See https://www.takimag.com/article/in-praise-of-broken-windows-policing/

That not forcing them to take some personal responsibility, to make the effort to try to clean up their acts, is somehow being kind to them, is allowing them to have their “freedom.”

Notice that, in this thought process, the effects of their policies on the productive citizens of these cities, on the taxpayers, and the people who do obey their laws, on their quality of life, is secondary if not tertiary, not given much, if any weight at all.

This is exactly the wrong mindset and approach.

Of course, it was an ecomically distressed area. Prosperous communities do not want prisons built anywhere near them.

See “Seattle is Dying” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw

See “Drug users Take Over Corridors of San Francisco Civic Center and BART” at https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/04/25/drug-users-san-francisco-civic-center-bart/

See “Typhus Outbreak at City Hall Had Attorney Believing, “I Was Going to Die”” at https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2019/02/06/typhus-outbreak-may-mean-all-carpets-have-to-be-ripped-out-of-city-hall/

See “San Francisco Human Feces Map Shows Waste Blanketing the California City” at https://www.foxnews.com/us/san-francisco-map-shows-human-poop-complaints

See FOX’s Tucker Carlson’s Series, “Homeless in America” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMJnMQjo4wA

And on and on.

From the evidence of what I am seeing from multiple sources, what I am pretty certain is true is that former New York City Mayor Giuliani’s “broken window” method of policing—penalizing those who break the law, who do not take care of and then fixing the smallest of infractions, as a way of preventing those infractions from spreading and generating even more and worse infractions—works.

And that its opposite—decriminalizing and ignoring little violations of the law, of public order—leads to greater and more consequential disorder and, then, on to the disintegration of public order and, eventually, diminished quality of life.

Big cities tolerate this. Small towns and rural areas, it seems to me, won’t and don’t, with what seem to me to be predictable results.

What I have in mind are the recent pictures and videos chronicling the accelerating decline of major liberal Democrat run cities in this country—Seattle, LA, San Francisco, Portland—their often high housing prices, couple with their decriminalization of all sorts of public order offenses, and drug possession—and the resultant growth of homelessness, tents everywhere and larger tent encampments, downtown streets lined with tents and makeshift shelters, trailers lining streets that people use as permanent homes, and the sanitation and congestion problems they cause, garbage and debris everywhere, people living on the street and in doorways, drug addicts shooting up in public, streets covered with needles, public urination and defecation, crazy people shouting and gesticulating on the sidewalks and, as a result of all this lawlessness, chaos, and filth, the re-emergence of diseases of poor sanitation like Typhus.

Overall, what I’m seeing is, from all appearances, a steep decline in the quality of life in these big cities, that used to be so beautiful.

The obvious solution would be to re-criminalize public order offenses, and drug possession, to permanently clear out these tent encampments and squatters in doorways, along highways and public parks, to clean up the mess they’ve made, and to get the people living in these conditions—many—perhaps the large majority of them—suffering from mental illness and/or drug addiction—into what they need—be it a hospital, into treatment programs, into some sort of public housing, and, then, when possible, into programs to start to get them on the road to productive jobs.

However, in response to this festering calamity and erosion of quality of life, the leaders of this cities are, it seems, largely in denial, are apparently not taking these problems on directly, but are doubling down, by spending increasing amounts of money on things that obviously don’t work, and by decriminalizing even more things.

To be fair, I have seen reports of Seattle’s city government and NGO’s attempts to build a small number of what have turned out to be extremely expensive public housing units. But, why so expensive?

Some of the other solutions I have seen reported for these cities, which are supposed to decrease the “income inequality” that is supposedly one of the causes for these conditions, are—eliminating library fees and fines, and eliminating fares and late fees for failure to pay fares in public transit.

That’s it.

Ya think that the project that you were working on may have been somehow related to the problems that “surprised” you. Construction jobs can be unstable, transient, and thus stressful to workers, communities, and families; boom and bust. Also at that time in the NW the logging (timber) industry was not doing so well, IIRC. More community stress and turmoil for the residents.

The town was Crescent City, California. This was in about ’86 – ’87. I was an engineer working on the construction of the new state prison there.

I didn’t say that I “suffered” from living there. It was a spectacularly beautiful location and there were some wonderful people living there. However, I was surprised to find all of the vices that I had been led to believe were evils of the big cities were present in spades. My point is that small towns are not necessarily all like Mayberry, with Andy Griffith as Sherriff.

I currently live in a medium size town that fits my wife and I just fine. Neither of us enjoy the big cities.

The high school has an average class size of 100. Both of my daughters developed deep friendships growing up, but also both were eager to leave. Both attended college far from home and have now settled in Atlanta and Orlando. They both want the city environment: jobs, and the general culture that appeals to young people. And both are very successful in their current life paths. The friends they left behind who still live in the town are languishing. Most are in dead end, low level jobs, and spend their free time like they did in high school: hanging out and partying.

I still believe raising them in such a small town environment was good, but I also think they needed to get out and experience a wider world. I also think that maybe when it comes time for them to raise a family the appeal of the small town may return to them. John Mellencamp’s song keeps coming to mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CVLVaBECuc

If my own experience is any guide (and New York I think does have more agreeable non-metropolitan zones than other areas), the signatures of exurbs, small towns and the countryside are as follows:

1. Almost no violent crime.

2. Rates of burglary and auto theft about 1/3 lower than you’d see in urban areas.

3. Considerable anxiety about traffic deaths. You’re traveling at higher speeds on roads more likely to have uncleared snow and ice. Also, many people have a social life which incorporates driving (some distance) to places where liquor is sold. I often dreaded opening the local paper.

4. Less affluent, but more leveled in. Overall income levels are > 20% lower than you find in metropolitan tract development. The most impecunious tend to live in visibly shabby digs or in trailer parks. Trailer parks aren’t slums. You have some shizzy conflicts between neighbors (“She put a dent in my car. We agreed not to report it and she’d pay me but she hasn’t paid me…”), but conflicts generally have boundaries.

5. Cheaper housing, longer commutes. Most notable in regard to medical services. My doctor was 40 miles away.

6. Manifestations of certain sort of social dislocation and personal dysfunction at similar rates to those parts of the city outside the slums: divorce, ba*tardy, repair to the foster care system, alcoholism. My wager is street drugs are less common. I had a relation living in a town on the Oregon coast who thought her neighbor was cooking meth, but I never saw anything like that myself.

It should be noted that there is some distinction between living in town and living in a country homestead.