The Discourse Lounge · Housing & Cities
TIER 4 Tue, 31 Dec 2024 20:12:23 +0000
My response to Noah Smith's case for Carceral Urbanism explaining what actually ails U.S. cities and it's not primarily law enforcement. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more --- # Why American Cities (Actually) Suck ### My response to Noah Smith's case for Carceral Urbanism explaining what actually ails U.S. cities and it's not primarily law enforcement. | | Darrell Owens --- | Dec 31| | | ∙| | Preview ---|---|--- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- | | ---|---|--- Tokyo is one of the safest cities on Earth. Photo credit: https://www.japantravelpros.com/blog/quick-note-safe-country **Usual disclaimer: The opinions in this article and all articles only represent myself and do not represent the opinions of my employer or any groups I am a member of.** -- If you're an American who has traveled to a high-income, developed nation in East Asia or Europe, it's easy to become jealous that safe, modern cities of that caliber do not exist in the United States. Frustration with crime fueled some right-wing shifts in cities in the 2024 election. Noah Smith, a writer from Bloomberg, makes a popular case that American cities must become totally crime-intolerant through higher levels of policing. Noah argues that Americans are "NIMBYs" because they feel that increased density levels and more public transit will increase area crime. He attributes this fear to major cities like New York or Los Angeles being associated with rampant crime and lawlessness, while European and Asian cities are much more orderly (note the photo choice of armed French police in Paris). Increasing police staffing levels to European averages per capita is a good thing (I featured a great guest article on this topic), however, I don't believe this will make Americans pro-urbanization, nor will it solve the fundamental economic and social tensions we have in the United States. "Carceral urbanism" selectively focuses on higher police per capita rates in Europe and Asia, but understates social safety nets and political culture which explain why foreign cities are nicer. It also pretends that the U.S. hasn't tried aggressively policing urban areas for the last half-century. Urban law enforcement relaxed in the 2010s and police abuse became more salient due to crime being at historic lows since the national __ crime wave of the 1970s through 1990s. Studies show that increasing police officers and income did decrease crime, but most of the decline was due to the removal of lead poisoning young people's brains and better crime-fighting organization by police. (As I've discussed here.) As we rush to rely on the police to combat a new pandemic-initiated crime wave that is already receding nationally regardless of local law enforcement, we should think holistically about what makes our cities worse than our global peers. -- What Makes America Unsafe -- As Noah notes, the United States has a shockingly and embarrassingly high homicide rate by high-income nation standards. Even though the mass shootings take the headlines, the main culprit is handguns. But, removing guns, are Americans an especially criminal people? Some evidence suggests Americans aren't more criminal than Europeans, just more deadly. Research conducted in 1999 by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins found that overall U.S. crime rates (including abuse, rape, and property crime) are not higher than those in many European nations. However, where the U.S. stands out is in homicide rates. Many of these homicides aren't from crimes in progress such as robbery, but are often by hot-headed and ignorant young men who use their guns for arguments or domestic violence. We had a lot of that during the pandemic. Guns is something other nations don't have to deal with, yet Republicans make it worse by deregulating gun control. New York City is among America's safest cities by homicide rate (you wouldn't know that from media coverage), and it's because they have aggressive gun control which Republicans have pledged to undermine. If NYC had Texas-level gun ownership, there would be a lot more shootings on the subway and we know that because Houston's homicide rate is three times New York's. While European cities are less deadly and violent than American cities, we should also be honest that Europe keeps its city centers clean and presentable, but their suburbs, where tourists don't venture, are segregated and low-income. Especially Paris. It's the opposite in the U.S. -- our suburbs are for the wealthy and most cities, until recently, were designated for the poor. Nevertheless, Paris is leading Europe in expanding its transit system while still having many ethnically-segregated, economically declining and crime-heavy suburbs. Many new French metro lines are going through high-crime, low-income enclaves, and it hasn't impacted French support for public transit whatsoever. This contradicts the theory that people don't support public transit out of safety concerns. The real reason American transit isn't expanded is because of three issues: (1) the federal government since Ronald Reagan funds the operation of highways at four times the rate it funds public transit. This is despite American roadways being now 134 times more deadly than public transit. In 2023, one American was being shot by driver road rage every 18 hours. (2) When transit is expanded the construction costs are astronomical because we don't have American industries specializing in building transit systems. France builds metros much cheaper than the U.S. because there's demand for this work non-stop. (3) The federal government funds transit development projects but day-to-day operations are heavily dependent on local and state funding, which most jurisdictions can't sufficiently support especially if they're in a Republican state. The lack of federal funding for transit operations worsens transit crime and anti-social behavior because local agencies must choose between improving policing or running more services with little money. When I rode the Los Angeles Metro trains at night, they were packed with security personnel because (as I witnessed) some people would smoke on the trains or do other anti-social stuff. But the train ran every 25-30 minutes after hours, which isn't competitive against driving or Uber for most L.A. residents. My friend, a 40-year-old Black woman in Oakland who lived in Paris told me she doesn't take transit here because it's sketchy. Recalling she was a victim of theft on the Paris Metro, I asked why she continued riding it, to which she thought for a second and admitted, "Well it's the best way to get around." Not to downplay the importance of transit being comfortable and safe, but whether people ride transit is primarily dependent on how reliable it is. NYC, for all the headlines, is a heavily transit-first city because transit is dependable. -- Anti-City Politics: An American Thing --... ## Subscribe to The Discourse Lounge to unlock the rest. Become a paying subscriber of The Discourse Lounge to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. Upgrade to paid ### A subscription gets you: | Subscriber-only posts and full archive ---|--- | Post comments and join the community --- | | | Like --- | | Comment --- | | Restack --- (C) 2024 Darrell Owens 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe