How Chicago's Community Areas Stack Up: Murder, He Wrote

A real estate broker and blogger named Gary Lucido likes to track crime statistics in various neighborhoods in Chicago. He looked at the past year's murder rate (June 2017-June 2018) for each of Chicago's 77 official community areas, and draws some conclusions.

One is, "Uptown often gets a bad rap but in reality its murder rate isn't that awful - by Chicago standards."

Um, thanks...?

In reality, Uptown stacks up pretty well, although zero would be a much nicer number. Mr. Lucido determined that Uptown had 5.6 murders per 100,000 people in the past 12 months. That puts Uptown slightly ahead of Albany Park (4.0), West Ridge (4.0), and Lincoln Square (4.3), and slightly behind the Loop (6.1), the Near North Side (6.2), and Bridgeport (6.3).

For those looking for the communities with the highest murder rates, the unparalleled champion is West Garfield Park with a rate of 139 murders per 100,000 residents. It is trailed by North Lawndale (95.8) and Englewood (94.9).

The communities with a big fat zero are Armour Square, Beverly, Burnside, Calumet Heights, Dunning, Edgewater, Edison Park, Forest Glen, Hermosa, Irving Park, Jefferson Park, Montclaire, Mount Greenwood, Near South Side, Montclare, North Center, Norwood Park, Oakland, Pullman, and West Lawn.

You can read Gary Lucido's blog, Getting Real, here.