I think I may have a trip to Los Angeles in my near future:
A battle is being waged at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station near downtown Los Angeles. The weapon of choice? Loud classical music....L.A. Metro’s goal with the music and lights is to reduce crime and drive away unhoused people.
....The transit authority says the strategy has resulted in an “improvement in public safety,” citing a “75 percent reduction in calls for emergency service, an over 50 percent reduction in vandalism, graffiti and cleanups, and a nearly 20 percent drop in crime.”
....Yet the current alternative of elevated volume, coupled with repetition, is a way that music has been used as torture throughout history, says [musicologist Lily E. Hirsch]. Constant exposure to loud music can disrupt sleep and thought and eventually make people lose their connection to themselves.
The transit folks say the music is being played at a level of 72 db, which is quite reasonable. But Jessica Gelt, who wrote this story for the LA Times, visited with a decibel meter and says the music is playing at a level of 83 decibels—about the same as a leaf blower.
Which is it? I gotta hear this for myself.
Good grief, can't they do better than classical music? Tiny Tim's Greatest Hits, any Alvin and the Chipmunks record, Pat Boone's Tidings of Great Joy, anything live from the Grand Ole Opry ... there are countless tracks which played loudly on endless loop would drive the homeless to up sticks and flee with pitiful sobs of anguish.
I will bet it's the complexity of the music that's causing the effect, rather than a particular style.
pat boone? there is a level of cruelty beyond which a civilized society should not cross
Whachu got against classical music and just what's under that umbrella? Because I absolutely refuse to give up my Guillaume Du Fay (just discovered him last March or April, anyways about this time last years; he da Bomb.)
Emphasis mine. So, which is indeed contributing the most?
Just having lights is insufficient, as those giant stadium lights basically have no effect.
I once went to a rock concert where, when the show was over, they played “Old Man River” really loud on the P.A. I’ve never seen a place empty so fast.
The Keith Jarrett version? Bet they freaked at the Bach-like section
No, wish it was. I did get to see Jarrett live. He was terrific.
That is a very old technique. I read about it being used at a convenience store to disperse gangs of hangers around.
It's mostly to drive houseless people and loiters away. There's a 7/11 owner in Portland Oregon who used this (loud) classical music strategy at two locations after tents had gone up in front.
I'm partial to easy listening exotic music of the 50s and 60s featuring Les Baxter and Nelson Riddle, with Lawrence Welk and Henry Mancini sprinkled around. Classical music requires you to stand around for much longer if you get drawn in by a particularly enjoyable, but lengthy piece.
Houseless? Is that that the latest lefty jargon. How about homeless, a term that normal people use. I say this as a lifelong Democrat that despises left-wingers with heat of a thousand suns.
I wonder what they're doing in terms of lights. Portland supposedly started putting blue lights only in some public restrooms, because it deters junkies - they have a really hard time finding a vein for injection.
That said, the best thing would be just to arrest folks who are openly doing drugs on the train, and hold them for 2-3 days. If they have to seriously run the risk of going 2-3 days without a fix, they'll start avoiding the train as a place to do it.
They're almost all fentanyl junkies these days and I hear fentanyl withdrawal makes going off heroin seem like a walk in the park.
Oh, yes, arrest people. Then tortue them without legal recourse,
They never thought of that. Who would've thought of that?
Maybe, I dunno, housing and treatment?
"it's a small world after all"....
ok, that might increase gun violence.
Might increase suicide.
Let's hope Alex and his droogs aren't planning a trip to LA for some ultraviolence.
1. It's the MacArthur Park station. Why aren't they using the obvious selection? (Richard Harris would probably drive away more people than Donna Summer would.)
2. They're driving away homeful people along with homeless people. And many riders are rejecting the Metro so as not to have to deal with this noise pollution. It doesn't matter what kind of music they play; it's unwanted sound.
It's too bad we don't have a PipeDown here like they have in the UK:
https://pipedown.org.uk/
They're playing music in the station, not on the trains themselves, so if you're using the station for just boarding/unboarding the train -- as opposed to sleeping -- you're subjected to the music for at most just a couple of minutes at the most. I guess if you have some kind of auditory/hearing sensitivity issue, that could be a problem, but I think most of the public would take 3 minutes of Vivaldi over having to step over some passed-out junkie sleeping in a pool of his own urine.
Couple of minutes? The frequency of transit is measured in hours, usually, not 'a few minutes',
LA subway trains only run once every couple of hours?
"And many riders are rejecting the Metro so as not to have to deal with this noise pollution"
Do you have any evidence for this assertion?
LA has a metro?
Unlike most pop music classical music is not always equally loud. Over the course of almost any piece (especially orchestral pieces) there will be quite some change in decibels.
I can imagine the opening strains of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra bellowing through a subway station... and shattering not a few eardrums.
Since we deny want people sleeping in the stations good. Get fucked Lily.
"....Yet the current alternative of elevated volume, coupled with repetition, is a way that music has been used as torture throughout history,"
...for people in captivity. It's not torture if you're at liberty to walk away.
You're not at liberty to walk away if you're in a train station (or a bus station, or an airport) waiting for your transport to come in. It's not like being in a store or an eating establishment where you are free to walk out at any time.
It seems unlikely that all the crime reduction is about unhoused people who live/hang out at the metro - especially things like graffiti. I would bet a lot of the reduction is teens staying away. That can be accomplished with fairly low volume classical music. A park near me does it in one area, and it's both pretty quiet and effective. It probably helps as well that there are plenty of music-free areas nearby.
So money for repelling the homeless but nothing for, you know, putting them in homes.
Pingback: Lunchtime Photo – Kevin Drum