City May Have Record Low Homicides

Good news from today's Inquirer ("Philly on track for fewest homicides since 1967," by Mike Newall, Dylan Purcell and Craig R. McCoy, 12/15/2013):

With an extraordinary decline in homicide already posted so far this year, the city appears poised to end 2013 with about 250 slayings, the fewest since 1967.

Barring a burst of violence in the last days of the year, the final tally should see 80 fewer deaths compared with 2012 - an unprecedented 24 percent fall.

Philly isn't the only city with such good news.  Note this from Mike Allen's Politico Playbook on Sunday:

Yale criminologist Andrew Papachristos publishes a review of historic Chicago crime trends, with good news for Mayor Emanuel. Chicago is on track to have the lowest violent crime rate since 1972, and lowest homicide rate since 1967. And Chicago rates 19th in violent crime rates among large cities as of 2012, at similar levels to Houston and Minneapolis. See the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies' "48 Years of Crime in Chicago": 3-page executive summary http://goo.gl/eIVTw0 ... 20-page paper http://goo.gl/1LvqzL