Health equity devolves to cities and states as the federal government cuts taxes for the wealthy

I have a bunch of pieces on equity planning and social urbanism, touched off by my experience on a DC Grand Jury.  As one of the court reporters said "breaking the cycle--man, we're just cutting the grass."  I figured that the city spends a couple billion dollars a year on the impoverished in DC, just to keep them in place.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs" (2017)
-- "Equity planning: an update" (2020)
-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC" (2022)
-- "Experiments in Social Urbanism"
-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian
-- "Medellín slum gets giant outdoor escalator," Telegraph
-- "Medellín, Colombia offers an unlikely model for urban renaissance," Toronto Star

Some cities have launched poverty reduction and area-based economic development programs to address this, like GrowSouth in Dallas ("Cities Need Goals and Capital to Fight Poverty," Catalyst) or Invest SouthWest in Chicago ("Johnson Administration Breathes New Life into INVEST South/West Developments in Englewood," South Side Weekly, "Invited In Only To Be Shut Out," Block Club Chicago, Next Steps, West Humboldt Park, "City announces four new targets for Invest South/West," Crain's Chicago Business).  

United Way Greater Toronto for more than a decade has focused its program funding on languishing impoverished neighborhoods ("Guiding the United Way through the next decade," Toronto Star).  From the article:

United Way Greater Toronto just launched an incredibly ambitious 10-year strategic plan. We’re going to sustain the 10 community hubs we have and create 10 more. Hubs are like a one-stop shop for social and healthcare services in neighbourhoods that need it most. So, it improves access to services. It improves quality. It pulls together organizations under one roof, so it increases collaboration across organizations.

Our second goal is a community real estate vision. Seventy per cent of the community organizations we support are at risk of losing their space, and they’re also at risk of then being, in essence, priced out of communities that need them the most. We have a real focus on supporting those organizations to ensure the stability of those physical sites being owned by community organizations and stewarded for generations to come.

At least with the cities, the programs tend to wax and wane as new administrations succeed previous ones more committed to poverty. 

If we think that cities (and counties, see "Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties" and "East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview") should focus on addressing poverty with place-based solutions, I'm thinking it's the same with health equity.  Programs like Medicaid expansion--run at the state level in most places--provide health care to people who are medically needy.

This op-ed in City & State by NYC's health commissioner, "I am New York City’s doctor. This is how we treat chronic disease" makes the point that as the federal government cuts health programs (and medical research) cities and states should step up and fill the gap.

[RFK Jr.] has fired at least 20,000 employees from the Department of Health and Human Services. Billions of dollars in lifesaving medical research have been cut. Tens of millions of Americans, including millions of New Yorkers, will lose their Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits because of Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The record-breaking government shutdown multiplied the confusion and loss.

... My job is to support all New Yorkers in leading their healthiest lives, no matter their income or neighborhood. We have the experience and expertise to improve outcomes and even prevent chronic disease entirely. We know what approaches are proven to make a lasting impact.

That’s why, at the New York City Health Department, we recently released a city-wide chronic disease prevention strategy, which outlines how local government can address the root causes of chronic disease.

The strategy recommends promoting healthy living through nutritious foods and physical activity. But we must also meet people’s material needs. Improving access to basic resources – with direct cash payments, grocery credits and more – has a proven impact on health. And informed conversations around marketing, product design and creative media approaches can increase consumer awareness of the health impacts of the products they buy.

When people can afford the things they need – housing, health care, the ability to put healthy food on the table – they aren’t waiting to be treated in the ER once they’re in crisis.

This also comes up in Chicago, with multi-decade differences in life expectancy based on race, income, and neighborhood ("As they live Chicago's 'death gap,' a 3-generation family fights to end it," Chicago Sun-Times).

These kinds of statistics are the basis of the concept of "social determinants of health" 

and programs to address the disparities.

I have a series of articles about developing a comprehensive program at the bigger city scale on health equity, but I never termed it that way.  City and county poverty amelioration programs need to focus on health equity as an element of equity planning, and these entries lay out a way forward.

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River" (2018)
-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital" (2018)

-- "Community Health Improvement Planning" (2019)

-- "Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health" (2023)

-- "Big omission in blog series on advance hospital/health and wellness planning, public health planning: addiction services" (2024)

-- "Costly failures in the mental health system" (2025)

What a great headline (about Trump's takeover of the city police department in Washington DC) | and more on disorder

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This is a follow up to an entry last week, "Trump's takeover of DC's police: a warning and another episode in his anti-urban (blue voters) agenda."

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"More High-Crime States Send National Guard to Tame Washington" from New York Magazine.  It riffs on the point that many states overall have much worse crime problems than the nation's big cities. 

Panel 3 from the This Modern World editorial cartoon by Tom Tomorrow, 8/18/2025.

Trump claims the city is ridden with crime ("Inside Week 1 of Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of D.C. police," "On Trump’s order, dozens arrested daily in D.C. The details are hidden," and "We asked 604 D.C. residents about Trump’s takeover. Here’s what they said," Washington Post).  

Red state governors are getting in on the fun by sending National Guard troops to assist the federal officers that came with Trump's takeover of the police department.

Crime in DC is dropping, as it is across the nation ("Violent crime is falling rapidly across America," Economist) albeit not so great in the places that are persistently high crime areas--which the federal law enforcement officers seem to be avoiding, sticking to places mostly in Northwest DC, but dipping into the Capitol Hill area of Southeast, and into Northeast DC ("D.C. is hard to police. But the federal takeover won’t stop crime," Post). 

Note that youth crime is a different story, DC has some real issues that aren't being adequately addressed ("How D.C.'s failure to curb truancy fueled a surge in youth crime," "On the box D.C. court officials repeatedly lost track of teens wearing ankle monitors. The timing was deadly," "Serving ‘dead time’ D.C. teens needed rehabilitation to keep the city safe: They languished in a violent detention center instead," Post).

Most people argue that if Trump really cared, he'd offer resources to cities ("On D.C., Trump has the right idea but the wrong reaction. As usual," Post), a point I made in his first adminstration ("Elijah Cummings, President Trump and Revisiting "The Urban Agenda"").  From the Post:

• Instead of diverting hundreds of FBI agents and other federal officers from the vital work they do on national security and complex crimes, Trump could have pushed to give the District the resources it needs to recruit and train enough police officers to get back to full strength after pandemic and budget woes led to a wave of retirements and resignations. 
• He could also have pressed Congress to restore funding cuts that led the D.C. Council to trim services this year. Such moves would have been an enduring fix rather than a four-week show.
• Rather than stationing hundreds of National Guard troops to hang out on street corners — a movie we’ve seen before, such as during Trump I, in the tense summer following the killing of George Floyd in 2020 — the president could have advocated funding to address the city’s breathtaking truancy rate.
• Almost a third of D.C. schoolchildren routinely skip school — an improvement over the early post-pandemic years, when truancy rates topped 40 percent, but still an appalling number. Federal funding for counselors and truancy officers would have been a helpful gesture, as would federal expertise from the Education Department.

Paste poster graffiti mocking how federal officers arrested someone for throwing a sandwich at them.  The Judge didn't agree with the hard core charges they presented.

The places the officers are congregating in are high profile areas, where sometimes, crime does leak into, because of how small the city is and how easy it is to move to these areas for better "targets."  But they are mostly "white" areas, where crime is relatively low, especially violent crime.

Restaurant sales are down as people are avoiding Washington ("‘The city is dead’: D.C. restaurant reservations drop amid federal crackdown," Post) although Trump states the opposite.

“Dozens of DC small businesses, restaurants, and local shops have closed their doors due to the violent crime that has plagued the city. President Trump’s bold leadership will restore our nation’s capital by creating opportunities for businesses to flourish without fear of criminals looting and destroying their property. President Trump is delivering on his promise to make DC safer, which will inherently make D.C, more prosperous,” spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

National Guard at GWU-Foggy Bottom Metrorail Station, Washington, DC.  

Photo: Andrew Leyden, Getty Images.

On the lookout for crime in Union Station.  Reddit photo.

Federal officers swarm on a guy sitting on a park bench in Mount Pleasant.  Reddit photo.

The forces aren't being deployed to the actual high crime areas, in the city pockets in Wards 7 and 8 "East of the River," or impoverished areas of Wards 4, 5, and 6.  From the New York Times article, "Where D.C. Crime Is Bad, Residents Question Trump’s Motives": 

In the Congress Heights neighborhood in the southeast corner of Washington, D.C., where there have been several murders and more than a dozen robberies so far this year, residents have greeted President Trump’s promise of liberation from crime with a mix of skepticism, suspicion and outright derision. It’s not that they don’t believe crime is a problem in the nation’s capital. They know it is.

Federal law enforcement officers patrolling the Georgetown Waterfront.

“If Trump is genuinely concerned about safety of D.C. residents, I would see National Guard in my neighborhood,” said Karen Lake, 62, a lawyer who has lived in Congress Heights since 2017, in the far eastern corner of the diamond-shaped district. “I’m not seeing it, and I don’t expect to see it. I don’t think Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect Black babies in Southeast.”

“I don’t think Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect Black babies in Southeast,” a Washingtonian said, as troops patrolled the National Mall. Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times 

They just don’t believe the president cares -- at least not about them. If he did, they asked, why are residents hearing of federal agents roving the whiter areas of 16th Street Northwest but less so in their largely Black neighborhood? Why are National Guard members posing with tourists at the Washington Monument?

Protest against the federal takeover of the DC police department.

This is more about the theater of authoritarianism ("‘Hallmarks of authoritarianism’: Trump banks on loyalists as he wages war on truth," "We’re anti-federal chaos’: Democratic cities prepare for worst after Trump’s tirades against DC and LA," Guardian) and power and intimidation ("Border Patrol Agents Show Up in Force at Newsom Rally," New York Times) in challenging "blue voters" in the cities where Trump loses "bigly" ("Black mayors of cities Trump decries as ‘lawless’ tout significant declines in violent crimes," "Trump’s unprecedented show of force in L.A., Washington is pushing norms, sparking fears," Los Angeles Times).

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Disorder.  Living in DC in the bad times of the 80s and 90s made me quite focused on disorder as an element of public safety.  I joke that it is a fine line between order and disorder that cities should never cross--e.g., decriminalizing "small" crimes ends up being an invitation to keep behaving anti-socially.

-- "Redefining what public safety means: Community Safety Partnership, Los Angeles"

Commenter charlie has made the point that demand for urban living increased so much c. 2000 because of the noticeable decline in crime.

Wall Street Journal article, 6/11/2007, 

about the impact of crime reduction on urban improvement and the attraction of new residents.

The Economist article ("Violent crime is falling rapidly across America,") discusse  in detail the various people-centered anti-crime efforts in Baltimore, which seem to be having great success 

I was reading some great pieces about disorder, triggered by a New York Times article, "What Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About Crime," and a Paul Krugman interview with Jeff Asher. 

In "It's Time to Talk About America's Disorder Problem" Charles Lehman makes the point that social disorder (the idea of "fixing broken windows") is different from crime per se, but people continue to believe crime is high because of very evident social disorder problems like homeless camping, unkempt areas, graffiti, and petty crime

.

There are links to other resources:

-- "Disorder policing to reduce crime: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis," Criminology and Public Policy
-- Special issue, Policing Practice and Policy (open access), Criminology and Public Policy
-- "The Community’s Credible Threat: Effective policing is a prerequisite for preserving order," City Journal
-- Preventing Public Disorder, Urban Institute
-- Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State University

Trump's takeover of DC's police: a warning and another episode in his anti-urban (blue voters) agenda

FBI and Border Patrol officers in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. Photo: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

It's in all the media that Trump has taken over the DC police department ("Trump Deploys National Guard to D.C., Moves to Take Over City’s Police Department," Wall Street Journal), even though crime is on the decline ( "Trump says crime in D.C. is out of control. Here’s what the data shows," Washington Post).  

Eugene Scott of the Boston Globe argues its more about warning blue cities to back off ("The real reason Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington: This is the president’s latest attempt at retribution and signaling to other liberal cities how little tolerance he has for criticism").

President Trump’s decision to dispatch the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to combat violent crime despite data showing violent crime at a 30-year low isn’t about solving an actual problem. It is his latest attempt at fulfilling a frequent campaign promise centering on retribution and signaling to other liberal cities how little tolerance he has for continued criticism of his policies. And if past is prologue, few groups will suffer more from this approach to governing than the Black and Latino youths who are often blamed for systemic crises in America’s major cities.

Military police in the Gallery Place business district of Washington, DC.  Reddit photo.

While the president’s impetus for his latest action was couched in concerns about ongoing acts of violence, Trump’s frustration with the city may be rooted in deeper, long-standing issues with some of America’s most influential cities — and the people who occupy them.

Internet meme. 

Trump has long characterized cities with large Black and Latino populations as places of decay and chaos. Trump’s issues with the urban core arguably reached their zenith when he called for the death of five Black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted in 1989 of the assault and rape of a white woman jogging in New York City’s Central Park — something he has doubled down on despite the convictions being vacated. In both Trump’s first and current presidential terms, the act of criticizing Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., became a far more common pastime of the president than praising what makes them great.

Also see this past entry, opining about Trump's frequent criticizing of cities without any interest in supporting improvement.

-- "Elijah Cummings, President Trump and Revisiting 'The Urban Agenda'" (2019)

Redefining what public safety means: Community Safety Partnership, Los Angeles

Defund the police versus... My big disappointment over the reaction to the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer was not the demonstrations, except when violent or used by thieves as an opportunity to commit crimes, was the slogan "Defund the Police" ("Is it too late to change the messaging on "Defund the Police"? How about "Reconstruct Policing"?"," 2020).

Redefining public safety.  The slogan certainly hasn't helped the Democrats, who've been wrong-footed on public safety ever since.  Most importantly, it obscured the real need, to redefine what public safety means and how to deliver it.

A multi-faceted public safety response, including police, at least initially costs more to deliver than the current system.  Although maybe not once savings are counted.

What is public safety? Is it to just arrest people after they commit a crime, is to provide the mental health care services that when not provided lead to people's problems being defined as criminal, is it to create lasting structural change with a number of moving parts, police--because face it, some people need to be "policed", mental health services and crews, programs to break the generational cycle of crime in low income neighborhoods. Etc.

Alex Vitale's End of Policing has some provocative suggestions about how to decriminalize many social problems, which have been criminalized because the lack of alternatives to police.

It's not "bad apple" police officers, the system is the "bad apple." It's unfortunate that the concept of "broken windows" policing ("Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety," Atlantic Magazine, 1982) got translated into practice as "zero tolerance" policing, with a focus on citing or arresting people for the most minor of violations.  

I often think that the New York City Transit Police--under William Bratton before he became overall Police Commissioner and the Transit Police were merged into NYPD--is the only place where true "broken windows" policing, with a focus on addressing disorder in terms of both people and place, was implemented.

-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do," 2016
-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany," 2019
-- "Transit safety and security: Broken Windows theory and reality | and the state of transit safety today," 2023
-- "Proof of Broken Windows theory in Philadelphia and New York City," 2024

Failures repeat and few officers face repercussions for their illegal acts.  The blog entry "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented: Rochester New York" (2021) and the comments section discusses a broader paradigm for providing public safety focusing on continued problems in Rochester New York, when police respond to people with mental health issues.

Just last week, three Memphis police officers were exonerated for the killing of a man they cornered in a traffic stop ("3 former Memphis police officers found not guilty in the death of Tyre Nichols," NPR).  To me, these cases and those resulting in large payouts--e.g., Chicago spends millions of dollars per year on settlements over police misconduct--ought to be indicators of a need for a structural approach to change ("Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?," 2020).

Spending billions to maintain a community's level of crime and poverty/equity planning.  After my grand jury service in 2013, I was left with the thought that DC spends a couple billion dollars per year just to keep the low income parts of the system the same, at a negative equilibrium.  In Los Angeles a similar estimate is many many billions of dollars per year.

That led me to write about equity planning and social urbanism.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021

Community Safety Partnership, Los Angeles.  Besides NYC subways, Los Angeles probably has one of the most significant "public safety" initiatives built on broken windows windows principles in the US, the "Community Safety Partnership" ("How Watts and the LAPD make peace," Los Angeles Times).

I first wrote about the CSP in "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"" (2014) after seeing it featured on the old Bryant Gumbel HBO TV show on sports.

In 2020, I wrote a follow up speculative piece applying it to different kinds of neighborhoods not dealing with gang problems like LA, but the problems resulting from drug use ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)."

The heart of the program is building a new relationship between the community and the police department ("American Police Must Own Their Racial Injustices," American Prospect)

New article on the CSP.  Last week, Rolling Stone Magazine published an up to date article on the program, "Inside the Battle for the Soul of the LAPD."

... the most salient thing Coughlin did in 2011 was say yes to Emada Tingirides. Tingirides, a Black sergeant and unstoppable rock star in the LAPD, had been tasked with setting up four new squads to undertake the impossible in Watts: to make peace with its residents, build faith with its leaders, and break the gangs’ stranglehold on its corners. Those new units, to be known as the Community Safety Partnership (CSP), were the brainchild of a pair of ex-combatants: the newly named police chief, Charlie Beck, and a firebrand opponent of gang cops and chiefs, the social-justice titan Connie Rice. After years of warfare in open court — Rice, an attorney and civil rights activist, had spent decades suing men like Beck for their “blue grip” suppression of the poor — they’d come to a hard-won truth: Shock-and-awe policing didn’t work. Far from making Los Angeles safe, it wreaked war without end between cops and gangs, and turned Watts and Compton into domestic kill zones, forever blighting the lives of the kids raised there.

It was no one’s intent to invent the future of policing when CSP was launched in 2011. But that is precisely what its founders have done: built a new breed of cop and retooled the social contract between a community and the officers who protect it. It’s premised in the notion that safety is a covenant between two parties: the cops who patrol the riskiest streets, and residents who trust and respect those cops enough to help them keep the peace. That is where CSP comes in. It deploys its cops less as foot patrolmen than as problem-­solvers. They get streetlights fixed, abandoned cars towed, and gang graffiti scrubbed. They find jobs for strapped parents, treatment for first offenders, and vocational education for at-risk teens. They sit gang leaders down and strike a pact: They’ll ignore petty drug deals and public drinking on weekends in exchange for those men leaving their weapons at home. Above all, they recruit every kid they can find for CSP rec teams and youth clubs. Volunteer-based outfits like the Police Athletic League have been around for decades, offering after-school programs, tutoring, and camps in major cities across the country, but L.A. is actually paying CSP cops to run cheer squads and reading groups. 

... He walks me through the protocols CSP established before it sent its officers into Watts. Stop the stop-and-frisk — a tactic Bratton endorsed — replace it with stop-and-chat, and get to know everyone on your beat. Focus less on crime than the problems that create it, especially with respect to school-age kids. Become their Pee Wee coach or their reading tutor. Take them out to Popeyes for heart-to-hearts. And when violent crimes occur, go arrest the doer, then return and ask his folks what they need: cash or food assistance, a job-training slot, an after-school program.

Despite the success, it's a constant battle to keep the CSP program in LA going, because it is so different from how police departments mostly operate on the principles of "warrior policing," "zero tolerance policing," "shock and awe" policing, mass incarceration, and focusing on car-based response to 911 calls rather than place-based policing.  It's another example that the problems of policing are structural, not the fault of a bad apple or two.

For example, a pilot CSP was created in the MacArthur Park area of LA.  But it never became part of the program, wasn't continued, and the gains have all been lost ("Community safety partnership for MacArthur Park in Los Angeles?").  And the program hasn't expanded to abutting neighborhoods that have similar problems.

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Exemplary public safety programs, that are mostly one-offs

• the above-mentioned Community Safety Partnership
• true broken windows policing
• Fullerton, California police department reorganized after officers beat a homeless man to death ("Killing people is seen as a routine outcome, not as an indicator of the need for change: Orange County Sheriff's Department versus Fullerton Police Department," 2022)
• CAHOOTS (Eugene, Oregon) and other mental health response units here and there across the country--nevertheless most cities don't have enough teams to provide round the clock service and killings at the hands of police still occur
• Domestic violence response unit, High Point, NC and Appleton, Wisconsin  (""How High Point, N.C., Solved Its Domestic Violence Problem," Governing Magazine, "11 questions that could save a woman's life," Appleton Post-Crescent)
• Operation Ceasefire, gang intervention program, Boston ("Straight Outta Boston," Mother Jones)

Spring break must be different today...

 

Narcan is handed out Saturday March 8, 2025 on Fort Lauderdale beach to combat drug overdoses during Spring break. .(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

From "Scenes from Spring Break 2025 on Fort Lauderdale Beach."

Crime has always been an issue with spring breaks.  Assaults, robberies, sometimes murder, and general mayhem, which is why some communities have worked to de-emphasize the "holiday" ("Florida police issue 'spring break reality check': Visit but follow the rules," USA Today).

Florida had more than 140 million visitors in the 2024 spring break season, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. Miami joins Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in the top five most popular domestic destinations for spring break travel according to AAA.

But when the world was beginning to emerge from the pandemic in 2021, partiers flocked to Miami Beach and law enforcement was overwhelmed with more than 1,000 arrests. The following year, several people were injured in shootings. Last year, Miami Beach said they were "breaking up" with spring break

Although out of 140 million, I guess the crime statistics aren't so bad.

 Free Narcan takes it to another dimension.  What about warm water and sun to those of us in colder climes?

Community safety partnership for MacArthur Park in Los Angeles?

Some time ago, I learned about how the LA Police Department in association with the Housing Authority, created what they called a community safety partnership, to put officers full time in high crime housing projects.  The program has been quite successful ("After Years Of Violence, L.A.'s Watts Sees Crime Subside," NPR and "What Does It Take to Stop Crips and Bloods From Killing Each Other," New York Times ).

I wrote a piece suggesting something similar for the Ballpark neighborhood of Salt Lake ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)," 2020).  I think it's a model that's quite portable.

Aaron preps a pipe for a hit of fentanyl in the Westlake District.(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 

Steve Lopez of the LA Times has been following the decline of MacArthur Park in LA ("Can MacArthur Park be saved? A look to the past points the way forward," "‘Why are you messing with me for smoking fentanyl?’ The tough task of policing MacArthur Park," "‘I can’t deal with life sober’: Response to the MacArthur Park drug epidemic just isn’t enough," and "The time for excuses is over. L.A.’s MacArthur Park needs a champion now") which is apparently a recurring problem.  

A homeless man, wrapped in a blanket, walks by two men prepping a pipe for a hit of fentanyl near an alley in Westlake known for drug use. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 

The park declines, is cleaned up, people don't maintain the same level of care, and the park declines again.  Not unlike the Kensington district in Philadelphia ("Business and bloodshed," Philadelphia Inquirer), the area has significant problems.  From the fourth article:

In MacArthur Park, it’s not as if the problems have been ignored, nor are they easy to fix. They’re deeply rooted in poverty, homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, a low-wage economy, cheap and powerfully destructive drugs and gang-controlled criminal enterprise. 

Recently, Bass and her team have been strategizing with the police, recreation and sanitation departments and working with supportive housing providers. 

On Thursday, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who believes too much money is spent on law enforcement and not enough on social services, held a news conference in MacArthur Park to announce several partnerships and social service initiatives. She also said she is committed — along with county Supervisor Hilda Solis and state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, among others — to improving “the quality of life for residents and visitors alike.” 

           ("What are the answers to MacArthur Park crisis, and can Councilmember Hernandez lead the way?," LAT, "Can key politicians in Los Angeles help MacArthur Park? They’re going to try," LA Daily News). 

...The neighborhood is primarily made up of low-income Spanish-speaking people, many of them undocumented residents who can’t vote and can be easily ignored even though they’re a critical part of L.A.’s economy, present and future. So it’s good to finally see such a response in a neighborhood that has become a symbol of the disorder that is crippling Los Angeles, but it shouldn’t have taken this long to confront the festering crisis head-on. 

I wondered if this might be yet another of the many MacArthur Park rescue projects that brought temporary relief before falling apart. It’s not just neighborhood problems that have to be fixed. It’s the fractured relationships between various city and county agencies, the culture of over-promising and under-delivering, and the scourge of fragile egos and petty politics.

The need for police + social services = community safety partnership.  Lopez argues that without police involvement, change is unlikely, or at least unlikely to be long term.  I would say they just need to introduce and maintain a CSP.   Which is what Lopez describes in the first article.

Parks conservancies as more engaged parks managers.  Note that this is a problem for many urban parks across the nation ("Addressing Homelessness in Public Parks," NRPA).  NYC deals with it by having park  conservancies, basically park improvement districts, to provide the kind of more detailed attention to the public space that is beyond the capacity of a parks agency responsible for many parks.  Sometimes these are funded in part by a small property tax on commercial property in the area.

Not unlike libraries, many of which have created social work positions to address homeless related problems as people gather in libraries ("‘A lot of people in need’: Social workers added to staffs at Mass. libraries," 25News, "How One Library Is Filling the Gaps in Homeless Services," Governing), one of the only public spaces open to all, certain parks in many cities need the kind of focused attention common to many of New York City's parks.  (Salt Lake should do the same for some of its major urban parks also.)

Transit agencies have created similar programs to better address homeless issues ("Transit's Response to People Who Are Homeless," APTA, Homelessness: A Guide for Public Transportation, National Academies Press).

Engaging the community in positive activities is crucial.  FWIW, like the Sharkey point about the importance of community organizing as an element of the crime drop (Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence), I argue that parks are loci for civic engagement (""Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Civic Engagement," 2024), and wrt safety, that parks with problems need to be used by positive users--as Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces used to say "if you plan for streets and traffic that's what you get, it you plan for people and places that's what you get instead."

Tons of activities need to be organized in problematic parks to help sweep the nuisance uses away.

Group walks, dog walks, park cleanups, organized playground activities, etc.

Engaging Hispanics.  The area is home to a large number of low income Hispanics, many undocumented.  They don't have a predilection to participate in community affairs, because many come from countries where activists are killed.  This has made it difficult to maintain a functioning community council--many of the seats go vacant ("Mired in overdose crisis, MacArthur Park struggles to revive Neighborhood Council," Los Angeles Daily News).

I don't think social urbanism--a Latin American strategy for community revitalization--is relevant because this community already has parks and libraries.  

One strategy is to build and or strengthen Latino-focused community organizations.  No question that extranormal organization and community building is required.

In the health field, in there is a program in nearby Orange County, called Latino Health Access, that could be a model for how to create a program to engage Latinos in community improvement programs.

Latino Health Access, Orange County, California.   Focused on providing health care to the Latino community, which has traditionally been underserved, the organization focuses on education, prevention and participation, training a cadre--many thousands over the years--of paraprofessionals and volunteers working in and already part of the community, to deliver health education, focused on chronic diseases, such as diabetes.

The organization was featured in a four-part HBO documentary “The Weight of the Nation,” on addressing obesity.

The organization sponsors an annual health walk, has built a park and community center in an impoverished neighborhood that lacked such facilities ("Residents Bring First-Ever Park to California’s 92701 Zip Code," Salud America!), and the organization's main clinic has a community room with space for exercise classes, fitness equipment, and space, a "Youth Room," for adolescents.

LHA has published a workbook, Recruiting the Heart, Training the Brain: The Work of Latino Health Access, discussing what they do, how they built the organization, and their care model.

Disorder | Fare evaders at Columbia Heights Metrorail Station, Washington, DC

This is a screengrab of a tweeted video from Maria on X.  I can't figure out how to embed the actual video in Blogger.  

It's pretty disturbing.  This is clear evidence that the evaders don't care too much about community, public goods, etc.

And it's a point missed by the social justice types who fueled the decriminalization of fare evasion ("D.C. Council decriminalizes Metro fare evasion: ‘I’m sad that’s Metro’s losing money, but I’m more sad about what’s happening to black people.’," Washington Post, 2018, "Metro cracks down on fare evasion in D.C., leading to jump in fines," Post, 2024).  

While people don't like the language, fare evasion is a gateway act to disorder and likely increases disorder and criminal acts.

The one thing I learned in DC during the 80s and 90s when things were really bad is that there is a fine line between order and disorder, and letting disorder fester ("Defining Deviance Down: How we've become accustomed to alarming levels of crime and destructive behavior," Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Explaining Urban Social Disorder and Violence: An Empirical Study of Event Data from Asian and Sub-Saharan African Cities," International Interactions, 2012, "Disorder in urban neighborhoods -- does it lead to crime?," DOJ) always has bad outcomes.  From the DOJ paper:

The research produced an alternative interpretation of the link between disorder and crime, one that sees many elements of disorder as part and parcel of crime itself. Typical activities categorized as social disorder, such as soliciting prostitutesand loitering, and incivilities like painting graffiti are evidence of either crime or ordinance violations. The forces producing these minor crimes may be the same as those that produce more serious crimes, with the difference only in the degree of seriousness. Viewed this way, disorder and crime are manifestations of the same phenomenon.

And that it is easy for things to decline unless you always remain vigilant and focused on maintaining order.

As charlie points out, it was the public safety improvements starting in the late 1990s, culminating in severe crime drops, that led people to choose to live in cities starting in the 2000s  after decades when trends dissuaded all but the most motivated people from city living ("Claims of ‘lawlessness’ on New York City subways increase danger, critics say," Guardian).

-- What caused the crime decline, Brennan Center
-- Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps, DOJ
-- Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State
-- "Does "Broken Windows" Law Enforcement Reduce Serious Crime?," DOJ

Many elected officials and stakeholders don't seem to be aware of that or acknowledge it or recognize it or keep that top of mind when they make decisions ("Inside the D.C. Council’s turn away from progressive crime strategies," Post).

I understand that structural racism is bad, and have argued for community investment to address it ("Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021) but it doesn't obviate responsibility for your acts and behavior, which the social justice movement doesn't acknowledge, especially with the crime law overhaul that passed in 2023, and has just been reversed with the recent changes.

-- DC Justice Lab
-- Criminal Code Reform Commission, DC Government
-- "What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About DC's Crime Bill," Washingtonian Magazine
-- "The Sentencing Project Condemns DC Council’s Passage of Secure DC Crime Bill"

Proof of Broken Windows theory in Philadelphia and New York City

Broken Windows theory ("Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety," Atlantic Magazine, 1982) posits that communities where there are vacant buildings, litter, abandoned cars etc. communicate that it's okay to commit crime.  Unfortunately, there are few examples of its implementation, as police departments did mostly "zero tolerance policing" calling it community policing.  

New York City did data-based policing, but still not community investment, and it was very successful in reducing the crime rate.  But as crime dropped police needed stuff to do, and Giuliani was more of a hard ass, so they moved to Zero Tolerance Policing--stop and frisk.

And so there is a huge contingent of progressives and academics who argue that Broken Windows is b.s.

Broken windows successfully implemented on the NYC Subway in the early 1990s. One of the only places Broken Windows was implemented truly was the NYC Subway system under David Gunn, and transit police chief William Bratton.  

It's discussed in Bratton's second autobiography, The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America ("Bill Bratton Explains His Ideas of Good Policing," New York Times).

During his interview for chief, Gunn took him around the system.  Gunn said we can fix the trains, eliminate graffiti on them (which is why miscreants now use acid to etch cars and windows), and run them on time, but if people have to experience chaos in the stations, they won't ride.

Broken windows theory in action.  An op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Home repairs decrease gun violence in Philadelphia," references research done at University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University that found investing in fixing up abandoned properties led to significant neighborhood improvements including a marked reduction in gun violence.

From the article:

One study of Philadelphia’s Basic Systems Repair Program found that when even one home on a block received repairs, there was a 21.9% decrease in homicide rates. And the more home repairs a block received, the more homicide rates fell. The data reflect what we already know: When people’s basic need for a safe, stable home is met, it decreases violence in our neighborhoods. 

But that message isn’t getting through to our local government. As we talked to close to 200 Grays Ferry residents, the stories poured in. Many residents have applied for home repair programs — for plumbing, roofing, weatherization, insulation, and other renovations — but haven’t heard back, have been denied, or have had to wait many years. Philly residents need home repairs, and we know home repairs are a key part of reducing violence, so why isn’t our city making them more accessible? It is literally lifesaving work to keep longtime Black residents in their homes ... 

Our Council member, Kenyatta Johnson, is now also Council president, and he has enormous power to protect affordable housing in his district and beyond. We need him to work with community advocates to pass citywide policies that prioritize low-income housing and opt the 2nd District into the mixed-income neighborhood overlay, which would require housing developers to ensure 20% of their units are affordable. 

 -- "Fighting blight by fixing up homes could bring down Philly gun violence, new study shows," WHYY/NPR
-- "Abandoned house repairs reduced nearby gun violenceAbandoned house repairs reduced nearby gun violence," Penn Today (2023)
-- "Urban Blight Remediation as a Cost-Beneficial Solution to Firearm Violence: A Citywide Cluster Randomized Trial," Journal of the American Medical Association (2022)
-- "Urban Blight Remediation as a Cost-Beneficial Solution to Firearm Violence," American Journal of Public Health (2016)

==== 

Past blog entries include:

-- "George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies" (2019)
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016 (references the speech by Ronald Clarke upon receiving the Stockholm Prize in Criminology)
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013

Social urbanism is a related concept to Broken Windows, first introduced in Medillín, Columbia, which during the program experienced a 90% drop in the number of murders.

-- "Experiments in Social Urbanism"
-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian
-- "Medellín slum gets giant outdoor escalator," Telegraph
-- "Medellín, Colombia offers an unlikely model for urban renaissance," Toronto Star

I've written about ways to implement it in the US.

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC" (2021)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)" (2020)

Space needle thinking: Seattle, seizing opportunity, and transformational projects action planning

Visionary thinking comes up because of a recent matter I lost out on, in my board service, over the inability to see the value in responding to changed circumstances and taking advantage of an opportunity "suddenly" presented.

I thought about it in terms of what I call "transformational projects action planning," and how part of the concept was influenced by the articles I wrote about culture-based urban revitalization in 7 European cities, for an EU National Institutes of Culture project in Baltimore.

Based on my observation of cities like Bilbao ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning"), I concluded that best practice revitalization initiatives, especially in those cities that were working to overturn serious disadvantages, were comprised of these six elements: 

1. A commitment to the development and production of a broad, comprehensive, visionary, and detailed revitalization plan/s (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool);
2. the creation of innovative and successful implementation organizations, with representatives from the public sector and private firms, to carry out the program. Typically, the organizations have some distance from the local government so that the plan and program aren't subject to the vicissitudes of changing political administrations, parties and representatives (Bilbao, Hamburg, Liverpool, Helsinki);
3. strong accountability mechanisms that ensure that the critical distance provided by semi-independent implementation organizations isn't taken advantage of in terms of deleterious actions (for example Dublin's Temple Bar Cultural Trust was amazingly successful but over time became somewhat disconnected from local government and spent money somewhat injudiciously, even though they generated their own revenues--this came to a head during the economic downturn and the organization was widely criticized; in response the City Council decided to fold the TBCT and incorporate it into the city government structure--in my experience, over time, such initiatives become less focused under city control);
4. funding to realize the plan, usually a combination of local, regional, state, and national sources, and in Europe, "structural adjustment" and other programmatic funding from the European Regional Development Fund and related programs is also available (Hamburg, as a city-state, has extra-normal access to funds beyond what may normally be available to the average city);
5. integrated branding and marketing programs to support the realization of the plan (Hamburg, Vienna, Liverpool, Bilbao, Dublin);
6. flexibility and a willingness to take advantage of serendipitous events and opportunities and integrate new projects into the overall planning and implementation framework (examples include Bilbao's "acquisition" of a branch of the Guggenheim Museum and the creation of a light rail system to complement its new subway system, Liverpool City Council's agreement with a developer to create the Liverpool One mixed use retail, office, and residential development in parallel to the regeneration plan and the hosting of the Capital of Culture program in 2008, and how multifaceted arts centers were developed in otherwise vacated properties rented out cheaply by their owners in Dublin, Helsinki, and Marseille).

Flickr photo by John Smatlak.  

In Bilbao, both the Guggenheim Museum and the surface tram system are examples of seizing opportunity.  

The opportunity to snag the museum came up after Graz, Austria balked.  Bilbao already had a broad ranging plan, and it called for adding cultural attractions.  But it wasn't specified.  The Guggenheim became a way to realize that concept.

And the tram system was developed after the museum opened, and they realized they needed better "intra-district" transit service between subway stations to better serve the patrons of the Guggenheim Museum.

The Space Needle in June after heavy rain in Seattle. (Luke Johnson / The Seattle Times)

Recently the Mayor of Seattle, Bruce Harrell, called on the city to once again start thinking big ("Harrell’s ‘Space Needle thinking’ needs to aim high," Seattle Times).  From the article:

He also called for “Space Needle thinking” to bring forward ambitious ideas for the city’s future. It’s a catchy phrase and plays on something I’ve long noticed about Seattle: Its ability to reinvent itself over and over. The concrete plans that come from “Space Needle thinking” have yet to emerge. But it allows for a thought exercise about Seattle past, present and future.

What's interesting about "space needle thinking," is that according to the columnist, Jon Talton, it was anomalous at the time, that Seattle was actually pretty conservative and in some ways backward.  Committing to being the location of the World's Fair was a big jump from a standing start.  The Space Needle and the World's Fair were initiated by the private sector, not local government.

But because 60 years later, Seattle is in a much different place, and much more economically successful, it has different opportunities.  From the article:

Today, Harrell’s “Space Needle thinking” is a means to bolster and grow ingredients that we already know make great urban spaces. 

One example might be rezoning in Belltown and on blighted Third Avenue to encourage taller buildings and residential development. More than 106,000 people are already living in the central core, a 61% increase since 2013. Build the First Avenue streetcar to complete the Center City Connector, enhancing mobility from the Chinatown International District to Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, First Hill and South Lake Union. 

Our downtown assets will bring people there (recent summer tourism seasons reinforce that we’re building from a great base), but we need to make sure we’re getting the basics right (a clean, safe and welcoming downtown) if we’re going to keep bringing workers and foster an environment where people want to locate their businesses. 

Harrell has found a relatable and fun way to encourage people to think creatively about what’s possible downtown. Perhaps it’s a way to shift thinking by using a symbol of pride and accomplishment to rally people around change. Can Seattle still muster its genius for reinvention? I hope so.

Post covid urban revival.  I've also been thinking about this in the context of post covid urban revival.  

The biggest thing is to double down on the elements that make urban living worthwhile--high quality urban design and placemaking, things to do, access to cultural institutions.  Not just high quality transit, but support for sustainable mobility--walking and biking.  And a reasonably attractive environment for business and commerce.

Addressing disorder is fundamental to public safety.  charlie calls our attention to a report by the DC Chief Financial Officer, that outmigration of population during covid, especially of relatively young high earners, has cost the city $200 million per year in lost tax revenue.

Some of this has to do with public safety.  I first moved to DC in grim times, the late 1980s and 1990s, when crime burgeoned.  charlie frequently points out that it was the crime drop starting in the very late 1990s that set the stage for city revival across the nation.

Having lived through that period of disorder, I am always amazed that elected officials in cities like SF, Seattle, Portland, and DC are happy with encouraging it.  To be fair, I don't think that's what they intended.  

But as crime dropped, they thought on social justice grounds that we could absorb a bit more disorder by decriminalizing certain quality of life and other crimes, that improvements in public safety meant it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Instead what happened is instead of being grateful for the light treatment, perpetrators saw this as a signal to commit more crime, that anti-social behavior was not being sanctioned, but dismissed, and even encouraged.  Hence, more crime.

DC is a laboratory now for failed approaches.  Lenience for youth perpetrators is fine when they are acting out in simple ways.  But carjackings and robberies by youth as young as 12, murders by kids under 16 years of age are not merely "kids being kids."  

It's a dire problem, requiring a serious response.

Like with the decriminalization of crimes by adults, anti-social acts by youth are seemingly accepted and dismissed, when the consequences for committing crimes are minor.

Why you should take transit to the airport: it's safer than leaving your car parked and accessible to thieves

A Utah County family from Lehi got wiped out after their car was burglarized while parked at the Salt Lake City Airport during their week long vacation  ("Family’s car broken into at SLC airport, thieves use garage door opener to break into home," KSL-TV).

First, they couldn't find their car.  Reviewing airport security tapes they found it was burgled and moved to another floor.  The car registration--with their home address, and garage opener was taken, which they didn't realize.

Second, when they got home, all the lights were on, the house was trashed and burgled, and their second car was gone.  It turns out the lady's documents they found (birth certificate, etc.) were used to open credit card accounts etc.

Now the guy had an air tag in his car, and he tracked the car (to Salt Lake City) but the thieves got away.  But the family still isn't ready to move back in.

Taking transit to the airport wouldn't have left them vulnerable.

DC Public Safety Summit, Wednesday May 10th, 9am

I'm the first to say I don't know how to reduce violent crime other than ensuring police time is spent in the areas with the most crime, and that crimes involving gun possession be prosecuted diligently.

Recently, DC Police Chief Robert Contee said that the average person arrested for homicide in the city has been arrested 11 times before.  Similarly, homicide victims have a high rate of involvement with the criminal justice system.  It's pretty clear that a small number of people are responsible for a lot of crime.

Charlie has called our attention to the DC Crime Facts e-letter, and the site provides a lot of analysis about crime in the city.

DCCF has also alerted us to a "public safety summit" tomorrow, convened by Mayor Bowser, and bringing a lot of public officials to the table, with citizens invited.

Wednesday, May 10 at 9:00 a.m. 
District Emergency Operations Center 1015 Half Street SE, 10th Floor

Officials Attending:

Mayor Muriel Bowser 
Brooke Pinto, Ward 2 Councilmember, Chair, Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety 
Lindsey Appiah, Acting Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice 
Robert J. Contee, III, Chief of Police, Metropolitan Police Department  
Matthew Graves, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia 
Brian Schwalb, Attorney General for the District of Columbia 
Anita Josey-Herring, Chief Judge, DC Superior Court 
Linda Harllee Harper, Executive Director, DC Offices of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and Gun Violence Prevention 
Kristy Love, Executive Director, Criminal Justice Coordinating Council  

It will be broadcast live on the city's cable television channel.

DCCF has a post, "Questions for Mayor Bowser's Public Safety Summit," providing lots of questions to be asked of the public officials.  It's pretty focused and trenchant and worth a read.  

He points out that arrests are down in the most dangerous parts of the city, and that areas of high crime have 300% to 400% more crime and incidents than "safe areas," but safe areas are overstaffed relative to crime.

What about a real Citizen Summit on Crime?  I doubt that much will come of the summit, as it was announced the day before, and there is no posted agenda.  But it also reminds me of something that Mayor Anthony Williams did two or three years running.  They were called Citizen Summits and were designed, theoretically, to get citizen insights into city policy and budget.

They got more publicity, including in the planning press, than they deserved.  I was critical that they were mostly window dressing, but I did attend one, and if they were organized to engage people in substantive ways, they could be very effective.

I would have an agenda, provide "education time" so people can be exposed to best practice insights,  featuring well known academics and other professionals, and go from there.

Academic insight.  Patrick Sharkey has written Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence,  about the pre-covid crime drop and attributed a fair amount of it to citizen participation in community efforts to reduce crime.  

Alex Vitale takes a different tack, focused on overpolicing and criminalization of social issues in End of Policing.  It's provocative and worth reading, although maybe not relevant to the murder and gun problems.

-- "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented: Rochester New York" (2021)

There is the broken windows approach.  

-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany" (2019)

A lot of academics criticize it, but I think they are missing the point.  BW never really got implemented, instead it was transmogrified into "zero tolerance policing" not community policing and improvement.

-- "George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies" (2019)
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013

Herman Goldstein (deceased), wrote a lot about "problem-oriented policing."

And there is a lot of work on "violence interruption."  I go back and forth about it, but there is some potential there.

But basically there needs to be a place-based approach to the most dangerous areas in the city, something I wrote about in terms of equity planning and social urbanism.  

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC" (2021)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)" (2020)

I think that Mayor Bowser has bobbled the issue for years. And I don't see things changing.

Note that William Bratton's latest book is very good ("Bill Bratton Explains His Ideas of Good Policing," New York Times).