Do you have any understanding of American history at all?
Let's not pat ourselves on the back too much. These centuries-old problems simply weren't ingrained here. I mean, the occasional Orange Man might have bad-mouthed an Irishman now and then or something, but you simply cannot compare the two contexts... and even though we ought to have known better poverty and crime are becoming extremely ethnically segregated in our city and region.
I lived in the US, have an American high school diploma, and obtained a full university credit in 'History of the Americas'. So yes, I have an 'understanding'.
Part of this understanding is that crime wasn't particularly horrible in black communities for the longest time. The United States could have done much more back then to prevent the inevitable wave of violence that followed.
Murders in Chicago in 1965: 395
Murders in Chicago in 1974: 970
While Canada was busy passing universal health care, student loans, and regulating fire arms, Americans were fighting amongst themselves and invading other countries.
Not to say we don't have it much easier than them, but their social security network is still not yet where ours was 50 years ago.
In Chicago they handed the city to the car much more leniently than Toronto, and the degree of social and ethnic segregation of their suburbs is appalling. Their social housing projects were all an enormous failure, and while Toronto was experimenting with the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, Chicagoans were holding on to the giant blocks they would eventually demolish.
To this day social housing in Chicago is kept out of downtown and out of the north side, while in Toronto we realised the importance of inclusive neighbourhoods ages ago.
