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I sometimes feel like a crazy person in today's news. A city notorious for decriminalizing... everything, is now crying that crime is too high. What exactly i
by silisili 5y ago
I sometimes feel like a crazy person in today's news. A city notorious for decriminalizing... everything, is now crying that crime is too high. What exactly is the news break here?
- refurb 5y agoA key skill in politics is breaking things through your decisions then act like your shocked and angry at how it was allowed to happen.
- silisili 5y agoYeah, and it cuts both ways unfortunately. I feel like there should be a way more reasonable middle ground on where to live between 'people are suffering let them steal from you and do whatever they want outside of murder' and 'no gay marriages, no abortion, no welfare', which seem about what we're stuck with anymore. Does a city exist that is progressive in nature but tough on crime?
- spoonjim 5y agoYes, New York City under Bloomberg.
- hbarka 5y agoCities exist that are progressive and low on crime.
- silisili 5y agoLow on crime =/= tough on crime. SF used to be reasonably low crime.
- kcplate 5y agoI doubt that you can name one in the US.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hbarka 5y agoI was thinking of cities in Europe and Asia although I could try to name some cities in the US but the definition of low in that context would be by US standard (sadly). Austin is equal to Kansas in crime rate. The latter is conservative-leaning and former is liberal-leaning.
- refurb 5y agoYou really believe all that cities in the US only fit in those two buckets?
- silisili 5y agoMaybe. I'm mostly asking honestly because it doesn't seem that hard. I've lived in 6 cities between the great lakes and FL, and it seems like all were way too far in one direction or the other. If not in policy itself, then in the people.
- kgc 5y agoI just want a densely populated city that is clean. Why can other countries do this and not the US?
- beeboop 5y agoLack of social cohesion, the cause of which could be attributed to a lot of things. Though I will say I live in Seattle and I never drive around downtown or really any area and think it's dirty. But maybe I'm just used to living in cities? Denver seems clean to me too.
- wyager 5y agoForeign cities that are clean and nice tend to be both very homogenous and high median intelligence. In the absence of homogeneity there will always be defectors who are willing to externalize costs like litter disposal. In an excessively downshifted intelligence distribution there will be insufficient productivity and developmental capacity for a high standard of living. There are few/no large cities in the US which meet these criteria.
- zardo 5y agoSocial housing instead of the worst off living in tents and under bridges
- onecommentman 5y agoWhen you want a “densely populated city”, what exactly do you mean by that, in the year 2022? I assume you mean high-density…there are plenty of clean medium-density cities/suburbs in the US. The US is a big, beautiful, lately-developed, scenically/climatically diverse land that hasn’t had the need to go high-density. Nobody is pushing to build another Manhattan…if the US people had wanted it, the US would have built several Manhattans over the last few decades. Most “normal” (?) US people seem to like their little plot of land and their own detached house, especially as they build families and grow older. The US has always had that luxury/basic human right and the resources to build such houses and that has led to lower population densities even in cities. Most people like a little elbow room (cue the “sprawl is the Devil’s underpants” crowd). In the early-mid 20th Century, “high-density” meant access to major cultural venues and performances, top performances in sports, first crack at new technologies, broader access to economic opportunities, ease of finding your unique subculture that you could fit into, etc.. and you paid for it in cost-of-living and congestion (time/hassle tax). Unless you have a major fixation on live performances on a regular basis, most of those positive arguments have weakened in the face of the advances in IT. Not totally gone away, but an occasional visit to a “densely populated” area will check off most of those boxes. The button that says “I <heart> NY, from a comfortable distance” comes to mind. If a particular densely populated area is your querencia, then of course you have a strong reason/commitment to stay and improve it. Clean it up, it’s your town. Welcome to the slog. You can’t just buy or choose it, you have to build it. If it isn’t your querencia, then the benefits from trying yet another “densely populated” area seem to have weakened over time and perhaps you should broaden your outlook on things. Do you really want 10000/sq mi, or will 2000/sq mi suffice (or even 500/sq mi) with the occasional trip to any one of several densely populated cities? You’ll see more of the US/world that way, and maybe even save money. You’ll certainly save on the congestion/hassle tax on a day-to-day basis. Get to plant a real garden. Smile at your neighbor who isn’t just the jerk who lives above you. What are the positive values that you associate with “densely populated”? They differ by individual. Is it size? There are people who like their City to be so big that they couldn’t possibly grok all of it in their lifetime. There is always something new. Some prefer a City they can just fit into their head, like a comfortable overstuffed chair. Some want a small village, to free the rest of their mind for the rest of the human experience. Enquiring minds want to know…
- wyager 5y agoI advise careful consideration about what it says that these things tend to be correlated. Social technologies that have existed for a very long time tend to have strong second-order effects in seemingly unrelated domains; those social technologies survive because their users are better adapted.
- mbrodersen 5y agoMost European cities.
- mitigating 5y agoThey didn't decriminalize everything nor did they expect crime to increase. It's not "breaking news" either it's just something that happened.
- happytoexplain 5y agoThis seems like a strained framing. News that a politician is OK with high crime is bewildering. News that they want to curb high crime is not bewildering, regardless of whether their existing policies contributed to the crime rate. And either policy seems like a pretty standard thing to report on, no? Lastly, announcing a stance against something is not "crying" about it. I think you really just wanted to make the case that the city's policies spurred crime, which is fine, but you should then do that directly instead of making kind of nonsensical snarky quips.
- silisili 5y ago> I think you really just wanted to make the case that the city's policies spurred crime, which is fine, but you should then do that directly instead of making kind of nonsensical snarky quips. You are correct in my case. My entire comment was three sentences. It was perhaps just a hair snarky, admittedly, but I don't think it was full of quips or nonsensical.
- fulafel 5y agoDecriminalization should reduce crime by definition I think as fewer things are classified as crimes. edit: my bad - "Decriminalization or decriminalisation is the lessening or termination of criminal penalties in relation to certain acts" so these things can still be classified as crimes
- freyir 5y agoThey haven’t actually been decriminalized. Some crimes have been classified as lesser crimes (through Prop 47, for example) and many crimes the DA has simply refused to prosecute. And the police know that making arrests is often pointless if DA won’t uphold the law on his end.
- gromitss 5y agoThere’s value to decriminalizing many things and some things should have zero tolerance. Decriminalize more things, clamp down hard on junkies looting things.