Downtown Chicago was like that in the late ‘60s except the problem was black panthers selling newspapers. They’d come running towards you screaming to buy one of their little propaganda rags. The downtown area died, but all the excuses centered around people flocking to suburban malls rather than shopping downtown. Mayor Richard J. Daley then turned the Loop into a pedestrian mall and it got worse.
The pedestrian mall and the roving gangs of panthers are long gone and the area is thriving again.