S7 Ep22: Chris Blattman on how organised crime takes over cities

About this episode

Chris Blattman discusses how organised crime takes over cities and the implications for policymakers.

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney and Kurtis Lockhart's conversations on cities. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKF3aJ96L2o Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-crime-takes-over-cities/id1866874059?i=1000763970538 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1YGI5Q0LDKRCSK8MHBHfEh?si=5EiiP-vbRnOYxoACBDbE0Q Audioboom: https://audioboom.com/posts/8895828-how-crime-takes-over-cities Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/p/how-crime-captures-a-city VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/chris-blattman-how-crime-takes-over-cities How does organised crime take over a city – and can mayors act before it does? Chris Blattman, economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago, joins the Ideas in Development cities series to explain how street gangs evolve into powerful criminal confederations, why cities like Medellín can have low homicide rates and still be almost completely captured, and what the "terrible trade-off" between violence, criminal power and political corruption means…

People in this episode

Hosts: Oliver Hanney, Kurtis Lockhart

Guest: Chris Blattman

Topics covered

• organised crime
• urban development
• political corruption
• street gangs
• African cities
• homicide rates

Keywords

• organised crime
• cities
• political economy
• homicide rates
• criminal confederations
• urban policy
• Africa

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Chicago, Africa Urban Lab, VoxDev, Ideas in Development

Places: Medellín

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