You know I am from the things that I said in the show. So, is there not another side to this law and order issue? And you know, we're pro-enforcement. But it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, would it, for the business community to take a more socially responsible attitude toward investing and opportunity? Let it be Corey Brooks-mediated opportunity for the kids in the city. Maybe they believe, a little pie-in-the-sky, that social programs and spending more money will do some good. They think mass incarceration is a real issue. Aren't they also partly motivated by a feeling that you can't solve the problem of disorder and criminal violence by locking up everybody? They don't want to see the Cook County Jail overflowing with these young kids. I'm reluctant to say that they're so craven and cynical that they they know but nevertheless mouth these platitudes, because they think it's going to get them elected or it's going to get them a favorable press or whatever. These people can look and see what's going on, just like everybody else. And I'm just wondering where that ideology comes from, because these are not stupid people. Implicitly, Kim Foxx, the state's attorney, I assume, is implicated in this, which is a soft-on-crime, let's make excuses and so on. GLENN LOURY: Now, you were citing some statements by county executive Toni Preckwinkle, by the chief judge, Tim Evans. Matt’s recently published book, What Next, Chicago?: Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son, documents the good, the bad, and the ugly of present-day Chicago, and he walks me through some of it in this excerpt from our longer conversation. But the same kind of folks I grew up with are still there, and good people on the ground, like Pastor Corey Brooks, are putting their heads down and addressing dysfunction on a grassroots level. A small minority of gang members and other criminals are dismantling the place. The South Side’s problems are matters of life and death, both for the city and for too many of the individuals living within it. That decline narrative is certainly real, but as I learned from my conversation with the journalist Matt Rosenberg, it isn’t the whole story. Watching from a distance, it can sometimes feel like the South Side is in a death spiral. Certain areas I wouldn’t have dared go unless I was dressed to the nines I now wouldn’t dare go out of fear for my life.

So it has been especially heartbreaking to watch the place I love slide into decline, and for that decline to have accelerated so drastically over the last two years, with violent crime skyrocketing and very few scalable solutions coming from the city’s entrenched political class. Much of the culture-the music and style-that made and makes Chicago such a distinctive place emerged from the South Side of my youth. Parts of it were rough, but it was home to a vital black community with thriving families, good schools (many of which were integrated), and decent jobs. As many of my readers know, I’m a proud native of Chicago’s South Side.

Death spiral black on its side