomach for the loopholes either: service dog lies or carrying her in a duffel bag NYC subway-style.
I liked to bike the lake there, the lakefront in Chicago is pretty underestimated by people who don't live there. For hiking there's the dunes or Starved Rock but those are super busy a lot of the year (and at this point I've been to both a million times). I ended up needing to drive at least like 2.5 hours into Wisconsin for long hikes, which is a longer drive than I want for just a day trip. That means for the outdoors I up mostly just went birding in parks in the city, generally Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary or Jackson Park, which were really nice but not the same vibe as a good hike (there are some birding groups that will meet around the city that were nice to go with).
I just moved out from Chicago. Don't miss it. Been to hundreds of big cities, Chicago is weak. There's not much to do for tourists compared to other cities. There is a decent theatre scene. Deep dish pizza is good. Lakefront can be nice.
As a lifelong native, I highly recommend one of the architecture boat tours. Never gets old, and the guides usually manage to pack in a fair bit of history. I know it changed my personal connection to the city.
I’m also convinced that if someone hasn’t connected to the city yet, they just haven’t been to the right neighborhood. They are many, and cater to many tastes.
does anyone know how they create the maps for this story? I've wanted to do a similar sort of map for a personal project and don't know how they do it. Especially the feature where you can click.
> While the University has emphasized the positive impact the projects will have on the local economy, some residents are concerned about rising rent and how much benefit will reach the community as opposed to investors.
What a non-issue. You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community and you're concerned because the people who actually contributed to it are going to benefit as well? The entitlement is just unreal.
I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is. Hearing gunshots was a regular occurrence. I knew someone who intervened in a robbery and was shot and nearly killed. I wouldn't allow friends to come visit after dark because I feared for their safety. If anything, the University and its police force should do more to rid the neighborhood of its anti-social element.
Poverty, housing/employment, and generally, migration are hard topics.
The university has so many buildings in Hyde Park that they often make the decisions about which businesses are there or not. I've been happy with most of their choices recently; bringing in a Trader Joe, for example. However, some residents have differing opinions.
>I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is
Just anecdata. I had a family member living there for the six years, several addresses including their condo on Drexel Ave, one block from Cottage Grove (more or less the western boundary of campus proper). Their first child was born there, mom often went on long walks with the stroller to parks, etc with no problems. I visited several times, never had a problem. I walked to The Cove at night for a few beers, Sister Sledge on the jukebox was a conversation starter. Reggie's at the Beach (63rd St.) was a nice place, easy parking.
Every large city has "dangerous" areas, Hyde Park probably has fewer per capita than most.
I’ve lived in the neighborhood for over sixteen years and am raising a family there.
There’s a lot to say about the crime factor, and it’s complicated. I will say that it’s common to miss it if you don’t happen to witness it. Streets that look quiet, well-developed, and peaceful will suddenly become violent and then go back to normal as if nothing happened.
I also lived on Drexel for a few years. A graduate student was shot and killed nearby while walking home. Another night we witnessed a drive-by shooting while eating dinner. I’ve got a number of crime-related stories after living here that range in severity from “funny-in-retrospect” to “somebody died.”
Something that still strikes me is how crimes can happen right outside homes without anyone noticing. The University Police have a daily email list of “serious” incidents that I check - I’ll often notice a carjacking or home invasion within 500 feet of where I was taking a nap on my couch.
It’s a great neighborhood with a lot going for it, which is maybe part of what makes the crime issue so hidden. It doesn’t look sketchy or violent until it suddenly is.
> I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is.
The army used to train their trauma surgeons in Chicago because of the number of knife and gunshot wounds seen in the city's hospitals. From 2001 to 2021, there were about 1,000 more murders in the city than American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's not far from Englewood and New City (Back of the Yards / Canaryville). Some of the worst areas anywhere (although waaaay nicer than when I lived in Chicago 30 years ago).
Relevant: TIL that Chicago street gangs today identify themselves by song. By listening to what drill music (a Chicago form of gansta rap) is playing, youths can tell which gang's territory they are in, or even when gangs are working together.
"What a non-issue. You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community "
Yes, because it is no longer "your" community. Most of those residents complaining know they will in short order be priced out. The relatively few residents who own property and can hold onto it aren't the ones complaining.
> You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community
A community is made up of people, not real estate, and if you get priced out of your neighborhood, it is of no benefit to you. It's a "non-issue" like me kicking you out of your house and fixing it up, and then for some reason you're not happy about how much better the house looks now that you're on the street. A truly YIMBY view of the world.
Will the people who can only afford to live in a "shockingly dangerous" neighborhood, after being priced out, end up in a less dangerous place?
Whereas YIMBY-activism is a bunch of wealthy upper-middle class professionals who want what they want when they want it, sponsored by massive owners of real estate who would like that real estate to become more valuable.
Both conservatives and leftist are pro-community. Their opponents are wealthy migrant laborers who plan to make their money, then leave to go back to the communities they came from. In your city, they're YIMBYs. When they're back in the suburbs and little towns they came from, they'll be HOA warriors.
> If anything, the University and its police force should do more to rid the neighborhood of its anti-social element.
AKA "the blacks".
Ironically, you are positing the same concerns as the people you claim are "entitled" but instead of questioning the university's policies you want to give them more power to enforce racial segregation.
I'm pointing out that's what the op is doing through their faith in the historical methods of the universities 'community stabilization' efforts. What the op is proposing is exactly what the university did after the Supreme Court shut down the discriminatory laws on residential neighborhoods.
When you start talking about actual human people in terms of "getting rid" of an "anti-social element" you know you've got an issue figured out and are definitely on the right side of it.
That's wild - the country I live in (Australia) has 10x the population of Chicago but only half as many homicides per year. It's hard to imagine that many in one city...
One thing to note is that crimes committed on any of this property are usually hit with an "aggravating factor", because of it being a school, and can double the sentencing for a crime.
I seem to remember a homeless fellow who used a key to extract some change from a vending machine that was surprisingly on UoC property and got a 12-year sentence.
Also, not to be confused with the confusingly similar University of Illinois Chicago.
> I seem to remember a homeless fellow who used a key to extract some change from a vending machine that was surprisingly on UoC property and got a 12-year sentence.
Well, there are two problems there:
- Being in a school is not an aggravating factor (in reality; I'm not making any claim about the law) for that crime;
- Stealing change from a vending machine shouldn't involve a 6-year sentence.
But neither of those really undermines the general concept of crimes on the property "usually" including an aggravating factor for the location.
It became a test case of whether there is a limit to punishments for crimes. Is a life sentence for littering constitutionally legal if there is a valid statute that says it is?
The courts eventually up-ended the person's sentence somewhat and reduced it to the minimum available, 6 years. I don't know whether the person had already served over that time before his sentence was adjusted, but I would hazard a guess that he had.
> It became a test case of whether there is a limit to punishments for crimes. Is a life sentence for littering constitutionally legal if there is a valid statute that says it is?
This can't be a correct description; a statute can't influence whether something is or isn't constitutional. They're different levels.
I tend to suspect that you're intentionally omitting whatever the case was actually about.
this is mine! thanks for the share. code for the project is all open source here: https://github.com/chicagomaroon/data-visualizations/tree/ma.... this was my first larger custom story project. maplibre for the map, waypoints for scroller helper and the rest just vanilla js/html/css. hosted on github pages. i have another project that has lots of other examples of cool viz i like (filter to about visualizations) https://content-we-love-54fa79867044.herokuapp.com/
Thank you for working on and sharing this project, it's a wonderful example of how maps help tell / connect the stories through the years. It was also nice to see the piece you drew inspiration from that you linked to in another comment.
I'm curious -- each section (after the transitional animation) seems like it translates quite well to being a fixed page, and I'm wondering if you've looked at there being an easy way to generate a version that could be printed?
The reason I ask is that I'm working on a family history project which involves various locations, maps, newspaper stories and old photographs, and whilst something interactive feels like it would be an engaging way to do it, for the long term it's always good to have a printed copy of anything :)
I could imagine if there was an easy way to generate a print version of your articles, some people would pay for a copy (that was printed professionally in a suitable photobook-style format).
Apologies if there is a simple way to generate this and I've missed it in my cursory glance around the code :)
I have not but this is a good flag and will think more about it! i think newsrooms have spent a lot of time thinking about how to translate online first material to print and vice versa so there may be some ideas to draw from. The freedom and creativity that comes with bespoke online first projects does cause some challenges to easy exporting to print versions.
This is absolutely lovely. Thank you.
The underlying map is modern across all timelines. What would be super awesome is if the underlying map would also change, based on historical propery deeds, maps and ariel photos. For example, the 1893 world's fair is when much housing was constructed. The entire coastline also changed during this timeline. This would be an order of magnitude more work...
love that idea! reminds me of a piece by the philadelphia inquirer that i drew inspo from : https://www.inquirer.com/history/inq2/chinatown-history-time...
Is there a place to submit an issue with the data? The final map makes it look like a bunch of properties around the neighborhood were purchased by the University between 2004 and 2005. But I recognize one of them (5125 S. Kenwood, just south of Hyde Park Blvd/51st St.) as my first grad school apartment: I lived there throughout the 1998-99 academic year, and it was definitely a university-owned/managed building at the time.
yes, can send an email to data@chicagomaroon.com! there are a chunk of apartments that were very hard to get exact dates for so a few are approx but would love to improve the accuracy.
This must be the first time I’ve seen the scrolling story thing actually work. Great job!
Interesting, it's been around for awhile, I have rarely had trouble. This one was the one that I loved the most: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/16/world/europe/....
https://ig.ft.com/baltic-sea/ this one from this week I thought was excellent
it's really awesome !
This is incredible scrollytelling map work, especially for a student newspaper, I'm pretty amazed.
Great job using MapLibre too, glad it is getting more and more popular.
For others in the thread wondering about other examples of this kind of journalism/mapping/data work, to my knowledge the best term for it would be 'scrollytelling' or 'storymapping' (which is an ESRI term but is used generally as well).
There are a ton of examples out there, but I'm sad there isn't a central repository of really great ones. The NYT and The Pudding are two places that do pretty cool stuff like this.
hahahaha i'm stealing scrollytelling, that's brilliant
Noooo think of all those beautiful single family homes desecrated for less worthy uses
Good content. Scrolling is annoying. Would be nice to have j/k shortcut support to go to next/previous page of content.
What an amazing way of showcasing development, each with excerpts and notes highlighting expansion decisions.
Are there other examples of this?
Amazing!
The New York Times does a lot of great scrolling interactive data stories, unfortunately paywalled, and they don't translate well to archive sites.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/20/us/2024-year-...
This is great. My only complaint is that I have literally never been to that part of Chicago, which obviously isn't their fault. I would be fascinated to see this for the urban universities I'm personally familiar with.
Go to the museum of science and industry. And Powells. And the Oriental institute.
And Harold's Fried Chicken shack
The Oriental Institute is now called ISAC for, ahem, reasons.
And Rajun Cajun. :)
I hear you, but I live in Atlanta. Now maybe if they found some way to do some sort of Indian - soul food fusion instead of every dish being clearly one or the other...
Thanks! Those all look good. I live in Atlanta and have done quick trips to Chicago in the past - there are plenty of flights.
Tangentially related, but still worth checking out: the book "Gang Leader for a Day" [0] touches on this topic of how the university interacts (or doesn't) with its poorer neighbors. Highly recommend the read.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Leader_for_a_Day
I second this recommendation. Perhaps most interesting is that despite the author literally spending thousands of hours with literal gang members, the only time he's truly afraid is when he's describing the police gang that's been shaking down drug dealers and ordinary residents of the public housing in which he does his research.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2023/02/05/chi...
Thanks for this. I have an impending move to Chicago and really haven't connected with the place the 6 or so times I've been the last year.
Maybe some history will help.
I just moved away from Chicago but it took me a few years to appreciate the city (and I never found visiting that compelling). I miss it now though, I think the best way to learn to appreciate the city is to go out and do things in the city and find the stuff you like. There is tons of great music, food, art museums, shows (especially improv, idk if the IO Theater is back running but the Improv Shakespeare that they did was amazing). You can find pretty much anything there, the only thing I struggled with is I like the outdoors and there isn't good hiking (but Chicago actually has really good birdwatching in the city).
The easiest bit of advice is to get out of the Loop; the city Chicago boosters won't shut up about is mostly out in the neighborhoods. Also: our real pizza is thin-crust.
Tavern style is what I always saw there (though I like deep dish). Also I'm surprised people always talk about deep dish pizza and not the clearly superior Chicago food: dipped Italian beef with hot peppers.
This is a bit of my own biases showing but I've found being very into deep dish or calling the loop "downtown" were ways to know who is new to Chicago
Stop gatekeeping our pizza. Deep dish is also our real pizza
I didn't even see deep dish until I was 20 years old.
You missed out
> You can find pretty much anything there, the only thing I struggled with is I like the outdoors and there isn't good hiking (but Chicago actually has really good birdwatching in the city).
Lincoln Park north is not what I would call "good hiking", but I think it's nice for those who like the outdoors. Good for daytime walks, large beaches, dog beach, bird sanctuary, some small natural areas, lakefront trail (paved).
For good hiking, yes you'll have to drive out of the city.
You don’t have to go too far out of the city - more than 10% of the county land area is forest preserve. Inside the city, the far northwest side (along the river) and the far south side (big marsh/beaubien woods) are probably the best bets.
I know that the wooded section between the IC tracks and LSD from 47th street up to Oakwood/Pershing is a hiking trail very popular with birdwatchers. You can keep walking up to the 31st street beach parking lot, but I think it might technically be trespassing ;)
Naturally, if you want really good hiking, there is a daily train from Union Station that stops at the front gate to Glacier National Park. You can also take the South Shore train eastwards - there are 3 stops adjacent to the Indiana Dunes (both the state and national parks).
Thanks for the tips!
No problem. You know, the whole area is very flat. There’s no getting around that, and some people will never accept that any hiking trail can be good if there isn’t a lot of elevation change. That’s their loss.
I remember going to a talk at the cultural center ~10 years ago where some lady, who was apparently very famous in her line of work, talked about moving to Chicago because of her husband’s new job and spending many years hating the natural surroundings. Until one day she was in a prairie west of the city and decided to really look at the wildflowers. And that was the spark that got her to start drawing the flowers, and eventually made her famous for it.
Anyway, it’s no Coastal California or Colorado mountain meadow. But if you go out and explore with a desire to find beauty in it, you will :)
Edit - and by the way, on the South Shore train, Dune Park and Beverly Shores have trails you see from the train platform. Ogden Dunes is a bit trickier, the open space west of the train station is all national park service land, east is private property except closer to the lake. The town itself tries very hard to make it look like a private gated community but the roads are all public and you are free to walk right in. Miller Beach I’d say the train is too far from the parkland, but if you have a car, the area due north starting about a mile from that train station will blow apart every stereotype you’ve ever had about Gary, IN.
> train
Hah, there's my only lament about Chicago: no pet-friendly public transit if you have a large dog. I don't really have the stomach for the loopholes either: service dog lies or carrying her in a duffel bag NYC subway-style.
I liked to bike the lake there, the lakefront in Chicago is pretty underestimated by people who don't live there. For hiking there's the dunes or Starved Rock but those are super busy a lot of the year (and at this point I've been to both a million times). I ended up needing to drive at least like 2.5 hours into Wisconsin for long hikes, which is a longer drive than I want for just a day trip. That means for the outdoors I up mostly just went birding in parks in the city, generally Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary or Jackson Park, which were really nice but not the same vibe as a good hike (there are some birding groups that will meet around the city that were nice to go with).
I just moved out from Chicago. Don't miss it. Been to hundreds of big cities, Chicago is weak. There's not much to do for tourists compared to other cities. There is a decent theatre scene. Deep dish pizza is good. Lakefront can be nice.
As a lifelong native, I highly recommend one of the architecture boat tours. Never gets old, and the guides usually manage to pack in a fair bit of history. I know it changed my personal connection to the city.
I’m also convinced that if someone hasn’t connected to the city yet, they just haven’t been to the right neighborhood. They are many, and cater to many tastes.
What a beautiful webpage! I especially like all the quotes that go with the different expansion phases.
does anyone know how they create the maps for this story? I've wanted to do a similar sort of map for a personal project and don't know how they do it. Especially the feature where you can click.
> While the University has emphasized the positive impact the projects will have on the local economy, some residents are concerned about rising rent and how much benefit will reach the community as opposed to investors.
What a non-issue. You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community and you're concerned because the people who actually contributed to it are going to benefit as well? The entitlement is just unreal.
I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is. Hearing gunshots was a regular occurrence. I knew someone who intervened in a robbery and was shot and nearly killed. I wouldn't allow friends to come visit after dark because I feared for their safety. If anything, the University and its police force should do more to rid the neighborhood of its anti-social element.
Poverty, housing/employment, and generally, migration are hard topics.
The university has so many buildings in Hyde Park that they often make the decisions about which businesses are there or not. I've been happy with most of their choices recently; bringing in a Trader Joe, for example. However, some residents have differing opinions.
>I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is
Just anecdata. I had a family member living there for the six years, several addresses including their condo on Drexel Ave, one block from Cottage Grove (more or less the western boundary of campus proper). Their first child was born there, mom often went on long walks with the stroller to parks, etc with no problems. I visited several times, never had a problem. I walked to The Cove at night for a few beers, Sister Sledge on the jukebox was a conversation starter. Reggie's at the Beach (63rd St.) was a nice place, easy parking.
Every large city has "dangerous" areas, Hyde Park probably has fewer per capita than most.
I’ve lived in the neighborhood for over sixteen years and am raising a family there.
There’s a lot to say about the crime factor, and it’s complicated. I will say that it’s common to miss it if you don’t happen to witness it. Streets that look quiet, well-developed, and peaceful will suddenly become violent and then go back to normal as if nothing happened.
I also lived on Drexel for a few years. A graduate student was shot and killed nearby while walking home. Another night we witnessed a drive-by shooting while eating dinner. I’ve got a number of crime-related stories after living here that range in severity from “funny-in-retrospect” to “somebody died.”
Something that still strikes me is how crimes can happen right outside homes without anyone noticing. The University Police have a daily email list of “serious” incidents that I check - I’ll often notice a carjacking or home invasion within 500 feet of where I was taking a nap on my couch.
It’s a great neighborhood with a lot going for it, which is maybe part of what makes the crime issue so hidden. It doesn’t look sketchy or violent until it suddenly is.
> I've lived on one of the streets mentioned in the article and its hard to overstate how shockingly dangerous the area is.
The army used to train their trauma surgeons in Chicago because of the number of knife and gunshot wounds seen in the city's hospitals. From 2001 to 2021, there were about 1,000 more murders in the city than American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's not far from Englewood and New City (Back of the Yards / Canaryville). Some of the worst areas anywhere (although waaaay nicer than when I lived in Chicago 30 years ago).
There was a race riot there in 1919: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_race_riot_of_1919
Even closer to woodlawn and the infamous o block, arguably the birthplace of Chicago drill. Blocks away from campus
Relevant: TIL that Chicago street gangs today identify themselves by song. By listening to what drill music (a Chicago form of gansta rap) is playing, youths can tell which gang's territory they are in, or even when gangs are working together.
<https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/5t7ig0/til_th...>
A reply to the post:
>Drill rap, possibly the first genre of music that will end up disappearing because its practitioners have killed each other off.
"What a non-issue. You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community "
Yes, because it is no longer "your" community. Most of those residents complaining know they will in short order be priced out. The relatively few residents who own property and can hold onto it aren't the ones complaining.
> You have this massive development that's going to benefit your community
A community is made up of people, not real estate, and if you get priced out of your neighborhood, it is of no benefit to you. It's a "non-issue" like me kicking you out of your house and fixing it up, and then for some reason you're not happy about how much better the house looks now that you're on the street. A truly YIMBY view of the world.
Will the people who can only afford to live in a "shockingly dangerous" neighborhood, after being priced out, end up in a less dangerous place?
Anti-gentrification is a very strange confluence of extreme small-c conservativism and leftism. Quite the odd bedfellows.
Whereas YIMBY-activism is a bunch of wealthy upper-middle class professionals who want what they want when they want it, sponsored by massive owners of real estate who would like that real estate to become more valuable.
Both conservatives and leftist are pro-community. Their opponents are wealthy migrant laborers who plan to make their money, then leave to go back to the communities they came from. In your city, they're YIMBYs. When they're back in the suburbs and little towns they came from, they'll be HOA warriors.
> If anything, the University and its police force should do more to rid the neighborhood of its anti-social element.
AKA "the blacks".
Ironically, you are positing the same concerns as the people you claim are "entitled" but instead of questioning the university's policies you want to give them more power to enforce racial segregation.
No, the anti-social elements. It is wrong to paint an entire racial group as anti-social, as you are doing.
What?
I'm pointing out that's what the op is doing through their faith in the historical methods of the universities 'community stabilization' efforts. What the op is proposing is exactly what the university did after the Supreme Court shut down the discriminatory laws on residential neighborhoods.
When you start talking about actual human people in terms of "getting rid" of an "anti-social element" you know you've got an issue figured out and are definitely on the right side of it.
700 murders and 10,000 armed robberies per year.
That's wild - the country I live in (Australia) has 10x the population of Chicago but only half as many homicides per year. It's hard to imagine that many in one city...
Chicago doesn't even have the highest murder rate in America, that's the really wild thing.
One thing to note is that crimes committed on any of this property are usually hit with an "aggravating factor", because of it being a school, and can double the sentencing for a crime.
I seem to remember a homeless fellow who used a key to extract some change from a vending machine that was surprisingly on UoC property and got a 12-year sentence.
Also, not to be confused with the confusingly similar University of Illinois Chicago.
Even more confusingly, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign now has a Chicago location as well.
> I seem to remember a homeless fellow who used a key to extract some change from a vending machine that was surprisingly on UoC property and got a 12-year sentence.
Well, there are two problems there:
- Being in a school is not an aggravating factor (in reality; I'm not making any claim about the law) for that crime;
- Stealing change from a vending machine shouldn't involve a 6-year sentence.
But neither of those really undermines the general concept of crimes on the property "usually" including an aggravating factor for the location.
It became a test case of whether there is a limit to punishments for crimes. Is a life sentence for littering constitutionally legal if there is a valid statute that says it is?
The courts eventually up-ended the person's sentence somewhat and reduced it to the minimum available, 6 years. I don't know whether the person had already served over that time before his sentence was adjusted, but I would hazard a guess that he had.
> It became a test case of whether there is a limit to punishments for crimes. Is a life sentence for littering constitutionally legal if there is a valid statute that says it is?
This can't be a correct description; a statute can't influence whether something is or isn't constitutional. They're different levels.
I tend to suspect that you're intentionally omitting whatever the case was actually about.
It definitely can. The sentence was decided as disproportionate to the crime. Illinois has a "proportional penalties" clause.
This is found in the Illinois Constitution, Article I, Section 11, which states: "All penalties shall be proportioned to the offense."
Map doesn’t work?
Javascript disabled or ads* blocked?
If "no", which web browser are you having problems with?
*I'm seeing no actual ads. Nor js from sketchy domain.
Scrolling is very laggy on mobile. I really don't like this trend of hijacking the scroll feature.
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