Law enforcement

Why crime in Chicago soars while New York is safer than ever

In this modern tale of two cities, it is the best of times in New York and the worst of times in Chicago.

While Mayor Bill de Blasio recently crowed about the “safest October” since the NYPD began compiling computerized crime statistics in the early 1990s, his counterpart in Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, has been presiding over a relentless bloodbath that left 18 residents dead over a single weekend last month.

New York saw a 5.6 percent decline in murders this year through October — to 286, down from 303 — but the Windy City recorded 625 murders over the same time, despite having a population one-third the size of New York’s.

Chicago’s surging homicide toll for 2016 — which stood at 656 as of Monday — also marks the first time since 2003 that more than 600 people have been killed there in a single year, putting the city on track to record its most annual murders since 1997.

And the trajectories of the nation’s first- and third-largest cities couldn’t be more divergent when it comes to crimefighting success. After recovering from sky-high rates during the 1990s crack epidemic, the past decade saw New York’s murders fall by nearly 40 percent, while Chicago’s largely remained steady before this year’s explosion.