The University of Chicago Press Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence

"What if everything we knew about gun violence was wrong? In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago in the hope of answering a big question: why do US cities have so much gun violence, and is there anything to be done about it? Almost two decades later, his answers are nothing he ever expected. UNFORGIVING PLACES is the sweeping account of a multi-decade mission to identify the real drivers of violent crime in the American City. Ludwig's data show that America's stock explanationsfor its violent-crime problem-factors like guns, gangs, race, poverty, the economy, and premeditated malice-fall dramatically short in explaining the actual incidence and scale of the country's violent crime. Instead, Ludwig shows that the incidence of violent crime can be traced to something far more innocuous: to momentary disagreements that escalate differently based on the very different environments that characterize contemporary American society today. By framing American gun violence as a situational response to different kinds of stress in different kinds of places, Ludwig presents this longstanding problem in starkly solvable terms. Progress on gun violence needn't require America to solve every other social problem first; it only requires that we find ways to intervene on the ten-minute windows when behaviors predictably go haywire. Blending the original work of a renowned social scientist with first-person dispatches from a largely caricaturized place, UNFORGIVING PLACES is a book of uncharacteristic rigor and humanity. Ludwig expands our understanding of what economics can teach us-and in the process, redefines this quintessentially American challenge"-- What if everything we understood about gun violence was wrong? In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: Why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it? Almost two decades later, the answers aren’t what he expected. Unforgiving Places is Ludwig’s revelatory portrait of gun violence in America’s most famously maligned city. Disproving the popular narrative that shootings are the calculated acts of malicious or desperate people, Ludwig shows how most shootings actually grow out of a more fleeting source: interpersonal conflict, especially arguments. By examining why some arguments turn tragic while others don't, Ludwig shows gun violence to be more circumstantial—and more solvable—than our traditional approaches lead us to believe. Drawing on decades of research and Ludwig’s immersive fieldwork in Chicago, including “countless hours spent in schools, parks, playgrounds, housing developments, courtrooms, jails, police stations, police cars, and lots and lots of McDonald'ses,” Unforgiving Places is a breakthrough work at the cutting edge of behavioral economics. As Ludwig shows, progress on gun violence doesn’t require America to solve every other social problem first; it only requires that we find ways to intervene in the places and the ten-minute windows where human behaviors predictably go haywire. Autorid: Jens Ludwig