Municipal management of the work process to reduce the need for expensive assets

Not all jobs need to be performed with cars. And a hybrid car still uses energy, and costs a lot of money. Business process redesign is in order for many types of jobs. Government agencies could lead the way.

Cook County Sheriff's Department Deputies George Avet and Sam Comparetto, from left, conduct a bike patrol near the Cook County Criminal Courts Building (26th & California,) Thursday, June 5, 2008. Twentyfour deputies have been assigned bicycles, instead of squads in a move to save on fuel costs. (Chicago Tribune photo by Michael Tercha)

E.g., I have to believe that a lot of police officers walking the beat and bicycling would have more impact in the Trinidad neighborhood of DC then a checkpoint.

Plus, the checkpoint thing is a national story, and can hardly communicate about DC in a good light.

Plus, because of the way the Post article identified neighborhoods in the map, all the press coverage elsewhere (at least the image that goes along with the AP story that I saw in the Philadelphia Inquirer) calls the big swath of Ward 5 depicted in the map as "Trinidad" when it isn't.

And the Post didn't editorialize against the Constitutional issues raised by the checkpoints. Instead it thinks it's a good idea. See "Murder on the Rise."

But if you were to study the etiology of murder, this isn't likely to have much effect.

I have been thinking about this, and since "most murders happen as a result of beefs" (also see "How a Beef Turns Into A Death," by Courtland Milloy from the Post) that we should just close all places--maybe restaurants, but especially Clubs, where younger people with a propensity for violence tend to congregate...

It would reduce the problem, a little, at the expense of the ability of 99.999999999999999999999999999999% of the population to enjoy life.