West Town Crime Rate Trends — Chicago
West Town is a West Side neighborhood that includes Wicker Park, Bucktown, the Ukrainian Village, and Noble Square, organized around Milwaukee, Damen, and North Avenues. Anchored by the historic Flatiron Building at the Milwaukee-Damen-North six-corners and the Bloomingdale Trail (the 606).
West Town's March 2026 briefing is defined by structural contraction across violent and property crime — three sustained shifts, all downward, with no spikes or rare-event signals anywhere in the data. This is not a single quiet month; it is a multi-year pattern holding across robbery, burglary, and motor vehicle theft simultaneously.
Burglary is down 47.3% against the prior 12 months — 205 incidents vs. 389 — the most pronounced of the three. Robbery has moved in the same direction at a steeper rate, falling 60.3% to 124 incidents from 312. Motor vehicle theft is down 27.2%, from 997 to 726. Sexual assault is the one category running above prior-year levels at +15.1%, but it did not register as a notable signal this month; every other tracked category was within range or declining.
Notable signals 0
Nothing notable surfaced this month — every category sits within normal range against its baseline.
All categories, last 24 months
Each panel: recent monthly count vs. trailing 12-month context. MoM is the most recent month vs. the one before; 12mo YoY compares the trailing year to the year before that.
What's been quietly true for a year
Spikes get attention. Sustained shifts shape policy. These are multi-quarter patterns where the past 12-month total differs meaningfully from the year before — they often precede the baseline resetting.
- Robbery has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 124, down 60% from 312 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Burglary has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 205, down 47% from 389 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Motor Vehicle Theft has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 726, down 27% from 997 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
What next month likely looks like
Forecasts trained through March 2026, with a likely range we're 95% confident the actual count will fall inside. Categories with too little recent volume — or violent categories at the neighborhood level — show no forecast and are surfaced through signals above instead. See the methodology page for the gating rules.
Aggravated Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Arson
Below the volume threshold for a reliable forecast — too few incidents in recent months to project from.
Burglary
Homicide
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Motor Vehicle Theft
Other Larceny
Robbery
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Sexual Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Vandalism
How West Town compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month burglary volume — a pragmatic v1 of peer matching. Demographic / housing-stock peer matching isn't built yet (we deliberately don't ingest income or race data alongside crime). Volume similarity has the right intuition: “neighborhoods experiencing comparable burglary levels.”
Lake View
220 incidents over the past 12 months — 15 above West Town's 205.
Open page →Austin
223 incidents over the past 12 months — 18 above West Town's 205.
Open page →Greater Grand Crossing
184 incidents over the past 12 months — 21 below West Town's 205.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for West Town, excluding generic crime taxonomy. Useful as texture — what kinds of specifics show up here that don't show up elsewhere.
Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents in this neighborhood across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
How we built this page
Data → Anomalies → Forecast → Page
Incident data is pulled from SFPD's open dataset, mapped to 10 NIBRS-aligned categories, and aggregated to neighborhood × category × month. Anomalies are surfaced using strict thresholds (~p < 0.01). Forecasts are Prophet with low-count gating; violent categories at the neighborhood level skip the forecast and show rare-event / streak signals instead.
Spike rule: 12-mo total > baseline mean + 2.5σ AND ≥ 20 incidents AND 6-mo confirms. Drop rule: 12-mo total < baseline mean − 2.5σ AND baseline mean ≥ 20. Rare event: any incident in the last 90 days, no prior comparable in ≥ 5 years.