Chicago has widest racial/wealth/income gap in the nation.

With the next mayor's race on the horizon and early stirrings around possible candidates to take on Rahm Emanuel, the issue of Chicago's gun violence pandemic and rising murder rate will once again, move to the top of the list.

And if you want to talk about Chicago violence, here's a good place to start the conversation. At least a much better place than talking about more cops or a Trump military invasion.

Our city has the widest racial income divide in the nation.

A report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development has identified the divide between the incomes of white households and minority households as wider in Chicago than the nation as a whole. And the national divide is large. Not only do Chicago's white households on average far exceed African-Americans, Latinos and Asians in income, but there is a sharp difference in the city between the wealth held by whites and that held by minority communities. -- Chicago Tribune

Medium income for whites in the city is more than double that of African-Americans.

Since whites make up only about a third of the city's residents, a continuation of the income and wealth disparity will weigh on the strength of the city, says Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the director of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative.

"With less ability to consume, it has an affect on businesses and it impacts taxes and the strength of city services — everything from schools to sewer services."

Factor in that nearly half of young African-Americans are unemployed compared with 20% of Latino men and 10% of white men in the same age group, according a report commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network and the numbers begin to tell a story.

Why won't Rahm go there? He and his top cops are still talking "gang-bangers", "Facebook" and police "demoralization" for the record murder rates during his watch. As long as violence in the city continues to be discussed by the mayor and the media as a police vs. gangs issue, look for crime and violence to continue and for Trump to take full advantage in his war on the cities.