Chicago, R. I. P.

Another day, another blue dystopian American city. Today’s selection is Chicago. Reporting on the fall of Chicago is long time resident and essayist, Joseph Epstein.

Epstein gives the impression that he has simply checked out. He seems no longer to roam around town, picking up the rhythm, the good and the bad. He has retreated to the television set,  to keep a wise distance from the ambient chaos:

I’m a news junkie, but the time has come for me to cut back. The first and best place to do so, I have decided, is local television news. It’s altogether too depressing, especially the nightly version that I usually watch before bed. In Chicago, where I live, most of each broadcast is given over to murders, carjackings, hit-and-runs, and interviews with grieving family members of the victims of these crimes.

Crime is now ubiquitous. Once-safe neighborhoods are no longer safe:

So rampant has crime in all its varieties become that no neighborhood in Chicago is free from it. Owing to local television news, I learn about gang murders where stray bullets kill innocent victims (often children) on the city’s South and West sides, but now also carjackings and other robberies in the once-safe neighborhood where I grew up. Retail stores on plush Michigan Avenue have been ransacked. Formerly serene suburbs have experienced murders. Two people were killed recently near a restaurant I frequent. All this is brought home to me nightly by local television news.

Between prosecutor Kim Foxx and Mayor Lori Lightweight, no glimmer of hope remains:

In connection with all this crime, local news in Chicago will often feature interviews with Cook County prosecutor Kim Foxx, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot or police chief David Brown. In their rather pathetic attempts to maintain that everything is under control, the appearance of all three only provides additional discouragement. In her various pronunciamentos, Ms. Lightfoot is especially adept at self-righteously conveying a sense of hopelessness.

From which Epstein draws a stark conclusion:

Is turning my back on all the wretched news on local television uncitizenly, which is to say irresponsible? Is it even safe? Shouldn’t I know how bad things have become in the city? Can I live without local television news? Or, quite as much to the point, can I continue to live with it?

Chicago, R. I. P.