Makes sense to me. A shiatty neighborhood = no pride. If you have a little bit of pride in your neighborhood, you're less likely to put up with a bunch of bullshiat from lowlifes. A cleaner neighborhood could make a difference. I can see it.

/can't see it

old news is, um, old

Isn't that what the police are supposed to do?

clancifer: Isn't that what the police are supposed to do?

Their job is to eat donuts and write speeding tickets.

Cheesy Rat: Makes sense to me. A shiatty neighborhood = no pride. If you have a little bit of pride in your neighborhood, you're less likely to put up with a bunch of bullshiat from lowlifes. A cleaner neighborhood could make a difference. I can see it.

there's been some psychological studies done that suggest that it does kind of work like that. Trashed places attract more trash. Places that were cleaned up stayed cleaner.

If your surroundings suck, your attitude sucks. Clean it up a little, and maybe your attitude will brighten up.

I have no explanation for the people who are given new apartments, fresh starts, and trash them.

The Broken Windows Theory is really intriguing.

/If you haven't read The Tipping Point, I highly recommend it. This is discussed in one of the chapters.

Lowell, MA

Oh. Nothing's gonna fix that shiathole. Nuke from orbit.

brigid_fitch: The Broken Windows Theory is really intriguing.

/If you haven't read The Tipping Point, I highly recommend it. This is discussed in one of the chapters.

Came here to say that. Well played!

Cheesy Rat: Makes sense to me. A shiatty neighborhood = no pride. If you have a little bit of pride in your neighborhood, you're less likely to put up with a bunch of bullshiat from lowlifes.

Exactly. I lived in a neighborhood where people just threw their trash in front of the place I rented. I noticed that as soon as I cleared it daily the amount of trash dropped plus the other neighbors started to clean their stuff as well.

clancifer: Isn't that what the police are supposed to do?

I thought that the Johns were the ones who usually picked up the garbage in bad neighborhoods. Then teh cops usually pick them up in turn with a sting operation.

I was here to mention the Broken Windows theory but brigid_fitch beat me to it.

eddyatwork: I lived in a neighborhood where people just threw their trash in front of the place I rented. I noticed that as soon as I cleared it daily the amount of trash dropped plus the other neighbors started to clean their stuff as well.

You are a good person. I would have moved to the burbs.

BlippityBleep: I was here to mention the Broken Windows theory but brigid_fitch beat me to it.

The title of the article was Breakthrough on 'broken windows'

FTA:
Mental health services and homeless aid referrals expanded.

Yeah, that couldn't have helped: it had to be the picking up of garbage that improved everyone's lives.

The "broken windows" theory as tried in New York was horsehiat, too. It turned out that the more relevant factor was that a generation was just coming of potentially troublesome age two decades after Roe vs Wade. Legal abortion = less unwanted children and abject poverty = less crime.

That's one stupid-ass linked article.
-∞

All of a sudden, Camden makes sense

I wonder to what extent Broken Window theory applies to low-achieving students in high-crime areas. Theoretically, would sprinkling a few excellent students in poor classrooms boost performance for the rest assuming the classroom contained enough constructive student-student interaction? In which grades might this experiment work best, and sadly when would the good students get an ass-kicking.

The_Quick_Brown_Fox: I wonder to what extent Broken Window theory applies to low-achieving students in high-crime areas. Theoretically, would sprinkling a few excellent students in poor classrooms boost performance for the rest assuming the classroom contained enough constructive student-student interaction? In which grades might this experiment work best, and sadly when would the good students get an ass-kicking.

I'd place good money on the "excellent students slump to craptacular levels" outcome. It's a classroom, it's full of kids - peer pressure is what's going to drive them, not "model behaviour". Best analogy I can come up with is dropping a pair of sheep into a wolf pack to try and suppress violent behaviour.

Procedural Texture: FTA:
Mental health services and homeless aid referrals expanded.

Yeah, that couldn't have helped: it had to be the picking up of garbage that improved everyone's lives.

The "broken windows" theory as tried in New York was horsehiat, too. It turned out that the more relevant factor was that a generation was just coming of potentially troublesome age two decades after Roe vs Wade. Legal abortion = less unwanted children and abject poverty = less crime.

That's one stupid-ass linked article.
-∞

FTFA: Cleaning up the physical environment was very effective; misdemeanor arrests less so, and boosting social services had no apparent impact.

Guess you didn't read far enough, huh?

I've tried walking around nude in an effort to make my neighborhood sexier.

Doesn't work as well as you'd think.

when I lived in the ghetto in north minneapolis (penn and plymouth), they'd have 'neighborhood pride' parades in which all the successful and attractive african americans would be out marching around playing drums and shiat.

after they were done the streets were trashed with all manner of refuse. soda cans, fast food trash, hypodermic needles, you name it.

since moving to the burbs I just dont see that sort of thing anymore. must be racism somehow.

Khazar-Khum: Procedural Texture: FTA:
Mental health services and homeless aid referrals expanded.

Yeah, that couldn't have helped: it had to be the picking up of garbage that improved everyone's lives.

The "broken windows" theory as tried in New York was horsehiat, too. It turned out that the more relevant factor was that a generation was just coming of potentially troublesome age two decades after Roe vs Wade. Legal abortion = less unwanted children and abject poverty = less crime.

That's one stupid-ass linked article.
-∞

FTFA: Cleaning up the physical environment was very effective; misdemeanor arrests less so, and boosting social services had no apparent impact.

Guess you didn't read far enough, huh?

Must have one of these:

Pff, I could have told you that. Didn't town planner types play Sim City? Figured that's how they got started.

If the garbage is the criminals, then yes.

I might be nuts but when you do a real cause-and-effect study like this, don't you just change one variable at time? They changed all kinds of things (picked up trash and increase police enforcement and increased mental health referrals, etc.)

Once you do that, you really can't come back and say that just picking up trash helped anything. You have a mixed set of influences and you can't "un-mix" them after the fact.

eddyatwork: Nice job. (no sarcasm) Some people I tried that with thought, "cool. someone will clean up my mess for me" and really didn't give a fark. even after speaking with them.

/some people just want to watch the world burn...

Summary executions in public of drug dealers, thugs and the Dutch work even better.

I've seen this work firsthand. What many people don't realize is that continued upkeep lowers the crime rate. Then criminals know you're watching them and if they try to come back, you're still going to be there. Too many cities and organizations pat themselves on the back for organizing clean-up days only to find neighborhoods in the same mess year after year.

SBWorks: I might be nuts but when you do a real cause-and-effect study like this, don't you just change one variable at time? They changed all kinds of things (picked up trash and increase police enforcement and increased mental health referrals, etc.)

Once you do that, you really can't come back and say that just picking up trash helped anything. You have a mixed set of influences and you can't "un-mix" them after the fact.

I'm sure they didn't just change everything in half the areas. They highlighted 34 trouble areas, and likely gave them each some mix of different improvements, then correlated the changes with the improvements. You can't really expect a journalist to get those kind of scientific nuances.

You are all wrong. The "Broken Windows" theory doesn't apply to picking up the trash, but to arresting those who commit minor offenses like, well, breaking windows. (Picking up the trash, of course, works too, but first you need to stop people from littering in the first place) Once you start, next you need to keep arresting people who break the law. Giuliani rode to mayordom on this theory, for what that's worth.

The "abortion caused fewer criminals" theory has, at best, never been proven. So many other things happened after Roe v. Wade--like a greater acceptance of single moms, better social programs, schools not expelling pregnant girls, improved economy, crackdowns on deadbeat dads, etc etc etc--that the idea that just more abortions led to fewer crimes is like saying "I have this anti-crime rock and that's why crime went down."

In half of them, authorities set to work - clearing trash from the sidewalks, fixing street lights, and sending loiterers scurrying.

Where did the loiterers scurry to?

That's what gets to me about the "broken windows" theory. Did all the crackheads and sociopaths stop being crackheads and sociopaths because of some picked up trash and some new shrubberies? Or did they go to some other neighborhood and fark that place up? Or are they all shut-ins now? All of these possibilities are unlikely; the criminals had to have gone somewhere.

Answer: They went to jail (or are otherwise being kept on a short leash). Exponential growth of violent offenders in prison better explains the general dropoff in crime.

Note also the following:

(1) that drug offense imprisonment have flatlined since 1998, with property crimes to a lesser extent following suit, and

(2) "public offenses" dropped suddenly in 2002, which include "weapons, drunk driving, escape/flight to avoid prosecution, court offenses, obstruction, commercialized vice, morals and decency charges, liquor law violations, and other public-order offenses". Did some law 20,000 prisoners violated become unconstitutional in 2002? Did it involve virtual child porn?

TomServo0: Too many cities and organizations pat themselves on the back for organizing clean-up days only to find neighborhoods in the same mess year after year.

How else are they going to continue to pat themselves on the back year after year if the problems don't recur? They aren't interested in fixing the problem, but are content to just relieve the symptoms so that they can keep looking like heroes.

"I know Darth Vader's really got you annoyed, but remember if you kill him then you'll be unemployed..."

Wierd Al - "Yoda"

Sir Charles: when I lived in the ghetto in north minneapolis (penn and plymouth), they'd have 'neighborhood pride' parades in which all the successful and attractive african americans would be out marching around playing drums and shiat.

after they were done the streets were trashed with all manner of refuse. soda cans, fast food trash, hypodermic needles, you name it.

since moving to the burbs I just dont see that sort of thing anymore. must be racism somehow.

Maybe it's because suburbs have less people and basically no real parades or large group events. Why would there be garbage if nothing ever happens in your area. Ever seen the ground after a concert? Yeah, it's pretty bad. Are you trying to say blacks and latinos litter more than the superior white race?

woogs 2009-02-09 12:25:24 AM
The_Quick_Brown_Fox: I wonder to what extent Broken Window theory applies to low-achieving students in high-crime areas. Theoretically, would sprinkling a few excellent students in poor classrooms boost performance for the rest assuming the classroom contained enough constructive student-student interaction? In which grades might this experiment work best, and sadly when would the good students get an ass-kicking.

I'd place good money on the "excellent students slump to craptacular levels" outcome. It's a classroom, it's full of kids - peer pressure is what's going to drive them, not "model behaviour". Best analogy I can come up with is dropping a pair of sheep into a wolf pack to try and suppress violent behaviour.

Sad but very true. My neice who went from a school in Texas, which as you can probably guess was not an intellectual paradise, to one of the "better" public schools in DC was given crap daily for "acting white" and actually trying in school.

That's because there's 20% less stuff to steal.

I'm writing a paper about this, so major thanks to Subby for submitting the link.

It's amazing how simple things like this can have such a drastic effect on the communities mindset and actually improve overall quality of life. Or abortion in poor neighborhoods if you follow the Freakonimics guys. Either way, crime prevention that DOESN'T involve throwing tons of people in jail and zero tolerance policies is all good to me.

Kipple always results in more kipple...

TheJoe03: Sir Charles: when I lived in the ghetto in north minneapolis (penn and plymouth), they'd have 'neighborhood pride' parades in which all the successful and attractive african americans would be out marching around playing drums and shiat.

after they were done the streets were trashed with all manner of refuse. soda cans, fast food trash, hypodermic needles, you name it.

since moving to the burbs I just dont see that sort of thing anymore. must be racism somehow.

Maybe it's because suburbs have less people and basically no real parades or large group events. Why would there be garbage if nothing ever happens in your area. Ever seen the ground after a concert? Yeah, it's pretty bad. Are you trying to say blacks and latinos litter more than the superior white race?

Latinos and Blacks tend to be concentrated in poor neighborhoods, and poor people really don't care about their neighborhoods. It happens with white trailer parks, think about hicks. You just see it more often with blacks and latinos since they're usually poor, so it makes them look ignorant.

Also, my Neighborhood has parades all the time, and there's never trash on the ground. Our Communities actually care about those sorts of things, not that minority races don't, it's just that, well, they tend to be poor.

TheJoe03: Sir Charles: when I lived in the ghetto in north minneapolis (penn and plymouth), they'd have 'neighborhood pride' parades in which all the successful and attractive african americans would be out marching around playing drums and shiat.

after they were done the streets were trashed with all manner of refuse. soda cans, fast food trash, hypodermic needles, you name it.

since moving to the burbs I just dont see that sort of thing anymore. must be racism somehow.

Maybe it's because suburbs have less people and basically no real parades or large group events. Why would there be garbage if nothing ever happens in your area. Ever seen the ground after a concert? Yeah, it's pretty bad. Are you trying to say blacks and latinos litter more than the superior white race?

no i dont think thats it. suburbs have shiat happen too, despite what you may think. heres my own anecdotal suburb stories from my personal experience:

my mother in law lives in a heavy working class(bottom rung middleclass at best) mexican neighborhood. july 4 comes around and the place is a warzone with illegal fireworks(some aerial, some ground type things in the streets and driveways). cars, houses, lawns, streets, sidewalks, etc littered with shiat. noone cleans up crap and the streetsweeper ends up pushing most the shiat into the stormdrain.

few miles down the road, near where i live, is an affluent asian community(upper middleclass). similar housing with slightly less density per household. legal fireworks(so called safe and sane) are seen at most houses, illegal few and far between, with kids and after everyone is done, cleanup is prompt and thorough.

shiat is definitely happening often in both neighborhoods, they have similar population per household numbers, both could technically be classified as ghettos, but the education levels and property values of both neighborhoods are opposite ends of the spectrum. either its culture or its economic conditions that result in the people in both neighborhoods caring or not caring, or it could be both, but either way, if it is a cultural issue(and sometimes i suspect it is the case), hiding from the truth wont do anything to fix the problem

Politicalns/Police poured an unsustainable amount of money into a limited number of neighborhoods (one) hand picked to produce the desired result (based on income levels, pre-existing crime rate, and racial and social makeup of the neighborhood) so they could create allegorical evidence that massive government spending helps people, and the police are actually trying to do something, rather than just escorting gay strippers to the Roxy (look it up).

Try that same experiment in Dorchester or Chelsea, where the locals can't run away like in Lowell, and let's see how far you get.

Worked in Iraq.

Procedural Texture: FTA:
Mental health services and homeless aid referrals expanded.

Yeah, that couldn't have helped: it had to be the picking up of garbage that improved everyone's lives.

The "broken windows" theory as tried in New York was horsehiat, too. It turned out that the more relevant factor was that a generation was just coming of potentially troublesome age two decades after Roe vs Wade. Legal abortion = less unwanted children and abject poverty = less crime.

That's one stupid-ass linked article.
-∞

Ya, that abortion thing turned out to be a figment of Steve Levitt's imagination and only showed correlation after he massaged the numbers correctly... but if you want to keep on believing discredited stories from jackasses, I'm sure some idiot like him can provide you with something new on a daily basis.

Gyrfalcon 2009-02-09 01:47:25 AM
You are all wrong. The "Broken Windows" theory doesn't apply to picking up the trash, but to arresting those who commit minor offenses like, well, breaking windows. (Picking up the trash, of course, works too, but first you need to stop people from littering in the first place) Once you start, next you need to keep arresting people who break the law. Giuliani rode to mayordom on this theory, for what that's worth.

The "abortion caused fewer criminals" theory has, at best, never been proven. So many other things happened after Roe v. Wade--like a greater acceptance of single moms, better social programs, schools not expelling pregnant girls, improved economy, crackdowns on deadbeat dads, etc etc etc--that the idea that just more abortions led to fewer crimes is like saying "I have this anti-crime rock and that's why crime went down."


This anti-crime rock you speak of....is it for sale?

brigid_fitch: The Broken Windows Theory is really intriguing.

/If you haven't read The Tipping Point, I highly recommend it. This is discussed in one of the chapters.

Bingo. Saved me the typing :)

In fact, just read everything that man has written. His books aren't particularly long, but have a pretty amazing effect on how one looks at the world.

/Just finished "Outliers"
//Freaking awesome

Procedural Texture: The "broken windows" theory as tried in New York was horsehiat, too. It turned out that the more relevant factor was that a generation was just coming of potentially troublesome age two decades after Roe vs Wade. Legal abortion = less unwanted children and abject poverty = less crime.

Apples and Oranges. "Broken Windows" is a crime reduction technique over the short term, and more abortions is less crime over the long term.

The "broken windows" experiment has been replicated numerous times with success. It won't work everytime, but nothing does.

I know for a fact it works. I used to be in charge of a housing unit for a University. It was one of the less desirable units for sure and average far more in vandalism and community damages.

For one year, we added two additional housekeeping staff and our own maintenance person (usually they use a ticket system and all our dispatched from a central location). We expended tremendous effort keeping every hedge clipped, all window screens on, grafitti sandblasted or painted over.

It took about 9 months for the turn around and 18 before it was completely changed. Things tend to keep at the status quo. The trick is you have to put in a lot of effort on the frontside to turn the ship around.

One thing that was unexpected was that crime actually deteriorated faster then we expected. Most people don't want to live in shiat, they just lack the will to reverse course. They quickly become prey to the 5% who are just determined to live a horrible existence and want everyone else to be there with them.

There are plenty of other examples in retail and community planning, but that is just one I have personally participated in.

No, all this means is that there are more police actually walking around, rather than randomly cruising by every now and then in their vehicles.

The theoretical broken window itself is not the issue -- it is what is *done* about the broken window.

Momentum can work *both* ways -- a "good" neighborhood can go bad as the population ages and/or a concerted effort is made to lower the accepted norm of an area. The "blockbusting" by members of a particular race in the 60s and 70s -- buy a house in a good neighborhood and do everything possible to make it look horrible from the curb, rise, repeat -- is an example of this.

On the flip side, going into a neighborhood and fixing up a cluster of houses often sparks positive momentum. But there can be obstacles, like a slumlord that won't sell at any price, residents trying to maintain the status quo (single-race neighborhoods), etc.

My street has become better because I cleaned stuff up. Three blocks away, there is an open air drug market 24x7, but they don't dare come over to my street. I don't dare clean up their mess, because they can have it.

For years I picked up trash on a larger area and the benefits were quite noticable. But I was the only person doing it. People without jobs *and* created the litter in the first place wouldn't help unless they got paid. I told them they could be part of the problem or part of the solution. I haven't seen as many any more, since their boarded up squatting houses have since been fixed up and sold/rented to people with a work ethic.

I hoped the election of Obama would inspire people to actually do something to improve their community, but so far nothing.

The proper analogy is guns *enable* crime like garbage enables/attracts flies. But people who quote the orignal phrasing have severe comprehension issues so I don't argue with them any more.

Yeah of course classicism is the central issue, but the guy I responded too implicated the reason they litter more is because of their race not their low funds. I still thinks the fact is was in a actual major city like Minneapolis instead of some small wealthy suburb is the main reason. You ever been to NYC or something? That place has so much garbage, mainly because there is so many people.