Talking to strangers | Modern shotgun style houses as workforce housing for firefighters in Ketchum, Idaho + playgrounds

I take a lot of photos in public places, or not so public places, and people wondering if I am up to no good challenge me.  Because "I can talk" (your ear off), usually it's not a problem. 

There's an article in the Washington Post, "The mental health benefit of striking up conversations with strangers," about the value in talking with strangers.  For me, it's an opportunity to learn--to interview and interrogate, even if it doesn't seem like it.  From the article:

Nick Epley was commuting to work at the University of Chicago when he looked across the train and wondered: Why are all these people sitting elbow to elbow ignoring each other?

Epley, a professor of behavioral science, thought about how very lonely people are, and he challenged himself to strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to him. It changed his life — and led him to write the book “A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health and Connection.”

After reading it, I decided to try the experiment myself. For the past month, on my commute to work, at kids’ birthday parties with my daughter, in the elevator at the office and on the street while walking my dog, I’ve been challenging myself to talk to strangers. Would it actually feel good, or just awkward?

I’ve always been a fairly outgoing person, but the idea of talking to strangers and befriending acquaintances still made me feel anxious. As I contemplated opening my mouth to talk to the stranger sitting next to me on a nearly-silent bus, I felt as if my jaw was sealed shut by fear. What if she didn’t want to talk to me? What if I said the wrong thing, or she felt like I was bothering her?

Ever since my involvement in college student government, I can "talk".  This increased manyfold as I got more involved in urban planning.

In my recent playground study for a grant application, I talked to people at "playgrounds," like the "senior" Fitlot at Columbus Center in South Salt Lake.  

Even though it was built with money from AARP, it turns out an Instagram group called  #slc.calisthenics organizes meetups there and at similar sets of equipment, and lots of people of all ages end up using it--part of my observation is that people/kids play with what's there especially when "more appropriate" equipment isn't present.  I saw a four year old doing pull ups on the same set.

I talked to little kids like this one.  She said the monkey bars are her favorite element at playgrounds.  (So did an older boy at a different playground.)  So I aim to have more types of monkey bars present at the playground.

Observations, analysis, and conversations made the application so much stronger.  Going to about 15 different playgrounds in a couple days educated me fast and deeply about playgrounds--including realizing I needed to be there when kids were, because I didn't know how they used certain equipment.

Young children like learning to bicycle on soft surfaces because it doesn't hurt when you fall.

We need wider sidewalks around the playground oval because there is mixed traffic--kids on scooters, bikes, skates, skateboards, adults on bikes (because we have inadequate bike parking, people walking, people sitting to the side, etc.

Greenhorn Fire Station Workforce Housing, Ketchum, Idaho.  When I was taking photos of these buildings at what turned out to be the Greenhorn Fire Station, I learned the back story, which I wouldn't have known otherwise.

I took the photos because I thought the buildings were an interesting interpretation of the New Orleans shotgun style house, and years ago, I helped write a chapter in a book compilation about the type.

618 Jefferson Street, Flickr photo by Elliott Cowand, Jr.

I learned after being challenged, not realizing it was a fire station, and photographers could be would-be terrorists, one of the tenants came out to ask me what I was doing.  As a result, I learned the back story of the complex, for which I would have had no idea about otherwise.

In an area of ever increasing housing costs because of its being a resort area, it's an effort by the North Blaine County Fire District to provide workforce housing.  They rent the land from Idaho DOT, for the Greenhorn Fire Station, and built eight prefabricated units, mostly with donated funds.  

The 870 s.f. units are rented below market rate to tenants who agree to serve as volunteer fire fighters ("Final housing units arrive at Greenhorn Fire Station" Idaho Mountain Express, "Greenhorn Firefighter Housing Fully Occupied," Wood River Weekly).

What an interesting and important project.

Festivals are withering due to high costs for permitting

Fee for service versus community building and economic development. A challenge with street festivals is the desire for community building, and local economic development--festivals bring out lots of customers, and this can be significant at the scale of a city's economy.  From the Detroit News article, "Chinatown Block Party seeks to build unity, grow community in Detroit":

"And more festivals like this, more activations like this, where people can come together, learn, build and grow, are needed today," Sweets said. "As a Filipino American and a Detroiter, it's really nice to see an opportunity for not only Chinatown, but other Asian American businesses owners, individuals, cultures, to come and be represented, to show up what we are, who we are, what we do."

Artscape in Baltimore is one of my favorite festivals, not just with arts and crafts vendors, but the participation of programs at the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art, students presenting their work and projects, nonprofits, and arts organizations, along with music stages.

But covid and changes in government support make the festival very different and less successful today.

The H Street Festival in DC attracts more than 100,000 patrons to its one day event.

But cities focused on reimbursement fees for services--for street closure, inspection, and emergency services, etc.--make it increasingly difficult to hold events ("The economics are rapidly becoming impossible for your favorite street festival," Sherwood News).  

Covid didn't help because many festivals were cancelled during that time, and festivals lost their financing momentum and have had a difficult time getting it back ("The economic ripples of events canceled due to COVID-19," Marketplace, "Festivals in the COVID Age of Crisis," Contemporary Theatre Review).

Events are usually paid for by a mix of sponsorships and booth rental fees, but these "revenues" are often not much more, or less than the cost of the fees to the city, managing the event, and entertainment fees for bands and musicians.

-- "The tension between monetizing public space and placemaking | rethinking how neighborhoods are supported by local governments," 2018
-- "Two sides of the same coin: how to support community events in the face of high charges for permits etc.?," 2011
-- New Visions for New York Street Fairs , Center for an Urban Future, NYC

Security concerns/bollards.  Some reimbursement is justified, with increased concerns over security, as there have been terrorist attacks or devastating accidents at festivals, with deaths, from inadequately closed roads.  Streets closed frequently, such as for farmers markets, and large festivals, should have permanent retractable bollards installed.

Better bollards than vehicles, which can be displaced by a fast moving heavy vehicle.  The best bollards are rated for crashes at 50 mph.

Technical support.  10+ years ago, the Celebrate Fairfax (County, Virginia) organization used to sponsor workshops for organizations wanting to put on festivals.  While many cities have "Special Events Offices," they seem to be more about the regulatory aspect rather than also being charged with providing technical assistance to organizations so that festivals are both more successful and safe.

The Manayunk Arts Festival held on Main Street, which is closed for the occasion.  Tyger Williams, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rising costs make festivals uneconomic ("Street festival organizers say the rising costs of Philadelphia police patrols are crushing them," Philadelphia Inquirer).

In 2019, the Manayunk Development Corp. paid just over $18,800 for the police patrols, sanitation services, and health and safety inspections required to throw the neighborhood’s beloved Manayunk Arts Festival. In 2023, the same amount barely covered the cost of the Philadelphia Police Department alone.

The two-day event is one of the largest outdoor arts festivals in the area, drawing an average of 40,000 people to a four-block stretch of Main Street every June since 1990 to peruse offerings from upward of 250 artists. At first, said executive director Gwen McCauley, the festival was so profitable it could help bankroll other community events. Now, she said, it’s barely breaking even amid increasing bills.

“We’re limping along,” McCauley said.

Also see "The Northern Liberties Night Market is canceled after the costs of required police patrols and sanitation services have more than doubled" and "Midtown Village cancels its fall festival after 20 years, citing rising costs," PI).

Thousands of visitors stroll down Danforth Avenue during the formerly annual street festival Taste of the Danforth, in Toronto, on August 11, 2019. Steve Russell/Toronto Star

Toronto ("When Toronto loses a public event like Taste of the Danforth, it loses more than just a street festival," Toronto Star).

There was a time when Taste of the Danforth, recently cancelled again this year, was a red dot on Toronto summer calendars: free to attend, with delicious food and drink and clever musical programming on offer. A relatively sober urban strip would become a bustling quasi-European thoroughfare; you’d see elders among the teens, interlopers from the west end making their annual pilgrimage to the east. .

Events like DoWest Fest, MixTO, Salsa on St. Clair, Geary Artcrawl and OssFest have supplanted Taste of the Danforth, but in a city of Toronto’s size, no number of street festivals is too high. Owing to our relatively orderly, responsible and respectful nature, Do West Fest, for instance, never rings too far off the hook despite more than a million visitors coursing through its veins over two and a half days.

Festivals are hard to pull off, even with a lot of resources.  It isn't always, but mostly, the "city's fault" that festivals don't reoccur.  At least in Toronto the city has formalized a $3.25 million fund to support festivals ("Here’s why the Taste of the Danforth festival keeps getting cancelled," Star).

Wicker Park Fest.  Photo: JMiller.

Chicago ("Chicago street festivals are struggling. Here's why," Crain's Chicago Business).  According to Crain's, Chicago festivals are having problems, some cancelling, because of a loss of sponsors and a decline in gate revenues.

Unlike festivals I've gone to in other cities, many Chicago festivals charge for admission.  And, like Philadelphia and Toronto, a rise in the various charges by government agencies for the provision of services like inspection and policing.  From the article:

Gate donations are a main revenue stream for Chicago street festivals, which are usually hosted by chambers of commerce to raise money for neighborhood improvement. Because the festivals are held on public ways — i.e., in the middle of the street — Chicago rules stipulate organizers cannot charge an entry fee. Instead, they ask for donations. Though it varies, gate donations typically comprise about one-third of a street festival’s revenue. Vendor fees and sponsorship are other primary revenue streams.

Music festivals.  Community festival issues are different from music festivals ("High costs leaving festivals 'struggling to survive'," BBC, "‘It becomes a no-go zone all summer’: How music festivals are ruining British parks," Daily Telegraph), which are more focused on arts as presentation, especially the presentation of non-local artists, with a place-based focused that is less connected than a community festival.

WRT music festivals, the Philadelphia Inquirer offers an observation that multi-day music festivals do better when they aren't generic, have a distinctive identity and a focus on community building ("How has the Roots Picnic continued to thrive while Made in America has been canceled again?").

Brockwell Park damage after a music festival. Alamy photo.

Another issue is damage, with ticketed or private events in regular public parks like Grant Park in Chicago, home to the Lollapalooza music festival.

There is a tension in holding ticketed/exclusive events in regular parks between the revenue they generate for the park system versus damage and other costs ("Lollapalooza producers to pay $410,000 to clean up Grant Park after this year’s music festival," Chicago Tribune, "The Tough Mudder run ripped up our London park, and residents are paying the price," Guardian), "One-third of Central Park's Great Lawn 'fully destroyed' after damage from Global Citizen Festival, rains," Fox News) and access restrictions ("A New Home for New York Fashion Week," New York Times). 

Solution: Cities should budget monies for festivals.  For community building, neighborhood planning, and local economic development reasons, cities should allocate monies to support these events functioning at the neighborhood and city-wide scales.  

Some cities make some monies available, but it can be very arbitrary on who gets money--connections matter.

Better to set up funding guidelines and a systematic process for awarding funding.

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?

Wake County North Carolina offers an EMS subscription for "free" ambulance rides | Why not just collect such money as a tax and provide free ambulance rides

 

Some communities have area-wide ambulance/EMS services, funded by taxes.  Although most of the systems will still bill insurance for costs.

The average cost of an ambulance ride is $400 to $1,000.  

Wake County, North Carolina where Raleigh is, offers a subscription to cover the costs that insurance won't cover, $60 per year.

Although one family, living in Wake County but on the border with Johnson County, got a big bill, because "no Wake County ambulances were available" ("Raleigh couple says Wake County ambulance subscription program failed them," WRAL-TV).  And they were served by a Johnson County ambulance, and the subscription program didn't cover the extra cost.

Why not just raise every household's taxes by $60 /year and pay for the service that way?

 

Defining deviance down: Disorder and cities in 2022

 "Defining deviance down" is a famous paper in urban policy circles.  Written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993, and explaining the decline of public facilities and spaces in New York City, it made the point that instead of addressing the nuisance/noxious/criminal activities and consequences, instead deviance was redefined, redefining once anti-community acts as acceptable.

1.  Transit fare evasion in DC (and elsewhere).  A few years ago, DC Council voted to make fare evasion legal, despite the concern that it would cost the transit system revenue and lead to nuisance and even criminal behaviors, as it countered the lessons from the New York Subway system's crack down on fare evasion as a "gateway" to improving public safety on the transit system (see William Bratton's latest autobiography, The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America, for a great discussion on this).

What they found is that people who commit minor crimes like fare evasion, also commit serious crimes, like assault and robbery, so enforcing "minor" crimes like fare evasion led to declines in crime overall, including major crime.

Now, shockers, the transit system finds that as many as 1/3 of all patrons aren't paying ("Fare evasion in D.C. is rising. Money troubles are pushing Metro to confront it," Washington Post).  From the article:

Fare evasion has worsened during the pandemic and is a visible reminder to riders of revenue Metro is not collecting — even as the agency calls on regional leaders to help with financial woes. The solutions aren’t easy for Metro or its transit police department, which has been accused of disproportionate enforcement against Black residents, leading the D.C. Council to decriminalize fare evasion in 2018.

Since that year, police records show, transit officers have dramatically shifted away from enforcing fare evasion across the rail and bus system, with citations and arrests numbering less than 300 last year, compared with more than 15,000 in 2017. Of that 2021 total, none took place in the District.

3.  Transit systems are experiencing more crime, to the point of murder ("‘She doesn’t ride the subway’: Attack victim Elizabeth Gomes rips Tiffany Cabán’s claims that subways are safe," New York Post, "Residents around 900 South TRAX station concerned by recent shootings," KUTV, "With attacks on public transit up, cities struggle to make riders feel safer," SmartCities Dive).  So it seems that increasing patrols and focusing on crimes big and small is in order. 

Yes I know covid is a contributor to the crime rise more generally ("Homicide Spike Hits Most Large U.S. Cities," Wall Street Journal).  But that's not an excuse.

4. Crime nullification/defund the police.  There is no question that there is an untold amount of police brutality, unfounded killings, and other unacceptable behavior.  

What it has led to is not a recognition that policing needs to be rearticulated with a broader definition of what public safety means ("The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented"--see the comments too), with a greater variety of responses, and greater standards for police officers ("Bay Area sheriff’s office audit reveals 45 officers failed psychological evaluation," CNN), but a kind of what I call a nullification of criminality.  Meaning that because police do bad things, crimes aren't really crimes, so criminals aren't criminals.

If that's not an example of "defining deviancy down" I don't know what is.

They are crimes and they have tremendous negative effective on quality of life and public safety.  Police doing bad things doesn't nullify the responsibility of citizens to not commit criminal acts.

This "Small Business Public Safety Resources" guide was produced by two New York City Councilmembers with the aim of getting businesses to call for responses other than police.  There is a lot to be said for a breadth of response options. 

Not everyone agrees ("Progressive NYC pols where EMT was murdered urged biz owners NOT to call the cops just days earlier," New York Post).  At the same time, the severity of criminal acts shouldn't be "defined down."

An asphalt patch in the elaborate brickwork of the Trinity Park Labyrinth behind the Eaton Centre: a Band-Aid solution.  Rene Johnston/Toronto Star, Toronto Star Photo Illustration.

5.  Failure to maintain and invest in public facilities.  This isn't deviance exactly, but it is an illustration of how touting low taxes on one hand comes with great costs, the inability to fund basic maintenance.

And when public facilities decline, so does the quality of life, perception of public safety, and value of the civic commons and public assets.

The Toronto Star is starting a series of articles slugged "Toronto, can't we do better?" ("Overflowing garbage, broken transit, decrepit ferries — Toronto, can’t we do better?"). From the article:

Things are falling apart. Or they’re not there at all. Or they are administered in a thoughtless way that seems actively hostile to the citizens they are nominally intended to serve. This city has become punishingly expensive to live in, which makes things hard enough for many people, and these many acts of civic negligence and neglect pile daily insult atop that injury.

Toronto, can’t we do better?

This column kicks off a series of articles in the Toronto Star that asks exactly that question, in a number of ways and from a number of angles. In the coming weeks, Star writers will look at the deterioration of the King Street Streetcar Pilot, the neglect of parkland public spaces, the inability to staff Toronto’s planning department to keep up with housing demand, crumbling streets and public buildings, neglect of maintenance of public infrastructure and — yes — those darn busted-up garbage bins all over the place.

This is an issue in the UK, because 10+ years of austerity have crush public agencies and local governments--some have lost as much as 2/3 of their budget, at the cost of public libraries, health care, maintenance of streets, sidewalks, parks, etc.

An article by John Harris in the Guardian ("This Tory crisis reveals a party that has lost touch with reality – and its own heartlands") makes the point that public facilities are most consumed by the middle class:

As our economic troubles pile up, there is talk of renewed austerity: in her interview with Kuenssberg, Truss pointedly declined to rule out public spending cuts. She and her colleagues ought to bear in mind the words of the writer and academic Ross McKibbin, written in 1999 but every bit as relevant to 2022: “The middle classes make more use of the NHS, public transport, public libraries, local swimming pools, public parks and their right to state welfare than anyone else.” Therein we see one key aspect of the Tories’ snowballing crisis, and further proof of this surreal period’s defining political fact: that if Conservatives only seem able to bring to their own heartlands worry and despair, the game is surely up.

Of course this is an issue in the US too.  And most communities don't have the kind of philanthropic or other resources to fund special purpose organizations like the Bryant Park or Central Park Conservancies or business improvement districts to provide the extranormal level of maintenance that people want for their civic spaces.

Conclusion: Don't support disorder.  1.  You get what you pay for and you don't get what you don't pay for.  2.  You get what you prioritize.

I have a lot of empathy for dealing with injustice, structural poverty etc.  At the same time, I lived in DC in the late 1980s and 1990s when crime and disorder was really really bad.

The improvement in public safety starting in the late 1990s, with severe drops in murder and serious crimes is a key element of the urban resurgence experienced in the 2000s.

I just can't believe anyone who experienced those levels of crime back then, or in the neighborhoods that still experience persistent criminal activity, would want to support policies and practices that increase crime rather than reduce it.

P.S. Crime is a problem in rural areas too ("Rural America Reels From Violent Crime. ‘People Lost Their Ever-Lovin’ Minds.’," Wall Street Journal).

Guns don't kill people, people kill people: if that's the case, we need to restrict people's access to guns

Was a slogan, coined I think by the NRA, to misdirect attention away from gun control proposals of various sorts.\

If people, not guns, are the problem, then we shouldn't be making it so easy for "people" to buy guns without adequate checks, and to buy assault weapons that are more appropriate for theaters of war.

Many states, including Texas, are legalizing gun carrying without permits being required, limited checks on purchases, limited restrictions on people buying guns who have "issues," few if any restrictions on high capacity weapons, etc.

Yesterday's incident in Uvalde, Texas is beyond horrific, with 19 children and 2 adults dead, killed by a troubled and once bullied 18 year old, who was subsequently killed by law enforcement ("Texas shooting: How a sunny Uvalde school day ended in bloodshed," BBC).

Somehow, he was able to buy two rifles just the day before.

It's insane that people have to worry about being shot when they go to church or temple ("One dead, multiple injuries in Laguna Woods church shooting"), a supermarket ("Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack," New York Times), shopping center, nightlife district ("3 alleged gang members charged with murder in Sacramento mass shooting," ABC News, "FBI releases final report on investigation into motive behind Dayton mass shooting," WLWT TV), or school ("Victims, parents of Oxford school shooting victims sue school employees," ABC News).

I've been thinking lately, in response to all the incidents of mass shootings, certainly multiple events every week, that we are reaching "peak gun," and there are so many incidents because of "the nexus of guns, perpetrators, and people."

The Second Amendment is supposed to ensure gun access wrt use in "organized [community] militias," not wanton access to guns in ways that reduce public safety rather than enhance it.

Stepping up on response to local "disasters" that are small, but big to the victims

Emergency personnel on the scene of an apartment fire and possible explosion in the 2400 block of Lyttonsville Road in Silver Spring on March 3, 2022. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

There is a letter to the editor in the Washington Post ("What's next for tenants displaced by the Lyttonsville fire?") about the aftermath of a multi-building fire at an apartment complex in the Greater Silver Spring area of Montgomery County, Maryland, where two buildings were destroyed, and two still standing buildings have been condemned.

The letter makes the point that substantive resources and help aren't being provided to the tenants, who need a lot more than the ability to sign up for recreation classes--one of the offerings made available at a recent "community fair" aimed at helping the victims of the fire.

This piece, "Revisiting stories: the need to provide programs to step in and deal with multiunit properties as they age," focuses on building safety a bit more generally, not about providing assistance to tenants as a result of building failure.  That should be reconsidered.

FEMA is a behemoth, providing aid to disaster aid to victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, etc.  But it doesn't respond to localized disasters of a micro-scale.

But could it be a model for localities, organized perhaps at the state level, for a way to provide a coordinated response and substantive help in a case such as this, the Surfside condo collapse, condominium condemnations ("Residents of SE DC condo forced to move out due to unsafe conditions," WJLA-TV), etc.?

Resources to review for developing program models include those produced for large scale disaster management, victims of crime and terrorism, etc., for example:

-- "Helping Victims of Mass Violence & Terrorism: Planning, Response, Recovery, and Resources: Planning," US Department of Justice
-- "Disaster Relief: Help Now, Help Later, Help Better," University of Pennsylvania
-- "Immediate Relief/Individual Support," Disaster Philanthropy Playbook

In the post-9/11 world, most communities have created agencies for emergency management, separate from police, fire and other emergency services.  

This kind of function could be added to those agencies.  Although the advantage of organizing at the state scale is that in most communities such events are infrequent, meaning directing ongoing resources to such functions could be seen as "a waste," and people don't have the ability to develop substantive expertise.  Then again, at the state scale, concern and capacity could be pretty distant from local needs.  Definitely a conundrum on how to organize such programs.

Transit systems, broken windows, and the burden of homelessness

Homeless people sleeping in the Powell Street Station, 2017.  Photo: Laura Oda, San Jose Mercury News.

A few weeks ago, I started writing a blog entry about how BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, has created a "senior manager of social service partnerships" to deal with homelessness on the system ("Meet BART’s first-ever homelessness czar," San Jose Mercury News).  From the article:

As the entire state grapples with a homelessness crisis made worse by the COVID pandemic, BART is trying a new strategy to address the hundreds of unhoused people seeking refuge on its trains and in and around its stations. The transit agency is on the front lines, grappling with everything from people suffering mental health crises on BART platforms to encampment fires encroaching on tracks and disrupting train service. 

Now, BART is drafting a “Strategic Homeless Action Plan” to take a more proactive approach to the issue. The new initiative includes hiring 20 crisis intervention specialists, partnering with social service agencies to deliver resources to people in need, and improving the data BART collects on how the homelessness crisis impacts its system. ...

[From the interview]  "BART is reflective of the Bay Area, so homelessness is huge and we’re seeing hundreds and hundreds of unsheltered individuals every day. I think especially in light of the pandemic, with so many shelters closing and capacity being limited, BART has been the one constant that’s been open." 

Q: BART obviously is a transportation agency, not a human services or housing organization. So why is it BART’s responsibility to tackle the homelessness crisis?

A: I think it was just too much to ignore at a certain point. The status quo wasn’t working. There are still so many pressing issues that we’re experiencing, our staff is experiencing, and our riders are experiencing. And so as more people are getting on BART every day as we sort of hopefully put COVID in the back view, it’s really important for us to have a strategic plan and actions behind that to address some of these issues. We’re not going to be the social service entity ever. But we need to know how to move to be able to guide the resources to BART and our riders.

Similarly SEPTA has announced an increase in funding for services to deal with homelessness on their transit system, including the hiring of up to 57 outreach workers focusing on connecting homeless people to services and reducing their negative impacts ("SEPTA will spend $3.6 million to bulk up social services for homeless people and drug users," Philadelphia Inquirer).

These are attempts to make the transit system safer and more congenial for riders.

At first, I thought this was pretty amazing, but the reality is that it is a necessary response to the failure of other parts of society and government to take care of this, and it puts extra burden and costs, reflected in higher fares, on transit systems.

Relatedly, this week, Bay Area media report that in the last week there have been three overdose deaths on the BART system, two on trains, one in a station ("Troubling trend of suspected overdose deaths on the BART system," KTVU-TV/Fox).  

But rampant and visible drug use at BART stations is nothing new ("BART Officials Appalled by Video of Rampant Drug Use at Civic Center," KPIX-TV/CBS)

I have been reading Police Chief William Bratton's latest book, The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America, and I am just up to the point where he is taking the job of Chief of the New York City Transit Police, in early 1990.  This was when the system was still in crisis, but with the people and finances capable of achieving a turnaround.

Transit wunderkind David Gunn was the chief of the Subway system, and during the interview process he took Bratton on a tour of trains, stations, and other infrastructure.  It was a mess of graffiti, litter and other trash, homeless, urine, crime, etc.

The point Gunn made was that they could fix the trains and get them operating on time and safely.  But if the stations and system remained disorderly and chaotic, it wouldn't matter.

Broken Windows theory of policing.  That really set the stage for Bratton and the adoption of the "Broken Windows" approach to addressing and reducing crime.  It gave me a lot of insight into his thinking.

I am a strong proponent of Broken Windows theory, which I argue hasn't really truly been adopted by police departments.  

The original theory, comparable to social urbanism, calls for a co-equal focus on improvements in policing -- how police time is used, more officers if possible, and the use of data on crime and types of crime to direct resources towards reducing crime not just responding to it, as well as investments to address disorderly conditions that contribute to community degradation, in urban design interventions focused on "crime prevention through community design," etc.

-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice"
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013
-- "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"," 2014
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- "Crime time re-revisited: a set of programs focused on reducing crime," 2015
-- "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
-- "Police response to mental health matters," 2016
-- "Who identifies problems and addresses them at the metropolitan scale? No one, at least when it comes to mental health-related police shootings," 2016
-- "Revisiting intimate partner violence/murder," 2017
-- "Seattle Times article on the need for changes to 911 services and emergency response," 2018
-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany," 2019
-- "Social urbanism and Baltimore," 2019

Zero Tolerance Policing is not the same as the Broken Windows approach.  Instead most police departments interpreted it as "zero tolerance policing," arresting people for the smallest of infractions.

And as crime rates dropped, ZTP not only had diminishing marginal returns, but led to reduced community support in the face of practices like "stop and frisk"  ("Crime dropped under stop-and-frisk, which is worth remembering in the rush to criticize it," NBC, Stop and Frisk: The Human Impact, Center for Constitutional Rights, "Here’s what you need to know about stop and frisk — and why the courts shut it down," Washington Post).

It also made "Broken Windows" a target for community activists and academics, since the theory was associated so closely with policing in New York City.

But having lived in a pretty bad area of DC for about 15 years, from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, I became a pretty strong proponent of the concept, having the "lived experience" of serious disorder and the many negative impacts from being victim of crime as a person and as a resident of a neighborhood ("The fine line between urban/center city chaos and order," 2020).

Not in defense of looting

I haven't read the book In Defense of Looting, but NPR just did a feature story, "One Author's Argument 'In Defense Of Looting'."

From the story:

What would you say to people who are concerned about essential places like grocery stores or pharmacies being attacked in those communities?"

"When it comes to small business, family owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses.

 It's actually a Republican myth that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small business owner must be respected, that the small business owner creates jobs and is part of the community. But that's actually a right-wing myth."

This is hardly a defense of the looting of a small business.


8th and H Streets NE, 1968.  Photo: Matthew Lewis, Washington Post.

There is no defense of looting.  I understand anger and frustration and why people get violent.  But that doesn't mean I can find it justifiable.

Especially because while it might make legislators more willing to pass supports and for businesses and institutions to change a little bit, it destroys communities.

In the best of circumstances, it takes many decades for a community to recover, especially its commercial district. Places not so well resourced take even longer and likely never recover.

E.g., the H Street NE neighborhood I lived in in DC, well located--about 1 mile from Capitol Hill and less than 2 miles from Downtown--took not quite 40 years to recover.

The heart of Detroit, which experienced rioting in 1967, is still bombed out. Newark.. Etc.

Asking the right questions about small business and worker supports.  That being said, the "not likely to provide worker protections" is asking the wrong question.

Of course, small businesses, especially retail, aren't likely to provide "worker protections."

Even in the best of circumstances, they can be marginal businesses. Great for the owners, especially in terms of personal wealth building, but not big enough to be able to provide the package of benefits typically offered by larger firms.  (Sometimes associations that a business might join offer insurance and other programs that a business can adopt, but couldn't support on their own.

And it's not like chain retail businesses (Starbucks is an exception) provide a great package of benefits, unless they are unionized, and even then, benefits have been whittled away considerably in response to companies changing wage and benefits packages in response to competition from large nonunionized companies like Walmart.

The question should be, "why is it very difficult for small businesses to offer worker protections and benefits?"

The answer is: because they are microbusinesses without scale. The follow up question should be: "what do we need to do to make it possible for workers at these microbusinesses to receive protections and benefits?"

In Europe, this is less of an issue because the social welfare safety net operates independently of the workplace.

I would argue that we want workers/people to have access to a social welfare safety net, we should create one that works independently of the workplace.

Definitely the need for such became clear because it response to the pandemic and the layoff of millions, people lost not only their paychecks but their insurance (Employment, Income, and Unemployment Insurance during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Urban Institute).

PPP was an attempt, not very elegantly, to use the workplace payroll system to deliver wage support that otherwise would come from a beleaguered unemployment insurance system.

Small businesses and local support.  The other thing is that most economic studies find that small businesses spend money locally and have a greater multiplier effect on the local economy in fostering additional business, while chain businesses do not, because they usually purchase goods and services from vendors not located locally.

As someone said on an e-list, when do you see Walmart or Home Depot sponsor a local kids sports team?

Studies on the economic impact of locally owned businesses have been done for a number of communities and various retail sectors, when it comes to the economic value of chain stores versus locally owned businesses.   The consulting firm Civic Economics has performed these studies around the country.

The National Hardware Retailing Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the American Independent Business Association have commissioned such studies as well.

-- The Multiplier Effect of Local Independent Businesses, AMIBA
-- Study: Shopping Local vs. Amazon Makes Powerful Impact, National Retail Hardware Association
-- Local First and Economic Impact Studies, American Booksellers Association

Opposition to large tax credits for businesses, like FoxConn in Wisconsin, have to do with this kind of analysis too, over how much of the business activity further generates local economic activity.

Years ago, Aaron Renn wrote about how once Anheuser Busch was acquired by a non-US company, they eventually stopped hiring advertising firms based in St. Louis ("St. Louis and the Consequences of Consolidation," New Geography). This process happens in many places associated with business consolidation of banks, department stores and other retail businesses, etc.

Looting as social reparations. Again, I haven't read the book, but the argument is that looting has an element of redress for discrimination and structural racism. Again, I understand this belief, which has been frequently expressed both in the past and currently, in response to looting associated with George Floyd protests. But I don't agree.

Redress is supposed to be societal and such contributions are supposed to be structural and systematic, not an individual taking from someone/a business on their own volition, idiosyncratically.

Although, years ago I wrote a piece making the point that people in poor communities have an anthropological way of thinking about community and business participation and a belief that to locate in the community, they have to pay in. I never took anthro so I don't have the language to describe what I mean completely. Basically that to be part of the community, if you are an itinerant member through a business etc. you have to pay in, a kind of duty/dowry, in order to belong.

So looting can be seen as a kind of redress for the failure to pay in.

-- "In lower income neighborhoods, are businesses supposed to be "community organizations" first?," 2012

The Asian owned business question. And this is very much relevant to the discussions over the years about "Asian-owned stores" in black communities (I remember this being a theme in the "Hill Street Blues" tv show in the 1980s).

It came up a number of years ago in comments by DC's own Marion Barry ("D.C.'s Marion Barry widely rebuked for comments about Asian business owners," Washington Post), but also see this old blog entry about similar comments by Andrew Young, when he was working for Wal-mart, "Andy Young, Mel Gibson, maybe it's something about Los Angeles").

A number of years ago, I happened upon a great book about the Korean/Asian/Black urban retail question, Civility in the City: Blacks, Jews, and Koreans in Urban America, but I never wrote about it.

The book by Jennifer Lee, professor at UC Irvine, is definitely worth reading.

The fine line between urban/center city chaos and order

There are a couple of pieces, one not quite a screed ("The UWS is falling apart, and lefties seem too woke to care," New York Post) and the Bloomberg Opinion column, "New York and San Francisco Can’t Assume They’ll Bounce Back," about the decline in urban order in the face of rioting, violence and looting around Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Crime is rising in a number of US cities right now, in particular shootings and murders, but not so much other crimes, and there are a variety of theories for why this is so ("The murder spike in big US cities, explained," Vox).

WRT BLM-related violence, it seems to be perpetrated by a preponderance of whites ("How reckless White allies could lead to the reelection of Trump," Washington Post), but also recognize that some of it is fomented by supremacists seeking to spark disorder and discredit BLM, such as in Minneapolis ("Minneapolis police say 'Umbrella Man' was a white supremacist," Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and Oakland ("Suspect in officers' killings tied to Boogaloo group," Los Angeles Times).

Looting I think was more opportunistic and tended to be a more racially "diverse" phenomenon.  Clearly some groups organized specific forays against businesses, seeing the opportunity.

While I understand the need to seriously reconfigure how we deliver public safety services:

-- "Is it too late to change the messaging on "Defund the Police"? How about "Reconstruct Policing"?," 2020
-- "Towards a public safety model that is broader than policing," 2020

the idea of "defund the police" scares the hell out of me, because I have first hand experience of living with widespread disorder, from 1987 into the early 2000s, living in Washington, DC, when the 1990s were especially terrible because of the crack epidemic, bad policing, and other problems.

I can't provide a full recounting of all the bad experiences with crime that I dealt with during that time, but they include:

• at least three muggings (I happened to get away each time, although my glasses were broken once and I was punched another time)
• attempted muggings
• a crazy assault when I was locking my bike which caused blood and injury (I got the guy arrested and he served time, but the reality is that he was mentally ill)
• stolen (rental) car
• multiple stolen bikes or stolen bike parts
• thefts from my yard
• thefts of my stuff when at restaurants
• multiple burglaries of my house
• rape of my then wife during the commission of a burglary (which led to our divorce, although we might have gotten divorced eventually anyway)
• etc.

Besides my personal experiences with criminal acts, the neighborhood where I lived was full of disorder, from trash to vacant houses to a major crack distribution area. 

There were at least a dozen murders a year in the neighborhood, some within a block of my house at particularly bad corners or at businesses.  The H Street commercial district was pretty gnarly too, with a lot of crime, vacant properties, street robberies, robberies of businesses, tons of litter etc.

(As a result, community policing matters were some of the issues I aimed to address when I first got involved in neitghborhood issues around 2000.  A few years later, I was featured in a Washington Post article on Labor Day in 2003, about city advocates fighting the overconcentration of liquor stores, the sales of singles, etc.  It's oddly not available online, but is in articles databases.)

So arguing that police have no legitimate role in maintaining order makes no sense to me.

Furthermore, doing some experiments of my own picking up litter, and seeing the impact of nuisance properties led to my fervent belief in the theoretical basis of broken windows theory--that better maintained places are safer than those that aren't.

Obviously, the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest/Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" ("The CHAZ Has Become America’s Fascination," Seattle Met) in Seattle was no bed of roses ("Capitol Hill residents and businesses sue city of Seattle for failing to disband CHOP," Seattle Times) even if alt right media blew it out of proportion.

Even in the best of circumstances, some people join in and seek to take advantage of the situation for their own purposes.

Getty Images.  

And the reality is that not everyone is pure of heart.  Some people are evil.  Others have mental health or substance abuse demons that make it difficult for them to function in society, etc.

So we need forces to help us maintain order.  And volunteers don't normally measure up when it comes to dealing with serious disorder.

That traditional police forces need to be much better controlled, trained, and resourced is another issue.

And I am the first to argue that public safety service delivery should be conceptualized much differently from at present:

-- "Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013
-- "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"," 2014
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- "Crime time re-revisited: a set of programs focused on reducing crime," 2015
-- "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
-- "Police response to mental health matters," 2016
-- "Who identifies problems and addresses them at the metropolitan scale? No one, at least when it comes to mental health-related police shootings," 2016
-- "Revisiting intimate partner violence/murder," 2017
-- "Seattle Times article on the need for changes to 911 services and emergency response," 2018
-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany," 2019
-- "Social urbanism and Baltimore," 2019

I wrote this in the second Broken Windows piece from 2016:

One of the problems that many people ascribe to the #BlackLivesMatter agenda is a kind of "nullification" as it relates to crime ("Black Lives Matter should also take on 'black-on-black crime," Washington Post).  To an outsider, it appears as if there is a kind of preconceived notion within the movement that anything "the government" does concerning crime and public safety is anti-Black and moreover, unjustified.

While I can see why many people would have strong reason to believe that, it is in fact a stretch or overstatement.  There is no question that the current paradigm isn't working (past blog entries: "Police misconduct and grand juries: a separate prosecution and grand jury system is necessary," "How police departments become corrupt," and "Police officers aren't always the best placemakers")

But at the same time there is no question that there is crime and it disproportionately impacts low income communities and people of color.

I believe that communities need a strong agenda for dealing with crime while recognizing that the public safety agenda is often built on a racist foundation, and much more resources need to be put towards community improvement, simultaneous with and not subservient to "order maintenance."

Towards a public safety model that is broader than policing

I wrote about my reservations with "Defund the Police" as a slogan here, "Is it too late to change the messaging on "Defund the Police"? How about "Reconstruct Policing"?," and more recently about more focused ways of addressing public safety within neighborhoods in the recent entry, "Equity planning: an update," about the approach undertaken in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

But I have to say, recently reading the book White Fragility I can see why people did react to my comments on "Defunding" in terms of "just listen," even though I bristled at this, since I've been making similar points about policing, based on my experiences in DC (which do include a lot of examples of being a crime victim) for more than 15 years.

In doing some filing, I came across a recent clipping, letters to the editor in the New York Times ("Rethinking the Traditional Police Model"), which get to the crux of the issue.

The first by now retired urban planner and public administrator Subir Mukerjee makes the point that if there were a real "public safety" model, police would be but one element of a complete approach/tool kit. That funding for mental health, schools, affordable housing, and economic opportunities for the disenfranchised would be part of it.

I didn't know ... the second letter, by UC Berkeley Emeritus Professor Malcolm Feeley, mentions that Herman Goldstein, the creator of the "problem oriented policing" approach, made the point that police are hired and trained "to fight crime" but most of their time is spend "solving problems."

(This point was also made to me by a former DC Deputy Police Chief, when I guest lectured to one of his classes at UDC.)

Goldstein called for a more "social services" model rather than the military or warrior model. From the letter:

They spend most of their time solving problems: advising victims of crime, helping people in distress, sorting out arguments, breaking up fights, managing crowds and the like.

His simple but profound message: These are crucial services and integrally related to dealing with crime, so recruit people who want to undertake these activities, and then train them accordingly.

His ideas call for a social services rather than military model. ...

His work led to his receipt of the 2017 Stockholm Prize in International Criminology, which is considered equal to the Nobel Prize within the field in terms of prestige, importance and recognition.

This is his speech, On problem-oriented policing: the Stockholm lecture," Crime Science, 2018.  Professor Goldstein died in January. From the article:

I proposed a new paradigm for reforming the police (Goldstein 1979, 1990). I argued that—in seeking to improve policing—more attention be focused on the substance of policing—on the outcomes of police efforts to deal with the specific problems that comprise their business. I labeled the paradigm “POP”. It called for the police:

• To identify specific problems the public expected them to handle;
• To dig deeply into understanding each problem; and
• To think freshly and creatively about the best possible tailor-made response.

As the police searched for that response, they were urged to place a high value:

• On preventive action;
• On responses that preferably do not depend wholly on the criminal justice system; and
• On alternatives that engaged the community, other public agencies, and members of the private sector having a direct interest in the problem.

The process then called for implementing the agreed-upon response. And the final step called for a strong commitment to assessing the impact of that response, particularly for its effectiveness and fairness.

When such an idea is launched, it is extraordinarily difficult to track its diffusion, to measure its impact, or to gauge its overall effectiveness (see Leigh et al. 1996, 1998; Scott, 2000; Weisburd et al. 2010). Predictably, many early initiatives reflected good intentions, but often lacked a fundamental understanding of the concept...

Despite these gains, I have grown accustomed to viewing successful efforts to implement POP—when carried out in all of its full dimensions—as episodic rather than systematic; as the results of relatively isolated cells of initiative, energy and competence. I view these pockets of achievement as exciting and pointing the way but sprinkled among a vast sea of police operations that remain traditional and familiar. So I feel the need, especially in the current climate in the United States, to guard against exaggerating what is being achieved in POP, especially when related to the magnitude of the still unmet needs in policing. ...

-- Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State University

"Strange": internal investigation of inadequate response to fire will result in changes, disciplinary actions in Orange County, California

Because it is so rare that there are consequences meted out for failure to act wrt avoidable failures, I was surprised to see this article in the Orange County Register ("Orange County probe finds Canyon 2 Fire response rife with human error and complacency, calls for disciplinary action"). From the article:

Concluding that the fire agency’s response during the early minutes of the Canyon 2 Fire was rife with “human error and potential complacency,” an 80-page report from the county obtained by the Register — slated to be presented publicly later this month — says the findings present “an important case study in how miscalculations and missteps in small but critical areas can result in significant damages… to a community.”

The investigations by the county and the OCFA both say fire personnel essentially ignored early reports of flames on Oct. 9, 2017, the day the fire started. Both also say fire officials were too slow to send equipment and personnel to contain a blaze that burned for eight days, charred 9,200 acres, destroyed 15 houses and 10 other structures, and displaced thousands of residents of Anaheim Hills and North Tustin.

Specifically, the two reports say OCFA officials downplayed a 911 caller’s reports of flames in a canyon at 8:32 a.m. Instead of following protocol, which would require sending personnel and equipment to the scene, they directed firefighters at a station more than a mile away to look outside and report on what they saw.

Those firefighters dismissed the reported flames as wind-blown ashes, an error that prompted an OCFA dispatcher to tell CHP officials that fire reports were “unfounded.” Firefighting equipment wasn’t deployed for another 71 minutes.

=====
Separately, in going through mounds of old stuff I haven't read, I came across this article, "Pittsburgh Uses Data to Predict Fire Risk," in Government Technology Magazine, discussing the use of data analysis in fire agency organizations, better matching resources and fire inspection processes to ward off the potential of problems like the Ghost Ship building fire in Oakland, California or the disaster of Grenfell Tower in London.

Among other cities, fire departments in New York City ("New York City Fights Fire with Data," GT) and Austin ("Austin Fire Department Extracts Value From Data," GT) aim to use data analytics and programs to improve performance.

Some time ago, Philadelphia created a "Fire Vulnerability Index" for buildings, to be able to be proactive in reducing risks and the likelihood of fire by "scor[ing] every household in Philadelphia on its propensity for a fire" ("Philadelphia Fire Department uses data to stop fires before they start," Urgent Communications). From the article:

From this index, the PFD now knows which households to focus fire-prevention efforts on and can pinpoint fire vulnerability households in the city that are more likely to have a future fire event. Fackel said it also can use the data for several efforts, such as to provide those households with fire alarms or to send them direct-mail flyers about fire safety.