Today, as one of the biggest cities in the country, Chicago means a lot of different things to different people, but the Windy City, as culturally rich as it is, has long been known for controversial political corruption and its gangster past. While those kinds of crimes are less prominent today, one recent documentary Chiraq provided a new chilling, sobering, and wildly unfortunate sobriquet for the city. For far too many of the city’s youth, the places they call home are just a few steps removed from an actual war zone.

According to a 2019 report by CBS News, roughly 1,099 of every 100,000 Chicagoans are likely to experience a violent crime. Records released by the FBI revealed that a staggering 653 people in Chicago were murdered in 2016, surpassing Los Angeles and New York City combined. 

The obvious dissimilarities between Chicago and a traditional battlefield aside, many experts can relate to the sentiment. BBC correspondent Ian Pannell, for one, described what he saw as striking resemblances: “People live with a threat or elements of danger, and although the degree is completely different, that's similar for civilian populations in both environments. What always amazes me - you see this in Chicago, and you see this in places like Syria - is people, they'll be out on the street, they'll be doing the shopping, but they know the rules. As soon as trouble starts to happen, suddenly, everybody disappears...” Pannell further added, “I've never seen so many weapons in civilian hands outside of a war zone as I did in parts of Chicago. Kids have become desensitized to violence. Someone's been shot, and kids are playing up and down the streets on their bikes, because they're used to seeing it, and that's also what you see in a war zone.”