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Author Archives: fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

You Lying Cherry Picker…Part Two

Posted on September 1, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

Joel Kotkin must know he’s lying. The only conclusion one can draw from his recent Washington Post piece is that he is claiming that a single family home in an automobile oriented environment is not an option for the average American family in much of the United States. The obvious truth is that the “white picket fence” model is very nearly the only option for an American family which is financially viable, geographically available, and socially acceptable.

Kotkin expresses concern specifically for struggling, post industrial communities and about those places his observations couldn’t fall further from the mark. In greater Springfield, for example, there are single family homes at every price point both within the city itself, and in the outlying suburbs and rural areas. Banks are set up to finance those homes, and you can find them nearly everywhere in every city and town. Apart from their ubiquity, no one would ever question your choice of a detached single family home as a parent. Ever. There are better and worse neighborhoods, and more or less affordable communities, but buying a house with a driveway and a yard is undeniably, inarguably, irrefutably, the norm.

The same is true for all but maybe 5 metro areas in the United States and we all know it.

But what if you want to raise a family in an urban place? What if you want that option? In luxury cities, as Kotkin labels them, such as Manhattan, Cambridge, or San Francisco it is true that many families select the walkable, traditional, urban option. It’s expensive, but the idea is that the amenities made available in the public realm in a vibrant city more than make up for the relatively high cost of housing on a square foot basis. In other words people make the same calculation urban dwellers have always made regarding the value of space in closer proximity to the benefits living in a society creates.

In the rest of America our system of infrastructure and finance has so disabled the center city that living there, while easily affordable, is socially unacceptable and perceived to be untenable educationally. That the impediments to urban living are mostly illusory makes their impact on freedom of choice no less real. Anyone being honest about the state of our society will acknowledge that any family of even extremely modest means will do everything possible within their power to place themselves in as suburban a place as possible because the alternative, city living in a dense community, has in many cases been stripped of its value, or even when it has not, it is perceived to have been so stripped. People overextend themselves financially on homes they cannot afford, which further obligates them to live car centered lives involving, often, the purchase, fueling, and maintenance of multiple motor vehicles just to engage in the comings and goings of everyday life.

Because already existing, traditional, walkable places do not exist as an acceptable option for people wanting to raise families, infrastructure is spread out, car use is increased, fossil fuel energy demands skyrocket, and land use for agricultural and recreational use is reduced. All of this makes our economy less efficient while exacerbating its negative environmental impacts at the same time it stratifies and calcifies our society’s racial and class differences. It stresses our different layers of government fiscally as the services they are expected to provide are pushed out to the periphery in a layout which does not allow efficiency.

If real choice is the goal then there will need to be at least as great an effort put into rebuilding America’s center cities as there was into destroying them. Billions of dollars will need to be spent on improvements in urban infrastructure and public transit; nearly as much as has been spent on highways and stroad developments. Finance will need restructuring to facilitate urban development in the same way that mortgage restructuring and the home mortgage interest deduction promoted single family home development in the 20th century. Tax formulas will have to be changed to more accurately reflect the cost to government of maintenance and services that the different living typologies demand.

Then we’ll have a much more level playing field and we’ll see how this:

20140901-084918.jpg

Fares head to head against this:

20140901-085004.jpg

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Auto-centeredness, Choice, Density, Education, Environment, Family, Infrastructure, Joel Kotkin, Sprawl, Taxes, Walkability |

Crashing into Facts

Posted on August 31, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

Another anti urban classic event took place this week in the Massachusetts media as Allstate Insurance released its list of cities with the worst drivers. Three of the bottom four cities, in Allstate’s estimation, were Bay State metropolises with Washington D.C. rounding out that group. Chuck Marohn did a better job than I could do of explaining the perversity of a report which lists, in essence, the two safest places to drive in the United States as having the “worst drivers”.

Most deaths per vehicle mile? Bottom of the list(i.e. fewest deaths):

20140831-081528.jpg

Neither Massachusetts nor Wyoming, neither Worcester nor Fort Collins, Colorado has the “Best Drivers” nor the “Worst Drivers”. The point is that their road systems are designed differently and those design differences create the material circumstances which cause their outcomes to differ. In Worcester, Massachusetts you are more likely to get into an accident than in Wyoming, but you are more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a crash in Wyoming than in Worcester.

That our local media reported this information un-skeptically is unsurprising given their profound anti urban bias as demonstrated in the way in which they have dealt in the past with issues like violence, automobile carnage, and place rating lists. Notice how the media assumes “worst” = “most dangerous” and does not critically question the assumptions made about the data but instead produce this:

20140831-082337.jpg

20140831-082350.jpg

20140831-082359.jpg

20140831-082408.jpg

20140831-082803.jpg

Problem is, the Allstate data would have you leaving the safest places and moving to more dangerous ones. Traffic deaths and suicides, remember, are negatively correlated to density, and if you have children those two things are the most likely to take your children from you.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Anti urban bias, Crashes, Dangerousness |

Blame Me! Part II

Posted on August 23, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

Another terrific example of blaming Springfield, even when the city has nothing to do with a particular incident comes to us today from MassLive…again:

20140823-082243.jpg

Somehow this article merits inclusion under the “Springfield” banner because:

20140823-082400.jpg

So, he is HOMELESS, but from Springfield. As with the fire at the library in Northampton, where the HOMELESS person who set the fire was somehow “from” Easthampton, I would posit that the status of homelessness means you are from where you are. When crimes are committed by the homeless in Springfield no investigation into their provenance takes place so as to mitigate the negative impact on the city’s reputation!

A few weeks ago a fatal shooting in the city was announced with this headline:

20140823-083108.jpg

“Oh my God, a shooting near a school…I hope the kids were OK.”

Except it was at 5 p.m.

On a Saturday.

In early August.

Compare that to the treatment this vehicle getting crushed on Route 20 in Brimfield (Again!) got on the same day.

20140823-083420.jpg

Keep calm and drive on, people.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Anti urban bias |

If You Cherry Pick the Data, You Know You’re Lying

Posted on August 23, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

It’s not often that you read an article that makes you look up three words in the dictionary. What makes it more impressive is that the words in question weren’t even in the piece itself. I must admit that the subtle distinctions between sophistry, casuistry, and obscurantism are such that I needed a refresher after reading Joel Kotkin’s meandering column in the Washington Post. It winds ’round and ’round itself and, not surprisingly, ends up in a cul de sac.

Fortunately for me Ben Adler at Grist does the heavy lifting in his response to Kotkin, and points out the flaws in the analysis of the data which Kotkin uses. Adler is too grown up to go into detail when it comes to the deceptive nature of the data Kotkin selects however, so allow me.

Sprawl is the reason Salt Lake City is a leader in the production, as it were, of children. (The Mormon church’s views on being fruitful and “multiplying” just might play a role there.)

People having more children is more indicative of the quality of the environment for raising children than…data demonstrating where children have the highest quality of life. (Hint: It’s the northeast.)

20140823-080720.jpg

Auto-centeredness is the reason Texas is seeing a flood of new immigrants. (I’ll let you work that one out.)

Better government is the reason for job growth in regions tied to the energy sector. (True, Boston, New York City, and San Francisco were offered enormous shale beds and chose not to get into the fracking biz ’cause they’re just too snooty.)

That Mr Kotkin has no interest in helping anyone, even himself, come to a better understanding of the actual situation on the ground is made clearest by his cherry picking of the data. He bounces back and forth between things like total growth or percentage growth, large cities and small cities, metro areas and cities proper, and alters his time frames based on a clear effort to make the data say what he wants it to say, and not to find out what it might really mean:

2001 is a significant year if you want to show that Houston has led the nation’s LARGE metropolitan areas in NET growth in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (The recent energy bubble is called a “recovery”); but 2008 is the operative year when comparing NET job growth to New York City (Did something happen in 2008 to jobs on Wall Street?); GROWTH in the PERCENTAGE of the foreign born is key when touting Charlotte and Nashville over cities in the northern tier (“Golly, why would you choose percentage growth and not net growth to compare Charlotte and Nashville to NYC?”) or FASTER GROWTH in the PERCENTAGE of college graduates of the same cities to Boston. (Yea, Boston needs to get with it on the “Higher Ed” thing. Open a college or something. Maybe the folks from Charlotte and Nashville could come up and help ol’ Bean Town out!)

The amazing thing is, all of these things are not even the primary flaw of Kotkin’s piece. The bottom line is that he is right when he says that a great many Americans like sprawl, want suburban subdivisions and want to live car-centered lives, but he is as wrong as anyone in the field of urban studies could be when he analyzes the current situation and concludes that the risk to freedom of choice is that struggling cities, like the one I live in, will opt for a New York, Boston, San Francisco model of development and close out the possibilities for people who want to live “The American Dream”. The truth is that struggling cities must follow the path of salvaging walkability, density, and transit or the only viable middle class option will continue to be sprawl, which will eviscerate those communities economically and have potentially ruinous consequences for society and the environment.

In Part II I will lay out a coherent argument which will reveal and not obscure the reasons for arriving at this conclusion.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Auto-centeredness, Data, Growth, Honesty, Joel Kotkin, Rationality |

If You Cherry Pick the Data, You Know You're Lying

Posted on August 23, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

It’s not often that you read an article that makes you look up three words in the dictionary. What makes it more impressive is that the words in question weren’t even in the piece itself. I must admit that the subtle distinctions between sophistry, casuistry, and obscurantism are such that I needed a refresher after reading Joel Kotkin’s meandering column in the Washington Post. It winds ’round and ’round itself and, not surprisingly, ends up in a cul de sac.

Fortunately for me Ben Adler at Grist does the heavy lifting in his response to Kotkin, and points out the flaws in the analysis of the data which Kotkin uses. Adler is too grown up to go into detail when it comes to the deceptive nature of the data Kotkin selects however, so allow me.

Sprawl is the reason Salt Lake City is a leader in the production, as it were, of children. (The Mormon church’s views on being fruitful and “multiplying” just might play a role there.)

People having more children is more indicative of the quality of the environment for raising children than…data demonstrating where children have the highest quality of life. (Hint: It’s the northeast.)

20140823-080720.jpg

Auto-centeredness is the reason Texas is seeing a flood of new immigrants. (I’ll let you work that one out.)

Better government is the reason for job growth in regions tied to the energy sector. (True, Boston, New York City, and San Francisco were offered enormous shale beds and chose not to get into the fracking biz ’cause they’re just too snooty.)

That Mr Kotkin has no interest in helping anyone, even himself, come to a better understanding of the actual situation on the ground is made clearest by his cherry picking of the data. He bounces back and forth between things like total growth or percentage growth, large cities and small cities, metro areas and cities proper, and alters his time frames based on a clear effort to make the data say what he wants it to say, and not to find out what it might really mean:

2001 is a significant year if you want to show that Houston has led the nation’s LARGE metropolitan areas in NET growth in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (The recent energy bubble is called a “recovery”); but 2008 is the operative year when comparing NET job growth to New York City (Did something happen in 2008 to jobs on Wall Street?); GROWTH in the PERCENTAGE of the foreign born is key when touting Charlotte and Nashville over cities in the northern tier (“Golly, why would you choose percentage growth and not net growth to compare Charlotte and Nashville to NYC?”) or FASTER GROWTH in the PERCENTAGE of college graduates of the same cities to Boston. (Yea, Boston needs to get with it on the “Higher Ed” thing. Open a college or something. Maybe the folks from Charlotte and Nashville could come up and help ol’ Bean Town out!)

The amazing thing is, all of these things are not even the primary flaw of Kotkin’s piece. The bottom line is that he is right when he says that a great many Americans like sprawl, want suburban subdivisions and want to live car-centered lives, but he is as wrong as anyone in the field of urban studies could be when he analyzes the current situation and concludes that the risk to freedom of choice is that struggling cities, like the one I live in, will opt for a New York, Boston, San Francisco model of development and close out the possibilities for people who want to live “The American Dream”. The truth is that struggling cities must follow the path of salvaging walkability, density, and transit or the only viable middle class option will continue to be sprawl, which will eviscerate those communities economically and have potentially ruinous consequences for society and the environment.

In Part II I will lay out a coherent argument which will reveal and not obscure the reasons for arriving at this conclusion.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Auto-centeredness, Data, Growth, Honesty, Joel Kotkin, Rationality |

Availability and Risk

Posted on August 17, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

As perverse as it may sound, I enjoy discovering irrationality in myself. I enjoy it because, by being open to questioning my beliefs, I sometimes make small steps toward better understanding.

Last week I was invited to the presentation of an exciting plan for a part of the downtown which, after struggling for decades, was then the site of an enormous natural gas explosion. There are elements of the plan which echo excellent suggestions which have been made, and ignored, for 30 years, but the plan also contains some cutting edge ideas as well. In the days before its presentation I was preparing myself to speak more knowledgeably about some things which were supposed to be more controversial about the plan, (namely the restoration of two way traffic to some significant streets in the downtown), but, as no one expressed any opposition to the idea I didn’t speak out in support: “The amateur urbanist doth protest too much”.

The day before though, I had been speaking to my daughter about what she and a friend had done the night before. They had gone down to Main Street to eat at Nadim’s, but had been waylaid by the jazz festival. After that they had spent a few hours at Smith’s Billiards

On Worthington Street

In the Club District

On a Saturday night

Late.

I love downtown. But Worthington Street is a free-for-all on a Saturday night. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous. It is the 21st century struggle red in tooth and claw, the war of all against all. So I went into a modified, controlled “Dad” mode:

“Was it crowded?”

“How late did you stay?”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

-Yes.

-1 a.m.

-No. Inside the clubs anyone who makes trouble is removed early in the evening. You don’t stay until closing because then the knuckleheads bump into each other en masse outside. You walk back via Main Street and not Dwight Street because the cars go too fast and, as you move away from Worthington Street, there aren’t any people on the sidewalks and it gets creepy.

In other words, I had done to “Worthington Street” what others have always done to Springfield: I had taken sporadic news reports and extrapolated from them that the entire Club District was the Wild, Wild, West all the time, for everyone, at every venue.

Wow! There was a risk-perception gap in my understanding. Because I had little experience with Worthington Street at night, like the association of suburbanites with downtown Springfield, the information I had was nearly all negative with many other equally misinformed people supporting my misperception through their commentary. To quote a risk expert: “The more available something is to our consciousness, the more aware of it we are at the moment ’cause it’s in the news…the more the brain over weights that information. High profile events trigger overweighting of fear because of this particular mental trick, availability.”

Even when I did go to the Club District (to Adolfo’s with my wife) and had a pleasant time and witnessed no bad behavior, I assumed I had experienced an anomaly.

But, to continue to quote our risk expert, “…the media…amplifies; the availability heuristic gets worse the more we over-cover a few plane crashes (or violent events in the Club District) and have conversations like this (or like this well-meaning editorial in the Republican).”

The mayor wants to re-christen the Club District as the Restaurant District, and I would support that. The great news for fans of Springfield is that changing the perception of risk is the single greatest thing which we can do to alter the actual level of risk. Bringing more people to the streets is what will make it safer, whereas heightening the perception of risk will take people,and eyes, off the street and increase the level of danger.

The data shows that cities are safer than suburbs and exurbs for most people. When assessing risk to youth, for example, automobile crashes and suicide are the two greatest risks and they are both amplified by sprawl and minimized by density. How many young people have died or suffered serious harm in western Massachusetts outside the city in these ways in the time one innocent bystander was hit in the ankle by a stray bullet in Springfield?

A handful?

Dozens?

Yes, drug dealers, gang members, and people in relationships with volatile people have been murdered…but those risks accrue due to behavior and relationships, not location. Of course we should do whatever we can to deter crime and street violence, but at this point the non-gang non-gun related behavior putting us most at risk is the general obsession the local media has for Springfield violence.

By the way, murders are on a pace to decline 27% in the city of Springfield so far in 2014. Not one of the 9 victims has even been called “an innocent bystander”.

Are you in a gang?

Are you buying or selling drugs?

Are you living with someone who might kill you?

No?

What about these questions:

Do you drive a car?

Do you ride in a car?

Do you walk on streets where there are no sidewalks?

Twice as many people die and many times as many people are seriously injured in cars and by cars than by crime. If you move to a place where you drive more often, for longer periods of time, at higher speeds (i.e. the suburbs or a rural area) then you are increasing your risk of death and serious injury. All to avoid the much less likely scenario in which you will be killed by a stray bullet in a gang tussle or a drug deal gone bad.

My daughter gets it. She wants two way automobile traffic on Dwight Street to return. The cars will travel more slowly, more people will walk down that street…and she can take a more straight line course on her way home from Smith’s Billiards on a Saturday night…’cause, otherwise, it might be dangerous!

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Anti urban bias, Automobiles, Crime, Dangerousness, Risk, Violence |

Mediocrity!

Posted on August 10, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

My three favorite plazas are the “Plaza Alta” in Algeciras:

20140810-075838.jpg

The “Zócalo” in Oaxaca:

20140810-075931.jpg

And Court Square in my hometown:

20140901-162945.jpg

It is framed by some wonderful buildings like this:

20140810-081610.jpg

And this:

20140810-081657.jpg

But most of the time it looks like this:

20140810-081801.jpg

Mostly empty.

The Plaza Alta and the Zocalo, to be perfectly honest, are not nearly as well framed as Court Square, but I love them for a different reason: the people. In both Oaxaca and Algeciras these places are the heart and soul of the city. In Algeciras “running into someone” at the Plaza Alta is not so much a possibility as it is an inevitability. My best friends from my years in Spain were met on that plaza and our relationships grew there. If you are from Algeciras you probably met your spouse, or had the equivalent of your first date, or your first kiss there.

I only spent a few days in Oaxaca, nothing compared to the seven months I lived in Algeciras, but it was clear to me how central the Zócalo was to the lives of the people there. Yes, it is where the tourists wander and bargain for black pottery and brightly colored animals, but it is also where the children toss weighted balloon missiles into the air and run and run and run to catch them. The children play, the tourists shop, the lovers stroll, and the old folks sit and talk about the events of the day. It is marvelous.

Yesterday, in my hometown, my favorite plaza was filled with people. Nice people. Friendly people. People of all ages, races, ethnicities speaking English, speaking Spanish, and listening to music. I’m not much of a jazz aficionado. The pretense and exuberant elaboration I love in my architecture I find annoying oozing from a saxophone or a keyboard, but the crowd the “Jazz Roots Festival 2014” brought to Court Square was the finest I have ever witnessed. My city disappoints much of the time, not least because my expectations are very high, but yesterday, for twelve remarkable hours in its finest outdoor room, Springfield was as fabulous a place as any. Though it took a special event to show that it was possible, on its best day, and with tremendous effort, Springfield can be as good as a couple of towns most people have never heard of just going through the motions on a normal day.

I’ll admit it. It gives me hope.

20140810-084034.jpg

20140810-084058.jpg

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Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Music, Public Spaces, Spain, Special Events |

No Credit

Posted on August 9, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

I have harped a bit on just how eager Springfield’s newspaper of record and its accompanying website seem to be to blame bad things on Springfield even when they occur somewhere else. Last night I noticed a corollary of this tendency as a report on the Basketball Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony was reported as news…but not linked to the city’s news menu: (Note the times)

Regional news feed:

20140809-082315.jpg

Springfield news feed:

20140809-082359.jpg

I’m pretty sure the whole “Hall of Fame” thing has something to do with Springfield. Hey, there it is, right out my back door:

20140809-082820.jpg

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Anti urban bias, Media |

What’s the Definition of Insanity Again?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

20140810-094248.jpg

We haven’t changed drug laws or gun laws, we haven’t done anything about economic inequality or the flight of manufacturing jobs overseas, and we haven’t seen significant changes in the 50 year trend of the well-to-do moving to (perhaps now just “staying in”) the suburbs, so why would we expect major changes in the outcomes we’ve seen in terms of violence in urban centers over the last half century? I want to be very clear, it is not that I have changed my mind in any way in thinking that the dangers from urban crime are outweighed by the dangers of auto-centered living, it is that I have seen that criminal dysfunction is not endemic to urbanity and exists as it does in many urban centers in the United States for very specific reasons, none of which are being addressed.

Social, economic, and governmental decisions have encouraged the affluent to live in suburbs and have left behind monocultures of the poor.

Perhaps inevitably, but definitely aided by the political will, our high wage-low skill manufacturing jobs have moved to low wage regions of the world.

The combination of the second amendment to the Constitution, a belief that gun ownership guarantees freedom, and a rural culture which normalizes gun ownership makes removing or even limiting guns impossible.

The War on Drugs has ensured that an enormous black market for narcotics empowers and enriches only the most violent…at least until they are killed or incarcerated…only to be replaced by the next generation of sociopaths (A non violent drug dealer, having no recourse to the coercive power of the state, could never demand payment of debts and would quickly go out of business).

The overall diminution in violence in the United States over the last decade is a marginal one. It has not turned our culture into Sweden or Finland. In the industrialized world we are more closely akin to the levels of inequality, and of violence, experienced in Argentina. The point here is that there is no reason to expect that young, mostly minority, men will stop killing each other, and sometimes others, in cities in America and we should stop feigning shock and outrage that they haven’t.

If, as with the much greater carnage on our roads, we are determined to do absolutely nothing about the causes which lead inevitably to these effects then we need to stop pretending that we really give a damn about it. Holding rallies, having peace marches, and praying for an end to the violence are as pointless and ridiculous as asking drivers not to kill cyclists: the outcomes are determined by human nature and the structures we have set up. Certainly “raising awareness” has some value. Fewer people die on the roads because we have changed our cultural attitudes toward drinking and driving, and that marginal change can be counted in lives not lost to tragedy. But harsher penalties for drunk driving constitute an actual change.

What would the equivalent be for urban violence? The decriminalization of drugs. Remove that entire market from the black market. Disempower gangs and eliminate the need for violence and the threat of violence within that area of commerce. As with the end of prohibition we might not only see reductions in gang violence but also a change in drug use from higher to lower potency formulations, probably making their use slightly more common, but much less harmful.

Surprisingly enough, doing nothing hasn’t worked. Perhaps trying something different is a good idea.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Crime, Decriminalization, Drugs, Violence | 1 Comment |

What's the Definition of Insanity Again?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by fdsfg23441drghs433retgsd

20140810-094248.jpg

We haven’t changed drug laws or gun laws, we haven’t done anything about economic inequality or the flight of manufacturing jobs overseas, and we haven’t seen significant changes in the 50 year trend of the well-to-do moving to (perhaps now just “staying in”) the suburbs, so why would we expect major changes in the outcomes we’ve seen in terms of violence in urban centers over the last half century? I want to be very clear, it is not that I have changed my mind in any way in thinking that the dangers from urban crime are outweighed by the dangers of auto-centered living, it is that I have seen that criminal dysfunction is not endemic to urbanity and exists as it does in many urban centers in the United States for very specific reasons, none of which are being addressed.

Social, economic, and governmental decisions have encouraged the affluent to live in suburbs and have left behind monocultures of the poor.

Perhaps inevitably, but definitely aided by the political will, our high wage-low skill manufacturing jobs have moved to low wage regions of the world.

The combination of the second amendment to the Constitution, a belief that gun ownership guarantees freedom, and a rural culture which normalizes gun ownership makes removing or even limiting guns impossible.

The War on Drugs has ensured that an enormous black market for narcotics empowers and enriches only the most violent…at least until they are killed or incarcerated…only to be replaced by the next generation of sociopaths (A non violent drug dealer, having no recourse to the coercive power of the state, could never demand payment of debts and would quickly go out of business).

The overall diminution in violence in the United States over the last decade is a marginal one. It has not turned our culture into Sweden or Finland. In the industrialized world we are more closely akin to the levels of inequality, and of violence, experienced in Argentina. The point here is that there is no reason to expect that young, mostly minority, men will stop killing each other, and sometimes others, in cities in America and we should stop feigning shock and outrage that they haven’t.

If, as with the much greater carnage on our roads, we are determined to do absolutely nothing about the causes which lead inevitably to these effects then we need to stop pretending that we really give a damn about it. Holding rallies, having peace marches, and praying for an end to the violence are as pointless and ridiculous as asking drivers not to kill cyclists: the outcomes are determined by human nature and the structures we have set up. Certainly “raising awareness” has some value. Fewer people die on the roads because we have changed our cultural attitudes toward drinking and driving, and that marginal change can be counted in lives not lost to tragedy. But harsher penalties for drunk driving constitute an actual change.

What would the equivalent be for urban violence? The decriminalization of drugs. Remove that entire market from the black market. Disempower gangs and eliminate the need for violence and the threat of violence within that area of commerce. As with the end of prohibition we might not only see reductions in gang violence but also a change in drug use from higher to lower potency formulations, probably making their use slightly more common, but much less harmful.

Surprisingly enough, doing nothing hasn’t worked. Perhaps trying something different is a good idea.

Posted in Rational Urbanism | Tags: Crime, Decriminalization, Drugs, Violence |

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