Why no mass anti-crime movement in DC?

[DistrictSonic]

Originally Posted by stateofnature

You sound like the racist Yonkers residents who were afraid of black people living amongst them as seen in the recent HBO series Show Me A Hero, based on a real life case. I don't think you are racist but you are using an argument that in the past has had racial undertones. Moving all the low income people outside the city doesn't eliminate crime, it just pushes crime to other locations. The answer is not to eliminate all low income housing in the city but rather to shuffle up the locations of the low income housing so you don't have concentrated crime breeding grounds like Sursum Corda.

Declustering the poverty is key, but spreading it out into the larger metropolitian area where it is not solely concentrated in the city is key too. This does indeed mean breaking up the communities themselves. It also means no more 100% low income housing, 20% should be the absolute max in any one multifamily building. But it would also be necessary to spread it out through the suburbs. Our housing policy essentially creates the problem of higher crime areas through concentrating poverty in single buildings, but also by clustering it in cities. Cities should not have to warehouse the poor, and likewise suburbs should have some of the burden to house lower income families. But it cannot and SHOULD not be done in large numbers. Because that is where you begin to see the negative network effects.


So this is what needs to be done.
1. No more 100% low income buildings. The only low income housing will be in mixed income locations with an absolute 20% cap on subsidized or income capped housing.
2. No more public housing.
3. Low income communities where there is obvious clustering are to be broken up, and likewise, any further clustering should be actively prevented.
4. Likewise any housing assistance is temporary.
5. No additional aide or housing if you have children. You get a studio, that's it. If you have kids you cannot afford, you are on your own with regards to that child. No more assistance for additional children. Make it damn clear if you have kids, the government will not support them beyond education. If you cannot afford a kid, don't have one will be the slogan plastered everywhere.
5. Automatic eviction if anybody in your living space commits a violent crime.
6. Free and encouraged long term birth control and abortion.
7. Basic temporary adult income.
8. Free higher education.

This will be universal. No matter the race. This is not a nice system. Nor should it be. But it would effectively lower poverty if not outright end it in a few generations.

Basically low income people will be spread out through a metropolitan community. No more warehousing the poor in cities. But there should be an explicit recognition that low income communities are a problem, and should be treated as such. Those in them have to be integrated.


But the understanding needs to be at the heart, that the clustering of low income communities leads to higher crime. Likewise the criminal element should be actively vigilent against. If you commit a crime, you get evicted and lose any assistance, along with your family. No more "just letting them be". Sorry that ends. No tolerance policy towards criminal behavior. If you are receiving any type of programmatic assistance you have to be in perfect behavior.

The concept of poor communities would end. Basically, it would be mainstreaming and integration, but also taking on several points of issue which are identified problems in current programs.

[jpdivola]

Originally Posted by stateofnature

Moving all the low income people outside the city doesn't eliminate crime, it just pushes crime to other locations. The answer is not to eliminate all low income housing in the city but rather to shuffle up the locations of the low income housing so you don't have concentrated crime breeding grounds like Sursum Corda.

The theory seems sound. But, do we have any evidence that this works in practice? Perhaps in the long run, this is good for very young children and will give them a better shot at avoiding falling victim to the pathologies of the inner city. But, it seems likely most of the older children/young adults who have well established social networks and have already fallen into a life of crime, will continue to commit crime.

Then there are the logistics of this. DC has such a massive public housing population. Can we realistically integrate it all into mixed income housing? High demand core areas like Columbia Heights and Shaw can probably support redeveloping garden style public housing, with mixed income high density redevelopments. But, will this really change the underlying issue? The there is the issue with areas with too much public housing (east of the river) or almost none (west of the park). The soft market demand makes it difficult to redevelop housing complexes east of the river. West of the park is largely built out under existing zoning. Are we going to tear down million dollar SFHs to build mixed income housing? We can't even muster the political will to build luxury apartment buildings west of the park.

Harcourt and Ludwig also use the results of a Department of Housing and Urban Development program to suggest that neighborhood disorder has no effect on criminality. In the HUD program, public housing tenants from cities including New York and Boston were moved from inner-city projects to safer, more orderly neighborhoods. Contrary to what broken windows would suggest, there was no decrease in criminality among the relocated public-housing tenants: They continued to offend at the same rates in their new, more orderly neighborhoods as they did in their disorderly ones.

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The cracks in 'broken windows' - The Boston Globe

[jpdivola]

Originally Posted by DistrictSonic

So this is what needs to be done.
1. No more 100% low income buildings. The only low income housing will be in mixed income locations with an absolute 20% cap on subsidized or income capped housing.
2. No more public housing.
3. Low income communities where there is obvious clustering are to be broken up, and likewise, any further clustering should be actively prevented.
4. Likewise any housing assistance is temporary.
5. No additional aide or housing if you have children. You get a studio, that's it. If you have kids you cannot afford, you are on your own with regards to that child. No more assistance for additional children. Make it damn clear if you have kids, the government will not support them beyond education. If you cannot afford a kid, don't have one will be the slogan plastered everywhere.
5. Automatic eviction if anybody in your living space commits a violent crime.
6. Free and encouraged long term birth control and abortion.
7. Basic temporary adult income.
8. Free higher education.

Interesting idea. I get that social change involves both the carrot and the stick.

But, do you think it would ever have a chance of implementation? You would have to:
1) get it enacted political- you would have to convince fiscal conservatives to fund it and liberal to put up with the "tough love" components. You would be called a racist and a pie in the sky big spender. I just don't see the DC Council and the federal government signing off on it.
2) have it withstand legal challenges- it only takes one judge to strike it down.
3) have the DC government implement and enforce it- DC govt is not the most nimble and many parts would be very difficult or unpopular to enforce. Kicking felons out of public housing sounds like a good idea. But what if it is a single mom with 3 kids who has a 20 year old drug dealing nephew occasionally staying with them?
4) Hope it works- the plan would probably have a very long term outlook. You would be asking for big upfront costs in exchange for hypothetical long term benefits.