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For interventions they're not that hard, and 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect when they try and RCT. While it's true it's e

For interventions they're not that hard, and 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect when they try and RCT. While it's true it's evidence, it is very very very weak evidence.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
> 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect I'm genuinely trying to square your thinking with the specific services I listed in an earlier comment: > housing services It seems obvious and intuitive to me that providing discounted housing services would clearly have an effect. Clearly if we can manage spiraling housing costs, more people can stay housed and fewer people will be destitute. And the case in Vienna supports this notion: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... Have you found an RCT-like study that provided affordable housing of this quality and failed to find an effect? > mental health services I would be surprised if you found that providing quality mental health services does not have an effect. > medical services This is another one which seems obvious and intuitive to me. A fair number of people in the USA end up homeless or destitute due to medical debt or lack of appropriate medical care. Every other major country offers some form of free medical care and I cannot see how this would fail to have an effect. > transportation infrastructure If you follow the urbanists on youtube or websites like Strong Towns it seems clear that requiring everyone to have a car places a heavy burden on the poor, and it seems obvious to me that if you have good transportation infrastructure (high speed rail between cities and good metro rail in cities, appropriate zoning for walkable neighborhoods), then it becomes much easier for the poor. This is not something that you can easily study as an RCT. > and related things like maternity and paternity leave, good labor rights, good pay and fair working conditions Again these are obviously beneficial. I feel like I provided a lot of good examples and I am surprised by the continued assertion of "very very very weak evidence". Really? For every one of these things?
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  Let me start with what I agree with, we should try all of them in a fashion that tests if they work, and if any of them did role them out everywhere. I also agree that many of these have beneficial effects besides a reduction in crime and we should maybe provide these services anyway because it makes peoples lives better. I also agree we should manage spiraling housing costs by upzoning everywhere. I think affordable housing could actually make things worse by concentrating poverty. I'm not convince transportation infrastructure helps the poor more than direct cash transfers. The US is really terrible at building cost effective transportation infrastructure, and most of the places that have it are terrible places to be poor like San Francisco or New York. The only example I need is one replicated natural experiment or RCT that shows any of these working.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I encourage you to read the short article about Vienna, which explicitly addresses the concern of concentrating poverty. Vienna has avoided this by building good affordable housing in desirable locations which is owned by the city government, and then they only require people to be poor upon entering the housing. As their income rises, which is a predictable effect of affordable housing, they are allowed to stay. This means that the housing is mixed income rather than concentrated poverty. The city owns or controls approximately half of all available housing units in the city, which helps keep private rents reasonable as well through market pressure. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... I think the research is out there to support these policies, whether the data is an RCT or something else, as I hope the above argument highlights. If you remain neutral while you wait for an RCT, there can be real world consequences for vulnerable people. I do agree that the US is terrible at building transportation infrastructure, but as advocates like Strong Towns point out, we're actually bankrupting local towns with car-dependent sprawl (due to high tax burdens to maintain the infrastructure) so we really must improve that one regardless. That it will benefit the poor is simply another reason to accelerate these changes.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      Sorry my idea isn't to sit out on the sidelines. It's the difference between "Look at all these policies that reduce crime." to "Here are some good ideas for policies we should test out in as controlled an environment as possible to see if they reduce crime".

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

> 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect I'm genuinely trying to square your thinking with the specific services I listed in an earlier comment: > housing services It seems obvious and intuitive to me that providing discounted housing services would clearly have an effect. Clearly if we can manage spiraling housing costs, more people can stay housed and fewer people will be destitute. And the case in Vienna supports this notion: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... Have you found an RCT-like study that provided affordable housing of this quality and failed to find an effect? > mental health services I would be surprised if you found that providing quality mental health services does not have an effect. > medical services This is another one which seems obvious and intuitive to me. A fair number of people in the USA end up homeless or destitute due to medical debt or lack of appropriate medical care. Every other major country offers some form of free medical care and I cannot see how this would fail to have an effect. > transportation infrastructure If you follow the urbanists on youtube or websites like Strong Towns it seems clear that requiring everyone to have a car places a heavy burden on the poor, and it seems obvious to me that if you have good transportation infrastructure (high speed rail between cities and good metro rail in cities, appropriate zoning for walkable neighborhoods), then it becomes much easier for the poor. This is not something that you can easily study as an RCT. > and related things like maternity and paternity leave, good labor rights, good pay and fair working conditions Again these are obviously beneficial. I feel like I provided a lot of good examples and I am surprised by the continued assertion of "very very very weak evidence". Really? For every one of these things?

JamesBarney 4y ago
Let me start with what I agree with, we should try all of them in a fashion that tests if they work, and if any of them did role them out everywhere. I also agree that many of these have beneficial effects besides a reduction in crime and we should maybe provide these services anyway because it makes peoples lives better. I also agree we should manage spiraling housing costs by upzoning everywhere. I think affordable housing could actually make things worse by concentrating poverty. I'm not convince transportation infrastructure helps the poor more than direct cash transfers. The US is really terrible at building cost effective transportation infrastructure, and most of the places that have it are terrible places to be poor like San Francisco or New York. The only example I need is one replicated natural experiment or RCT that shows any of these working.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  I encourage you to read the short article about Vienna, which explicitly addresses the concern of concentrating poverty. Vienna has avoided this by building good affordable housing in desirable locations which is owned by the city government, and then they only require people to be poor upon entering the housing. As their income rises, which is a predictable effect of affordable housing, they are allowed to stay. This means that the housing is mixed income rather than concentrated poverty. The city owns or controls approximately half of all available housing units in the city, which helps keep private rents reasonable as well through market pressure. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... I think the research is out there to support these policies, whether the data is an RCT or something else, as I hope the above argument highlights. If you remain neutral while you wait for an RCT, there can be real world consequences for vulnerable people. I do agree that the US is terrible at building transportation infrastructure, but as advocates like Strong Towns point out, we're actually bankrupting local towns with car-dependent sprawl (due to high tax burdens to maintain the infrastructure) so we really must improve that one regardless. That it will benefit the poor is simply another reason to accelerate these changes.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    Sorry my idea isn't to sit out on the sidelines. It's the difference between "Look at all these policies that reduce crime." to "Here are some good ideas for policies we should test out in as controlled an environment as possible to see if they reduce crime".