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by bregma 1497 days ago
Ah, but I remeber the 1970s and 1980s when the bankrupt hellhole was considered (by outsiders) one of the worst places on Earth and a place you would only go if you had a suicide wish. You would expect to get mugged or shot, bad graffiti covered every surface, and junkies filled every cold-water walk-up that hadn't yet burned down.

The "broken window" approach to law enforcement started a reversing trend. Seems like that approach has been dropped again, and the old New York is coming back.
4 comments
wolverine876 1497 days ago
If we write really extreme hyperbole, it's witty (not really anymore) but doesn't actually support the argument. Millions still lived there; it remained the national capital of finance, publishing, business, arts, etc.; the nation's leading city and one of the world's; a magnet for tourism.

> The "broken window" approach to law enforcement started a reversing trend.

It's a popular claim but AFAIK here's no evidence of that and it's one of those claims that was repeated without anyone looking at the most basic data: Crime dropped nationwide, both in places that used 'broken window' policing and without it. It's like today, where gun crime has increased relatively evenly everywhere, red states and blue, urban and rural areas, but certain political media campaigns have successfully associated it with a certain political group and cities (and by implication, a certain minority). Also, 'broken windows' often amounted to 'harass and drive away people that wealthy white people don't like'.

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mschuster91 1497 days ago
> The "broken window" approach to law enforcement started a reversing trend.

Yeah, may be, but the bulk of the cost was borne by minorities, poor and otherwise vulnerable people [1]. "Broken windows" only works for everyone in a fair way when police is held accountable for their actions and systemic injustice gets combatted in parallel - otherwise it will only serve to entrench the interests of the White, rich population.

[1] https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/2018/03-22-NYSAC.pdf

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aleffert 1497 days ago
This really has nothing to do with broken windows or probably even approaches to crime at all. Crime went down for thirty years basically everywhere. Now it is going up basically everywhere. Hard to point at a specific policy when it’s so universal across locales
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wildmanx 1497 days ago
Overall morale is declining. Call it the Trump Effect. Having a leader who behaves like he did normalizes this behavior and immoral behavior becomes more commonplace since people feel its legitimized.

I'm far from being a liberal but that guy objectively didn't show manners, so why should the man on the street..

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wolverine876 1497 days ago
My theory, for which I have no evidence beyond subjective observations, is that Trump jumped on a burgeoning trend (that behavior was trendy before Trump's election, and similar patterns predate him in other countries) and pushed the country over the edge. Many people I know who despise Trump seem to follow his lead in their behavior.
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throwaway0a5e 1497 days ago
>The "broken window" approach to law enforcement started a reversing trend. Seems like that approach has been dropped again, and the old New York is coming back.

The "make low effort comments about leaded gas and crime crowd" would take issue with that statement.

Seems like everyone wants to take credit for the crime decrease in the 90s.

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