The rise in violent crime in Seattle is a huge, unsettling problem. So imagine what it feels like in Chicago, where:

As of June 17, 240 people had been killed here this year, mostly in shootings, 66 more deaths than occurred in the same period in 2011.

The other large cities mentioned in this New York Times graphic—Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Philidelphia, Houston—all have either close to or above 100 murders for the year.

By contrast, Renee Witt, spokeswoman for the Seattle Police Department, tells me the latest count on murders for Seattle this year is 21. That's one more murder than the city had in all of last year. And obviously, the only fantastic outcome here is zero murders. But relatively speaking, even in this more-violent year, Seattle still has a low violent crime rate.