what’s with all the violent crime?
June 18, 2008, 6:25 pm
if crime is going down in large cities (ny, la), why is it rising in so many midsize cities? according to the atlantic, it’s apparently b/c of “one of the most ambitious antipoverty programs of recent decades” — shutting down the projects and dispersing poor (and black) people all over.
notes on this article:
1) this is a very uncomfortable subject that no one wants to talk about
2) there’s no real explanation in this story why the dispersal creates more crime (destabilizing effect? but maybe i didn’t read the story close enough).
3) one more reason why white people suck:
A few months ago, Harris went to a Sunday-afternoon picnic at Uptown Square, the development built on the site of the old Hurt Village project, to conduct a survey. The picnic’s theme was chili cook-off. The white people, mostly young couples, including little kids and pregnant wives, sat around on Eddie Bauer chairs with beer holders, chatting. The black people, mostly women with children, were standing awkwardly around the edges. Harris began asking some of the white people the questions on her survey: Do you lack health insurance? Have you ever not had enough money to buy medication? One said to her, “This is so sad. Does anyone ever answer ‘yes’ to these questions?”—Harris’s first clue that neighbors didn’t talk much across color lines.
