- Basil D Soufi/Wikimedia Commons
- “Lamentably stuck in adolescence,” according to Rachel Shteir
Many years ago, trying to convey the scope of a serious problem facing Chicago (or someone somewhere—I don’t remember the story at all beyond its compelling argument), I asked readers to consider some highly troubling statistics. I advised readers not to take the numbers literally as I had just made them up. Even so, they “should give you some idea.”
Writers with urgent arguments to make can’t afford to slow down for yellow lights. The critical job to be done must be approached the same way movie cops approach a high-speed auto chase through city streets: exactitude is just another fruit cart to barrel into and clear out of the way. Rachel Shteir has a lot to say about Chicago in Sunday’s lead review of the New York Times Book Review, and in the course of saying it she flings a lot of grapefruit and banana hither and yon. Much of her case against the city strikes me as bizarrely overstated—but I don’t deny it gives readers some idea.
Her review begins:
