TITANGRAPH WARNING
Put poverty in concentrated city blocks and also throw in a poor job market and educational system and this is what you get. This is not mention a weakened economy and a pandemic that's approaching being here a year now.
Most people want money, nice things, and to have a good time. This transcends culture, race, and socioeconomic status. Most people get up and go clock in on a 8-5 , others own their own business and work for themselves, and some go to school to get training in a field. Then there are other people that don't have that opportunity, because they either don't intially have the financial means, discipline, right environment, or support. If a person does not have the tools (education, legal hustle mentality, and/or a good job) most turn to petty crime when that figure that minimum wage job is getting them nowhere.
If they got to be a stick up boy or on the corner to make money then they're going to do it. That lifestyle carries certain risk factors though. You got other people out there on those same blocks that aren't just going to let you take their belongings, territory, drug trade etc without some type retaliation.
That open air drug dealing and armed robbery (being a stick up boy) usually introduces people more willing to participate in trigga play to get what they want. That's typically when people start getting killed.
Most people want a nice place to lay their head and other nice things they can be proud of too, but there are many people out there that wouldn't hesitate to engage in criminal behavior as a means to acquire those things.
Personally, I don't have a problem with drugs. We have these pharmaceutical companies getting rich annually selling drugs and people getting hooked. It's the element of violence in open air drug dealing brings that is a problem for me.
There are to many young unwed mothers having children before they are ready for them. This is these men and women's faults. Now someone (usually the mother) has to take care of that child before they are done growing up themselves and they end up with a human that they can't adequately provide for financially or emotionally much less provide a structure of discipline for. When that child becomes an adult they usually gravitate towards what they see around them. If they living in the ghetto and they see the dope boys with nice things that's what they gravitate towards just like that kid who parents are doctors and lawyers are more likely to gravitate towards that.
Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule, but most people are a product of whatever circumstances are around them. Thats when you get generations of people living like what you see in major cities like Chicago.