So to cut down on the possibility of "steering" you can't be given information on the safety of the neighborhood you are potentially going to choose to live in. Why not? It fits right in with
The Chicago Way.
Murder In Chicago: Which Neighborhoods Are Dangerous?
This article is from June of 2013.
So, the government doesn't like real estate agents pontificating on this matter precisely because it is so subjective and they don't want real estate agents "steering" home buyers to particular neighborhoods based upon their own prejudices. Steering can also prevent a neighborhood from ever improving by discouraging law abiding citizens from moving into it. So there are fair housing laws that prevent us from making certain kinds of statements about which neighborhoods are dangerous or safe.
However, that doesn't mean that real estate agents have to remain totally silent on the matter. Usually we will recommend that a home buyer check some Web site for crime statistics or hang out in a neighborhood for a while to see if they feel comfortable there. For example, a bunch of loitering adult males in the middle of the work day is usually not a good sign. Idle hands..
By just looking at this map and comparing it to a heat map of median income for Chicago you can plainly see that murder correlates pretty strongly with income. Again, idle hands... Also, isn't it odd that the murders appear to occur along diagonal lines - from northwest to southeast. What's with that? If anyone has any insights I'm all ears.
Getting Real
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Posted: 06 Jul 2015 05:20 AM PDT
I first looked at Chicago murders a couple of years ago and have been meaning to update it since. That first blog post is actually good reading for all the necessary caveats and nuances that go with any sort of data like this: Murder In Chicago: Which Neighborhoods Are Dangerous. As I explained in that original post it's difficult to definitively declare a particular neighborhood safe or dangerous. But it's still helpful to look at the data to see where the most people are being killed. For this exercise I went back to the city of Chicago's crime data portal and pulled all the homicide records for the 12 month period ending June 30. There were a total of 448 murders during that time period, which is on par with the last time I did this analysis. I then aggregated the data by community area and mapped it on Google Maps. Here is the summary by community area, sorted from highest to lowest. However, you can't possibly read this graph without first clicking on it to expand it. Also, note that if a community area had no murders it's not on the list. Case in point: Lincoln Park. The map below is interactive so you can zoom in or out and also click on the balloons for a bit more information. (Note: if you are reading this via email I don't think you will be seeing an interactive map below. However, you can click on the title of this post in your email and it should take you to the post on the Web where you can see everything.) Also, if you want to work with a larger map you can go to my underlying Chicago murder crime map. Yeah, I know that there are other crime maps out there but they often have a lot of different crimes lumped together, or they are limited to a small area, or they limit you to just a few weeks' data. #ChicagoCrime #ChicagoMurders If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market, get an insider's view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry, or you just think I'm the next Kurt Vonnegut you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice. |
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