It was inevitable.

Living in a world, as we do, where speaking the truth can be an unforgivable social sin worthy of censorship, we are now being told that reporting that crime exists is a form of “redlining” intended to harm the disadvantaged.

Telling the truth is discrimination. It must be stopped!

CoreLogic’s map for North Minneapolis shows an enormous swath of red from Golden Valley Road to the south, spanning the length of seven neighborhoods: Near North, Willard-Hay, Jordan, Hawthorne, Folwell, McKinley, and Camden. https://t.co/UWMWXPrqZf

— FOX 9 (@FOX9) May 16, 2023

Just as a side note, let me admit that I am stupid enough to live in that deep red area, the part labeled Willard-Hay. You know, the highest crime index area.

I am stupid, I know.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Esther Adams feels relatively safe in the North Minneapolis home she has lived in for 50 years. Until she saw the map, that looked familiar, like another map she had seen long ago.

“You’re telling this is a new map?” asked Adams. “Because I thought this was the old map.”

The map is a crime risk map produced by CoreLogic, a California-based company that provides risk analysis for retailers, insurance companies, and insurance underwriters, by culling crime data from 18,000 police departments in the United States.

CoreLogic’s map for North Minneapolis shows an enormous swath of red from Golden Valley Road to the south, spanning the length of seven neighborhoods: Near North, Willard-Hay, Jordan, Hawthorne, Folwell, McKinley, and Camden.

Nearly the entire northwest side of the city is saturated in crimson red.

CoreLogic says the red zone means the area has up to five times the national average for property and violent crime.

Adams, who lives in the Willard-Hay neighborhood, thought it looked like the old redlining map she saw when she moved into her home in 1972.

“When we moved here, they said that there was a lot of redlining,” she said.

I will admit that I was only 8 in 1972, and lived in Tucson at the time, so I am unfamiliar with the old redlining maps that discouraged lending to residents of the area.

With that said, though, I can assure you that the current map that details where crime is high is completely accurate, and that people who make decisions based upon a strong desire not to risk life, limb, or an investment are being completely unbiased and totally rational if they choose not to live or invest in the area.

Does that harm my interests? You bet it does. I can assure you that I would dearly love to see a bunch of idiots decide to pour money into my neighborhood and start a movement to gentrify it. I could sell my house for a big profit to some suckers and get the hell out of this crime-ridden city.

Alas, however, companies like CoreLogic keep informing people of a basic and undeniable truth: there are much better places to invest your money.

She, like others interviewed by the FOX 9 Investigators, wonders if crime mapping has also played a role in Adam’s favorite retailers recently leaving the North Side.

Her pharmacy, the Walgreens on West Broadway, is permanently closed, the company blaming, among other things, “dynamics in the local market.”

The Aldi market, at Penn and Lowry Avenues, packed it in too, saying they couldn’t expand, and their lease was expiring, although the landlord told FOX 9 Aldi was offered additional space.

It’s not just a phenomenon in the Twin Cities. In urban areas across the country, major retailers are retreating from areas perceived as plagued by crime.

San Francisco is witnessing a retail exodus, with Walgreens closing five stores, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and several big box stores are getting out the downtown area as well.

Notice the descriptor? “Perceived” as plagued by crime.

No, these places ARE plagued by crime. It isn’t a narrative; it is a reality. The other day I was sitting in my living room writing for this site and I heard gunfire–multiple shots fired each time–and accompanying police sirens 5-7 times that day. None so far today, but it is still morning as I write this.

None of these incidents made the news, because nobody died. No blood no foul.

This is the reality of 21st century America, where the MSM is all about narrative and dismissive of something so mundane as mere facts. Riots are “mostly peaceful,” criminals are oppressed victims, and people refusing to be actively victimized are oppressors.

“And quite honestly, over the decades we’ve been trying to recruit businesses to West Broadway. Frequently, the national chains and the businesses that have a presence throughout the country look at our area and say, we’re not coming there,” Rose said.

Rose believes the problems got worse after the civil unrest in 2020.

His liquor store was looted, and he had to close for two months.

Afterward, his insurance rates doubled, and he had to get policies from seven different providers to cover his businesses and an attached affordable housing development.

According to data from the Minnesota Department of Commerce, insurers paid out $316 million dollars in claims from the 2020 civil unrest, the vast majority for commercial property.

More than $44 million in claims were paid out in the 55411 zip code of North Minneapolis.

If Walgreens on West Broadway were making money, it would have remained. Given that the particular Walgreens in question happens to be the one closest to me, I can tell you that I would never go there. I avoid Broadway at all costs, and the few times I made the mistake of taking the shorter drive into Minneapolis on Broadway my wife growls at me.

Reacting to the incident, Minneapolis PD Chief O'Hara said: "For the past year, [teens in stolen cars] have been allowed to continue to wreak havoc in our neighborhoods with no recourse and no consequences. We cannot continue to tolerate this behavior." https://t.co/gwFkHuNxPh

— FOX 9 (@FOX9) May 17, 2023

Crime is very real, and it is getting worse by the day. No amount of gaslighting can hide the reality that city life is getting less pleasant and more dangerous, and that no sane person is going to invest their own money in crime-ridden areas. If one looks up businesses that have invested in North Minneapolis in recent years almost to a one they have been enticed by tax money, and in many cases the incentives aren’t high enough.

Gayle Smaller of NRRC sees a legacy of inequality in the CoreLogic map.

“For the last 15 years, I’ve been telling everyone this map exists. Just from being an observer of the community, being born and raised here, I knew that there was something that existed that was stopping companies from coming here,” Smaller said.

Does anybody believe that the retail exodus from San Francisco, as was suggested in this story, is caused by crime maps?

No, it is actual crime. People are being terrorized. Stores are looted every day. No riot needed now.

Associate Professor Claire Kelling of Carleton College studies crime data and spatial statistics and had concerns with the CoreLogic map of North Minneapolis.

“It’s just so striking to me that this map is not telling the full story,” Kelling said.

She worries about biases that can get baked into so-called “black box algorithms,” and said it is not enough to simply exclude race and ethnicity data because racial bias can reveal itself in more subtle and nuanced ways.

Kelling said the research problem is known as ‘fairness through unawareness,’ when so-called protected variables like race maybe become correlated with other variables because of complex social factors.

“Complex social factors.” Ah, so perhaps we should ignore the facts as a form of reparations? I suggest that Professor Kelling puts her money where her mouth is. (Full disclosure: I went to Carleton College and taught there for 4 years.)

This story is yet another example of the Regime Media in action. The Minneapolis Establishment is desperate to get people back into the city. Tax revenues depend upon it. Their prestige depends upon it. Their power depends upon it.

So they lie.

That is unsurprising. Almost anybody in their position would lie, or as the literati would say, spin the facts.

But the media? Their job is to tell the truth, or used to be. They will certainly tell you ad nauseam how they report the truth without fear or favor. They are courageous truth tellers!

Yeah, right.

The Regime Media is not your friend. This fact is glaringly obvious. This story is intended to convince people to behave in a way contrary to their own interests–ignore the map! Everything is just fine in North Minneapolis!

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