April 8, New York City. The New York Times reported today that not a single gunshot had been recorded in the South Bronx for the week, March 29 to April 4. It was the first time that the borough could make such a claim in the 10 years since the New York City Police Department acquired the capability to measure crime by precinct.

As the article suggested, "it is a small but fascinating moment for a city that has spent the last decade clawing and policing its way to among the safest in the nation."

New York City. Among the safest in the nation.

Last year, New York reported 596 homicides. Chicago exceeded that number by two. Using that simple comparison, the numbers might suggest that Chicago, the third most populated city in the United States, is not far behind New York as a safe haven for its residents. Despite earning the notorious "Murder Capital" title for 2003, homicides in Chicago decreased 7.6 percent from 2002, making it the first time in more than 35 years that the city had fewer than 600 murders.

Large urban centers across the nation — from Boston to San Francisco, Detroit to Washington, D.C. — are reporting decreases in homicide rates, some of them steady and significant, over the last several years.

Big-city mayors and their affiliated police departments suggest that increased patrols in specific high-crime neighborhoods and the deployment of crime prevention technologies, such as high-tech camera units, have played a large role in the overall reduction of crime throughout those cities.

But John Hagedorn, UIC associate professor of criminal justice, doesn't quite see it that way. During the course of his research on homicide rates in large urban centers, Hagedorn has found more at play than changes in police tactics, which weren't evident in some areas of decrease such as San Francisco.

He was also struck by the disparity in numbers between Chicago and New York City--numbers that, by themselves, are deceiving. With a population nearly a third that of New York's, Chicago's per-capita homicide rate is nearly triple that of New York's and twice that of Los Angeles'.

After examining the numbers, Hagedorn discovered another glaring difference between the two cities: New York's murder rates have been in steady decline since the mid-1990s, while Chicago's have been less marked. The senior research fellow at UIC's Great Cities Institute approached the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, a leading supporter of violence research, for a grant to find out why.

Thus far, Hagedorn's findings suggest an answer tied to the loss of Chicago's manufacturing base, lack of investment in low-income housing, and overpopulated communities having little or no employment opportunities or support.

It is an unbearable situation, particularly in some of Chicago's black communities, where disruption of residents, gangs and drug markets has led to conflict and violence.

It is hard to believe that, just a decade ago, things were worse. In 1992, Chicago reported 943 murders, followed closely by 931 murders in 1994. The pattern was the same in many big cities during the early '90s, particularly in Miami and New York.

The upsurge in homicides correlated with the introduction of crack cocaine into urban areas across the nation. "Crack was so profitable that gangs, crews and various entrepreneurs battled for control of corners, neighborhoods and projects," explains Hagedorn.

"There's a natural cycle to the illicit drug markets," he adds. "They're very violent as people contest [selling] areas, but then things settle. [Once drug suppliers decide] who's going to sell where, turf gets divided up, and the violence declines.

"On a basic level, you can account for much of the violence by looking at the natural cycle of change in drug markets that has occurred in almost all cities."

So why haven't Chicago's illicit drug markets settled?

Hagedorn believes he's found a significant part of the answer in the wake of gentrification and unfulfilled promises of low-income housing, particularly in predominantly black communities.

In some cases, gentrification is the result of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's program, Home Ownership for People Everywhere VI.

Initiated in 1993, HOPE VI was designed to reduce pockets of poverty by placing public housing in non-poverty neighborhoods and promoting mixed-income communities. Its supporters believed that mixed-income communities would help alleviate the amount of crime and drug problems found in concentrated public housing developments such as Cabrini Green.

HOPE VI provided demolition grants for the removal of distressed public housing structures and revitalization grants for major rehabilitation, new construction and other physical improvements. Besides Chicago, several other cities have participated in HOPE VI, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

Under HOPE VI, the Chicago Housing Authority is leveling its high-rise, public housing projects and replacing them with mixed-income communities that include townhouses and two- and three-flat apartment buildings. The CHA allocates one-third of the new units to public housing, one-third to affordable housing (families earning between 80 percent to 100 percent of the median income) and one-third to market-rate homes.

Unfortunately, the amount of public housing units available in the new mixed-income developments hasn't been enough to cover all the displaced families who held legal leases to CHA high-rise units, never mind the thousands who lived in the projects without them.

"If you grow up in the projects, yeah, things are rough," says Hagedorn. "The gangs are there, but you go to the neighborhood school, you know the teachers, and you know the older kids who went to that school. You have some ties. And suddenly that's gone.

"So it's a tremendous disruption of life."

With little affordable housing nearby, residents have been forced to move farther and farther from the areas with which they are familiar. Many have moved further south into the "100s" — Lawndale and Roseland. And with them, go the gang members into new territory and previously established drug markets.

"Because the people and gangs are getting displaced, the drug markets continue to be stirred up," Hagedorn argues.

And the killing continues.

The problem is exacerbated by the city's declining manufacturing base, which has left many without jobs.

In an article prepared for the online edition of The Chicago Tribune, Hagehorn writes: "Chicago is not among the cities with bleak futures, like Detroit or Gary. But its continuing high rates of violence may indicate similar underlying problems of manufacturing loss and of racial segregation. The collapse of manufacturing has led to demoralization in the Midwest as the industrial ladder of mobility, which worked for white ethnics, was snatched away from blacks.

"Demoralization, in turn, often means violence."