That context isn't helpful for someone who is considering where to live. I don't care what crime rates were in a city 30 years ago, I care how a given city's crime rates compare to other places today (and possibly in the foreseeable future).
> But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city.
I take your point that, in a segregated city like Chicago, the north-side crime rates are going to be a lot lower than the city average, but I'm pretty sure rates are rising in virtually all neighborhoods.
You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up". Up from where? But, to be helpful, I've provided that context for you.
> You came to this discussion with a data point that clearly isn't meaningful. You don't even need empirical data to see that; logic is enough to tell you that you can't deduce quality of life from "crime is up".
... it seems like you think I'm arguing "rates are up over the last decade and thus quality of life must be bad overall". My argument is that crime rates are high overall (tenth worst of the top 100 big cities) and on a worsening trajectory. The near-term trajectory (i.e., the last ~decade) is important because we don't live in a city from moment to moment, but we will likely be in a city for 5 or more years. I also don't purport to claim that crime rates tell you everything about a place's quality of life, in case that wasn't clear. Yes, it is unlikely that a professional will live in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, but they're also less likely to live in the worst neighborhoods in any other city they might move to.
You could credibly argue that Chicago's more segregated nature means more variation in crime rates between the worst and the best neighborhoods, which I completely believe (and consequently I also consider more qualitative assessments of cities in addition to a strictly numerical approach considering the dearth of data).
And yes, there were changes that have explanatory power over the increase in gang homicides on the south and west sides; a string of them, in fact. The atomization of the large "institutional" Chicago gangs, the disinvestment and flight from the roughest neighborhoods to suburbs in the south and west, and, yes, the way CPD managed the problem, "flooding the zone" in whatever the most recent hot-spot while leaving other problematic areas to fester. A lot of this is Chicago's fault.
But it has not at all much to do with the quality of life for professionals in the city. For most families that live in Portage Park, South Shore might as well be in Indiana.