I guess chinkee deleted all his posts and I didn't get to read them!!! Anyhow it looks like this thread's gotten a shitty start, let me bring it back on track.
What a time for this thread to be allowed again! I've just moved back to Chicago after living in Los Angeles for about a year, and the scene out there is waaay different but kinda similar at the same time. Main differences is that LA has waaaaay less cops than Chicago does. LA has a much larger and spread out population, but the LAPD literally has less cops on the force than the CPD. Not sure if it's a budget thing or just less people interesting in becoming a cop out there. Another thing is out there you have the luxury of the tar bags coming in tightly wrapped balloons that are really easy to swallow, making it very hard for them give you a possession charge, not sure if the balloon packaging method would work with powder, it'd make things easier in Chicago and elsewhere.
Since coming back to Chicago after being gone for a year, I sorta feel like there's more cops in the streets, not just in the wild west, but all over the city, but definitely ESPECIALLY out there, and I feel like they have more of a dickish attitude too nowadays, I feel there may be political aspects to this, and it is weird to not have someone named Richard Daley be the mayor of Chicago for the first time in my life just about. I also feel like the open air spots are just not as obviously out there as they used to be, though I'm definitely not down for making a thorough exploration out of it.
Possible explanation for political aspects of bringing up the heat and cracking down:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/05/white_house_drug_czar_withdraw.html
At first it was gonna be the white house drug czar, but instead Mr. douche bag new mayor decided to bring in a dude from dirty jer-z, and I remember seeing on this forum pictures of new jersey cops basically driving around what looks like tanks.
So my advice would be to stay the fuck out of the west, I seriously think the new mayor is really cracking down on it to make some sort of a statement, not too long ago when I was down there I literally drove past what looked like a SWAT raid with the cops holding MP5 sub-machine guns and assault rifles and whatnot. In the end it may be better for the heroin trade and disperse it into many non-ghetto areas where things can be a lot more hush-hush. I also feel like every year more and more the cops are more willing to do unconstitutional things like pull you over for no reason for a search and take your car away with asset forfeiture.
Other than that I think the eastern part of Humboldt Park is sloooowwly starting to gentrify, I don't think it will happen as quickly as places like Wicker Park and Logan Square 15 years ago because of today's economy, but Humboldt Park is slowly becoming hipsterfied haha, but only on the very eastern edge. This might actually happen more quickly because of the economy since there may be more white people getting paid less, but still looking for a place of their own. I really hope this continues, the more the ghetto gets reduced and the population dispersed, the less violent gang crime there will be, and a lot less obvious to police which cars to pull over. I'm all for gentrification, I think it does much to reduce the racial segregation that still exists in Chicago.
The ghetto might go away, but heroin will NEVER go away.
I'm not hooked on the stuff anymore, but the few times I've gotten stuff lately it overall hasn't been as good as the shit used to be, but it varies a LOT.
I'm very curious to read other people's replies, and how they see the scene to be lately.
