Creating a crime filled city in an otherwise relative safe nation

[Surad]

OK, so here's the basic gist of what I'm trying to do.

My world is a relatively modernish setting, with 1940s type technology (albeit culturewise it's going to have to be very different for reasons I'm not going to go into at this time), and I'm making some fairly heavy use of fantasy counterpart cultures. In this case, it's an alternate version of the United States, with some key fundamental differences: Slavery never existed, the country started out independent and never had a colonial period, and in general wasn't as discriminatory as it was.

Anyway, so the crime and murder rate in Feirland (what I decided to call it) is fairly moderate, but over 30% of all murders occur in one city, and within that city, 80% of all murders happen in one part of it (granted it's a very large part, but that's still a massive concentration).

The biggest issue in making this one city is this: How do I realistically make one city so much more crime-filled and violent than the rest of the nation? I mean to give you an idea of what kind of murder rate it has, if the national average was around 3.5 per 100,000, the city would have around 160+ per 100,000. I'm talking Honduras/El Salvador rates here.

I came up with a general idea that the city was the main focus of some foreign mob families who took it over politically and effectively managed to run it like their own kingdom... until a war broke out when the Capo di tutti capi (I'll need to come up with a more original name) was murdered and no one really managed to take his place, effectively leaving the city's crime gangs extremely disorganized and in constant war with each other. The political influence over the police meant that the cops there are also extremely corrupt and all too easy to bribe, and legitimately honest police officers are hard to come by (and not very popular with other police). The problems in the city were, for the longest time, ignored by the rest of the country in large part because it's considered a shame on the nation... though this doesn't stop the tabloids from using the gangland massacre of the week to sell more papers.

The whole point of making this city is that I have a character who's from there serving in the military, and I wanted him to have grown up and lived in an extremely dangerous environment, so much so that being in combat doesn't faze him as much as it should because he's already been attacked and shot at so many times that he knows how to deal with it. Plus some added drama since he ends up getting a native girl pregnant and she believes that he's going to marry her... and how's he going to bring an innocent girl like her back to the hell he calls home? And of course, who doesn't like a story set in a crime ridden metropolis.

So any ideas on how to design such a city and make it at least semi-plausible?

 

[ThinkerX]

Al Capone to the rescue.

Your crime laden city began as a safe haven for your nations outlaws. Kind of like Vegas.

 

[Surad]

Al Capone to the rescue.

Your crime laden city began as a safe haven for your nations outlaws. Kind of like Vegas.

Holy crap... that's actually a really good idea. A city that started out as a safe haven for criminals! That's brilliant. I'm thinking more along the lines of Port Royal (a city that really was founded and kept in order by pirates). I could even say that the city was annexed as Feirland was expanding, with the mob bosses accepting it because they now have investors they can use to enrich themselves with... and with their collapse, the city's descent into criminality becomes easier. The pre-existing culture would also make change very difficult and outsiders trying to change it would be in for a shock

I'm also making it a port city, because those generally have more crime than usual, at least historically. Also it makes it easier fo immigration to come in, as well as for some immigrants to be swindled out of their cash, which forces them to have to stay around in the city and get jobs... low paying ones, which means moving out can be problematic.

Thanks, it all makes a lot more sense now.

 

[Bruce McKnight]

The layout of the city could also be something that contributes to that. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has a unique layout. Most of the bridges over the Milwaukee river are angled because the east and west side were rivals and laid out their roads so they wouldn't match up (if you believe Wikipedia)!

I'm sure you could have a city structure that keeps an area segregated for the purposes of the families. Maybe they even have the town set up in a way to easily fleece visitors, guard important buildings, designate turf, or steer traffic a certain way.

 

[AllegedObserver]

My world is a relatively modernish setting, with 1940s type technology (albeit culturewise it's going to have to be very different for reasons I'm not going to go into at this time), and I'm making some fairly heavy use of fantasy counterpart cultures. In this case, it's an alternate version of the United States, with some key fundamental differences: Slavery never existed, the country started out independent and never had a colonial period, and in general wasn't as discriminatory as it was.

I have a question which may give you pause, but you said the country started out as an independent nation. Does that mean the people there have always been there? Are they natives? Almost everywhere started out as a colony of something. The only reason I am mentioning this, is that beginning will reflect the culture of your fictional setting. You may never explore your nation's beginnings, however it will reflect the way characters act, how they think, expressions they use, and so on. More than that the types of crimes being committed would be dependent on this beginning. Old world crime tends to kinda mafioso, small key stuff (the kind you'd see in The Godfather - the scenes where Vito is a small boy). Criminals in your setting may have started off small, but eventually greed got the better of them and they moved on to the big city. And the law was more than pleased to see it this way - they may even tolerate crime to a certain degree (sorta like the t.v. show Gotham), so as to let criminals flourish in an effort to keep them in the city.

Anyways just some of my thoughts. Let it breathe.

 

[Surad]

I have a question which may give you pause, but you said the country started out as an independent nation. Does that mean the people there have always been there? Are they natives? Almost everywhere started out as a colony of something. The only reason I am mentioning this, is that beginning will reflect the culture of your fictional setting. You may never explore your nation's beginnings, however it will reflect the way characters act, how they think, expressions they use, and so on. More than that the types of crimes being committed would be dependent on this beginning. Old world crime tends to kinda mafioso, small key stuff (the kind you'd see in The Godfather - the scenes where Vito is a small boy). Criminals in your setting may have started off small, but eventually greed got the better of them and they moved on to the big city. And the law was more than pleased to see it this way - they may even tolerate crime to a certain degree (sorta like the t.v. show Gotham), so as to let criminals flourish in an effort to keep them in the city.

Anyways just some of my thoughts. Let it breathe.

Thanks for bringing that up, because I actually do plan on exploring the nation's origins, as it IS an extremely important part of the culture and what differentiates Feirland (fictional USA) to the RL USA which I'm based it on.

The general idea that I have in mind is that, during the time the country was being founded, the world was constantly in the throes of the Imperialist Wars. Those wars are basically a whole bunch of empires at odds with one another. Unlike the RL, in which overseas empires were primarily a European thing, they were a mishmosh of all cultures and such. So you have your East and South Asian equivalents, as well as even some black African types all vying for an empire of sorts, and naturally they all come into conflict with each other over territorial and trade claims, the typical stuff that nations go to war over.

The thing is, during this whole time, they lost interest in exploring new lands, and there are LOTS of new lands to discover in my world, since the planet is 5 times larger than Earth. How Feirland came to be is when groups of refugees, screwed over war vets, and others people who're sick and tired of living under the tyranny of their old masters and decided to pack up everything they had and leave to the new world. Who funded this? A group of ideologically driven rich folk who saw that their system would never survive, and believed that free societies would function better than when some big king wants a cut of everything, even if that means everything.

They go off to the new world and found their communities there. The natives have already been decimated by a disease which was native to the region (and unlike the RL, was not brought on by foreigners) and were in a mess of their own. The natives and refugees realize that they both need one another for survival and actually work far more cooperatively than they do in the real world, and intermarry a lot more, which means that much of the population that is descendant from these early immigrants have some native blood in them. Conflicts do happen as they expand, but nowhere near to the extent as it was in RL.

This is the basic gist of what I'm trying to do. It's not everything and I'm sure you can find many flaws in this story so far, but it's a base and I'm sure I can work something decent from it.

The layout of the city could also be something that contributes to that. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has a unique layout. Most of the bridges over the Milwaukee river are angled because the east and west side were rivals and laid out their roads so they wouldn't match up (if you believe Wikipedia)!

I'm sure you could have a city structure that keeps an area segregated for the purposes of the families. Maybe they even have the town set up in a way to easily fleece visitors, guard important buildings, designate turf, or steer traffic a certain way.

I really didn't think of it that way at all. That's actually a really good idea. That's something I can definitely use. I'll have to keep that in mind when designing the city's layout. I'm gonna have to get some RPG tools to make the city. Though I wonder how it'll turn out, since most software tends to be for fantasy settings. We totally need one for steam/dieselpunk settings.

 

[Terry Greer]

One of the main questions I'd like answered is why is the city is tolerated by the rest of the nation?

It could be a trading bridge to an adjacent nation - somewhere where both sides can meet on neutral ground - or where unregulated trade can be carried out.
Hold a unique resource not available anywhere else but needed - something that the city can threaten to destroy should they be attacked.
It might have a particular weapon or threat that it could carry out to ensure its survival.
It could even be fortified in a way that makes it impregnable (or easily defended) from conventional armies (e.g. deep subterannean water supply and secret access so it can't be starved out).

But that why is it allowed to continue question would dominate my thoughts.
Every city has a criminal underlayer - but why is this one allowed to be so much more?

 

[locofife]

I have the same question as Terry Greer. Why is this one city tolerated? Are there no other large cities in the entire country? If so, why are the other large cities so easily controlled? It doesn't quite make sense that there would only be one crime-laden city in the entire country. At least to the extent that you are describing.

 

[Surad]

One of the main questions I'd like answered is why is the city is tolerated by the rest of the nation?

It could be a trading bridge to an adjacent nation - somewhere where both sides can meet on neutral ground - or where unregulated trade can be carried out.
Hold a unique resource not available anywhere else but needed - something that the city can threaten to destroy should they be attacked.
It might have a particular weapon or threat that it could carry out to ensure its survival.
It could even be fortified in a way that makes it impregnable (or easily defended) from conventional armies (e.g. deep subterannean water supply and secret access so it can't be starved out).

But that why is it allowed to continue question would dominate my thoughts.
Every city has a criminal underlayer - but why is this one allowed to be so much more?

I have the same question as Terry Greer. Why is this one city tolerated? Are there no other large cities in the entire country? If so, why are the other large cities so easily controlled? It doesn't quite make sense that there would only be one crime-laden city in the entire country. At least to the extent that you are describing.

That's actually the whole point of the thread. I'm trying to figure out just how and why a city like that would exist with the rest of the nation either looking onto it with morbid fascination or pretending it doesn't exist.

It could be a trading bridge to an adjacent nation - somewhere where both sides can meet on neutral ground - or where unregulated trade can be carried out.
Hold a unique resource not available anywhere else but needed - something that the city can threaten to destroy should they be attacked.
It might have a particular weapon or threat that it could carry out to ensure its survival.
It could even be fortified in a way that makes it impregnable (or easily defended) from conventional armies (e.g. deep subterannean water supply and secret access so it can't be starved out).

It isn't a trade bridge. It is part of the nation, and it is a major port. There have been major (and even extremely wealthy) port cities in the world that were both rich and extremely dangerous at the same time. Shanghai, for example, was the most dangerous port city in the world from the late 19th to mid 20th century. As was suggested earlier, making it originally a city founded as a safe haven for criminals would make for a lot of sense as to why criminality is such a part of the culture, and the destruction of the main criminal heads without a real replacement would go pretty far in explaining why smaller, constantly warring gangs, would wreck havoc on the place. The city's elite would have gone semi-legit at least and made money off the trade, while being unconcerned with the gangs as long as their own operations are left alone.

And also there's the way how the city is arranged and how it's built. I remember reading an article on cracked saying on how some city designs from the 1930s to 1970s were actually built to keep minorities out of certain places. I haven't read too much into it, but I will soon enough.

One of the reasons I'm think of as to why the rest of the nation might not be that concerned could be that, while the city is preposterously violent, the criminal elements are at least contained and not spreading to neighboring areas. Also politicians and activists who have tried to change it before would have likely failed dramatically or even outright been murdered, which would make pressuring for real change a far bigger challenge than most people are willing to take.

There's many ways to do it. Will it ever really be plausible? Probably not, but I at least want to make it semi-plausible without handwaving too much of it.

 

[X Equestris]

It seems a lot like Chicago, both in the 1920s-1930s and today. So you could look at the factors behind Chicago's history of crime and corruption.

 

[Surad]

It seems a lot like Chicago, both in the 1920s-1930s and today. So you could look at the factors behind Chicago's history of crime and corruption.

That's exactly what I originally wanted to do. In fact, I named my city Onscenta by looking up the history of the name Chicago. I just took another word from the same Miami-Illinois Native American language.

 

[X Equestris]

You might consider the factors that contribute to crime. Poverty is probably the biggest one.

You also said that the crime families were foreign in origin, so you could tie that in with a history of immigration, and possibly nativist sentiment. If this city is the first place immigrants from a particular country get off the boat, but they can't find jobs that can provide for themselves and their families because of prejudice, a lot of people from this particular ethnic group might turn to crime. This might explain why this city alone has a really bad problem with crime and murder.