Matt Yglesias says today that although serious crime is down, "a lot of lower-level disorder that spiked alongside shootings in 2020 never went back to normal."
Unlike in some areas where I think the Biden administration made clear policy errors, I don’t know that they did anything wrong about this national epidemic of low-level disorder. But for whatever reason, they weren’t willing or able to articulate the basic fact, visible to everyone, that standards of conduct had slipped and that something needed to be done.
I agree that public disorder needs to be policed. Not because it's likely to have any effect on more serious crime, but for its own sake. Civic disorder is annoying at best and scary at worst. There's no reason we should ignore quality-of-life issues like this.
But I'm skeptical of this "epidemic" of disorder. Partly this is because I can't figure out why there should be one. There are a few things that might plausibly underlie low-level disorder, but they're mostly getting better. For example, homelessness has declined everywhere but California until a tiny spike last year:
Aside from recreational marijuana, drug use is down for all age groups.¹ Ditto for alcohol abuse.
Thanks to lower lead poisoning among children, antisocial behavior of all kinds has dropped dramatically among teens:
Add this all up and homelessness is mostly down; drug use is down; teen behavior is better; plus incomes are up and poverty is down. None of this means public disorder hasn't increased. But it does mean it would sure be mysterious if it has.
So what's the evidence for increasing disorder? It's very thin: airline passengers are acting up and traffic deaths are still high. On the other hand, in New York City transit crime is declining and 311 calls to report nuisances have plummeted:
Ruthless shoplifting gangs terrorizing drug stores and supermarkets are in the news regularly, but retailers themselves don't report any rise:
Anecdotally, Charles Fain Lehman visited Chatanooga and reported back: "Even as violent crime has largely receded, there are multiple indicators suggesting that another problem persists: disorder." But if you read his very detailed piece, there's not much there. Even minor crimes are mostly down over the past couple of years.
I just don't know. This is another example of vibes vs. data and I don't know which side to take. It's especially difficult in this case because there's no measure of low-level disorder to look at. It's hard to even come up with credible proxies.
As always, the question isn't whether civic disorder exists. Of course it does. Most big cities have open-air drug markets, homeless encampments, reckless drivers, and people who are just plain annoying. But is there more of it? It sure seems like there's no reason there should be, and what little data we have doesn't support the notion of a big rise. Any thoughts?
¹Marijuana use is flat among teens and up among adults, mostly thanks to legalization.
Speeding is up, and so is trolling online.. but once again is it a red vs blue problem?
Sure seems like conservatives cause problems, then complain about them.
I live outside the US. Last summer I went back for the first time since pre-COVID. (During COVID I was stuck in China and last summer I was moving countries so this was first chance.)
We got approached twice by obvious meth heads asking for money in the parking lots of motels while moving around luggage and kids, once coming and once going. First one was in rural western Pennsylvania, second was in Niagara Falls. Neither incident escalated to a mugging, but both were stressful and concerning - you are dealing with several people who do not look all there begging aggressively while car trunk is open, luggage is visible and perhaps grabbable, kids are oblivious, and wife who is from China has no idea that this situation could easily escalate into a life threatening situation in seconds.
The only time I had to deal with this kind of thing previously in the US was when I had to fill up in a gas station in a bad part of Oakland thirty years ago and I was ready for it then - I expected problems.
When we went around New York and Boston, again, I just saw a lot more obviously mentally ill or drug addicted people than I remembered. Even when I was a kid, people sometimes pissed in the New York subway, but now it seemed pervasive - you smelled it in the passageways and often saw wet trickles where someone had recently pissed.
I certainly felt things had gotten worse.
Part of the issue here may be location. Problems that used to be confined to inner cities where most Americans would never venture have now spread out and are visible in city centers and rural areas.
And that situation wouldn’t be reflected in any of Kevin’s charts.
That's often the problem with Kevin's charts on this topic – the data doesn't capture all the quality-of-life problems that have been exacerbated in recent years. What chart shows all the drug addicts roaming the streets freely in the daylight in urban downtowns? Do the charts indicate that retail establishments don't bother reporting shoplifting anymore because no one will follow up? Any data on how frequently tent cities have started popping up in public parks? I have to side with Yglesias on this one.
Agreed. It seems like there a lot of sticking heads in the sand when it comes to these topics.
Well, they aren't much of a thing in Irvine.
"Problems that used to be confined to inner cities where most Americans would never venture"
You really are a racist piece of shit. Here's a clue, motherfucker: Most Americans live in cities.
Sure. So did I. I grew up in New York. And we all knew that you didn't take the subway into Manhattan north of about 120th street unless you looked like a local and that South Bronx was a no go area. This areas had tons of problems but they did not impact the bay majority of New Yorkers.
I don't think this is true, at least by the definition KD is using.
Most Americans live in metropolitan areas. The number who live in an "inner city" is relatively small, though likely larger than the number who live in rural areas.
I seriously question your anecdata. I'm not sure when you were a kid but I lived in New York City in the 80's and homelessness and drug use and crime as well as "low level disorder" were much worse than when I vist there now. And when I move to greater Boston in 1989 it had the highest murder rate in modern history and this year Boston's homicide rate is historically low after plumetting the past few years. Homelessness and the visibility of the mentally ill is not new and I see little evidence it has gotten worse in the past few years.
Exactly. In Boston today, you are more likely to be killed or injured by a stranger wielding a steering wheel than one carrying a knife or gun.
That said, my sister who lives in Roslindale (where the mayor of Boston lives) is toying with buying a firearm. Why? Because pickups with Trump flags have started driving down her gentrified street. And she has a graduate degree from Yale.
Humans are a strange species.
Nailed it Crissa. Also guns, they are a terrible sickness & plague upon the nation. We know what would fix the vibes but we aren't permitted to enact the fixes because the Conservatives benefit from it being like this.
I tend to think there is more disorder… teen gang fight in Chicago last Friday evening after tree lighting. It’s a relatively new phenomenon in Chicago since the pandemic. Now they go to the loop and spread chaos several times a year.
“Most big cities have open-air drug markets, homeless encampments, reckless drivers, and people who are just plain annoying.”
And what’s implied there and throughout your commentary over the last couple of years is that you find this tolerable, Mr. Drum.
I haven’t got any solutions either, but denial is not helping. Ezra Klein did a podcast on the “hidden politics of disorder” back in October. Go listen.
“Most big cities have open-air drug markets, homeless encampments, reckless drivers, and people who are just plain annoying.”
People tolerate it because they don't want to pay the taxes that it would take to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate every drug dealer and reckless driver and find a home for every homeless person (in somebody else's neighborhood, of course). Most of them would also not be in favor of paying to incarcerate every annoying person either. What do you suggest be done about it?
Well, start by arresting and prosecuting every drug dealer and putting drug addicts in cold turkey rehab camps. You do not have to spend a lot to do the second - plenty of third world countries manage this. Conditions are Spartan, but why shouldn't they be?
Exactly how much are you offering to pay for this?
Why do you assume that lots of third world countries have solved this problem?
Or is solving the problem not any part of the 'solution'?
Not a lot of thinking going on here....
It's a troll. It leaves its droppings on KD's threads. No thinking required.
It’s not just a matter of paying for it. In order to accomplish what he is saying you would need to have a totalitarian government. Drug dealers are currently arrested and prosecuted. But in order to convict a person of a crime and take away their freedom you need to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that they committed the crime. Drug dealers, particularly ones doing it on a large scale, have a lot of money and can mount formidable defenses. Criminals who are, to a layman, obviously guilty can delay their trials and threaten witnesses. Our current president elect can tell you all about that.
Putting drug addicts in concentration camps doesn’t solve their problems. How long do you keep them there? Under what legal authority? I suppose living in China may have given MF some ideas on how a legal system should be run but it’s not one I would care to live in.
Should we use the Philippines as a guide?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://acleddata.com/2018/10/18/dutertes-war-drug-related-violence-in-the-philippines/&ved=2ahUKEwjjoreKsvqJAxWaAHkGHWwpJI0QFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2-JS94swc2aCFmkxpc5Njl
In Tampa we definitely don’t have open air drug markets and we don’t pay excessive taxes. We just don’t allow it to happen. We also have laws againr setting up tents or sleeping in public so we don’t have homeless everywhere.
"We just need to brutalize the homeless more" is certainly something one could advocate for.
That seems pretty sadistic. Why would you advocate for that?
No, why did you advocate for it in your post above?
Are you feeling okay? I didn't advocate for anything. I stated what the laws were in Tampa. And the laws certainly don't allow brutalizing homeless.
I guess it depends on what you would call brutal behavior. Criminalizing homelessness and hiding them from public view so people don't have to be confronted with societies failures sure sounds brutal to me.
It doesn't to me. Guess we have different opinions on that. The law mandates they be provided a secure encampment with facilities and mental health care. It just has to be away from homes and businesses.
So in other words you pushed the homeless out into somebody else's community. That isn't a solution. BTW, Florida is slightly above the national average in fentanyl deaths per 100,000 and Hillsborough county doesn't appear to be exempt when it comes to ODs. The fact that you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.
https://www.floridahealth.gov/statistics-and-data/fl-dose/_documents/non-fatal-od-2019-q1.pdf
It would be great if we could snap our fingers and solve homelessness. But that's not going to happen. In the mean time, we don't want to erode our standard of living. Towns are required now to set up encampments for homeless with basic necessities and security. But they can't be near homes and businesses. It's a new law and can't recall what the specific are but you can look it up. That's state-wide, but Tampa hasn't allowed tents, panhandling, or sleeping in public for years.
Not sure what your point is with fentanyl. I have no idea what the statistics are. I don't hear too much about it in Tampa and definitely don't see open air drug markets, which is what my original comment was regarding.
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2024/10/03/florida-homeless-law-hb-1365-ron-desantis/75493525007/#
It is a weird law. The violator of this law would be the local government and the “remedy” is civil action.
Yes, it is unusual in that regard.
"Towns are required now to set up encampments for homeless with basic necessities and security. But they can't be near homes and businesses." Where does that leave? More importantly do you see any parallels in history for this sort of seperation?
Plenty of spaces around. Are you arguing the situation is San Francisco or LA is preferable? Why should the quality of life for every citizen have to go down the toilet?
"...Why should the quality of life for every citizen have to go down the toilet?"
Because some lefties are under the misapprehension that if people "...have to be confronted with societies failures ..."
they will become more compassionate. When in fact they become less.
+1
So out of sight, out of mind. I'm sure it brings peace of mind to people who are uncomfortable with the sight of our moral and ethical failures confronting them during their daily routines. Putting them all in camps far out of sight is only an answer to yours and others discomfort. I'm not sure it does anything to address the issues of homelessness.
Correct. The law is to improve quality of life. Not to address homelessness. Solving homelessness is a long term project. On the short term, Floridians want their cities to be liveable for everyone else. If that doesn’t appeal to you, I guess this wouldn’t be a good place for you to live.
"Solving homelessness" is not a long term project, it's not a project at all.
Outside of a few homeless advocates and a couple of enlightened elected representatives, nobody is working to end homelessness. Nobody cares, nobody has a plan, everyone just hopes it goes away, and if not, that it moves to where they don't encounter the homeless.
Per source at link Tampa has the highest homelessness rate in the country.
https://wprnpublicradio.com/tampa-homelessness-crisis-1/
Steve
And you would never know it if you lived here. I guess our laws are working.
You'll also notice mass shootings get reported on the local news now, no matter where in the country they happen. It makes it feel like they are all local.
This seems like you're trying too hard.
Like, completely counter-factual.
Do you think the 90s and 00s were some kind of golden era?
To me, "inflation" was just euphemism for a lot problems that many citizens were annoyed about but didn't want to articulate to pollsters for reasons of politness. One of these being "disorder". And over the last four years such things did increase in the wake of the pandemic and George Floyd murder which resulted in two things which helped increase crime especially in large metropolitan areas 1). remote work taking people away from the streets and decline in police forces. Now such crime is declining but it still hasn't gone back to pre-pandemic and that fact plus the Biden Administration and Harris campaigns inability to say things are improving and getting better provided the open for the Trump campaign to take advantage of, especially when the victims of crime in such areas are likely to be working class. That's what Bernie Sanders really should mean when he says policies pursued, especially by local prosecutors, were betrayals of the working class. Fortunately many of these DAs are gone now or will be out the door shortly. There's a middle ground between police accountability and surrendering the public spaces to disorder and city government need to take it.
I wonder how much we disagree, spatrick? The Trump era....prefaced by Rush , O'Reilly etc ushered in much public whining and saying raciest stuff out loud. Grievance uttered enough changes the social climate.....could be a factor. The level of greed of wall st is a factor....
I don't have anything to say to Justin. He lives in a fantasy land where there used to be zero crime, but now there is crime everywhere. And it goes without saying that it is Liberals fault. Including most of the people who read Kevin. And if it wasn't for them there would again be zero crime.
But to any rational people reading this, the "teen gang fight" was a handful of teenagers fighting each other which was immediately broken up by police. And, of course, the worst were arrested. Oh my god! Nothing like that has ever happened before... oh wait. It happens literally every weekend. In every city. In the entire world. And it always has. It has happened every weekend since cities were invented.
Why did Justin hear about this one? Because it happened just after a popular city event and because people had film of it. Oh, and because there is now a whole industry centered around making stupid people believe that cities have never been this dangerous. A laughably false claim.
For someone who thinks of himself as a realist, Yglesias sure has trouble looking at issues straight in the face. If "public order" were actually an election issue, then the votes would not have gone to the felon who threatened violence if he lost the election, then lost the election, then delivered on the threat of violence, then referred to the people who invaded the US Capitol as "hostages."
And the idea that admitting that public order had decreased, despite the lack of evidence, is absurd. Again: When did Trump ever admit anything? (And indeed, when do politicians ever admit to something bad voluntarily, especially things that didn't happen.)
It will be interesting to see where Yglesias ends up, but I'm pretty sure it won't be anyplace good.
If "public order" were actually an election issue, then the votes would not have gone to the felon who threatened violence if he lost the election,
C'mon, you're being deliberately obtuse.
As I mentioned elsewhere on this thread, I join Kevin in my skepticism we've seen an "epidemic" of disorder. But pretty clearly, people who are convinced this is a problem (and vote accordingly) are worried about things like public drug use, bad driving, shop lifting, homelessness, mentally ill people on transit, and so forth.
They're not thinking of bad political actors.
I'm not sure where we're disagreeing here, but it might be clarifying to distinguish pretend increases in disorder from the real promotion of disorder.
As you say, there is no actual evidence of an epidemic of disorder. Crime is down, especially taking the long view, and there isn't any actual evidence that other types of disorder have risen. But yes, the pretend spike in disorder is a real thing and was a campaign issue.
On the other hand, the real disorder engendered by Trump was -- as you correctly point out -- not pretend at all, and was treated as an entirely different issue.
It cracks me up that Yglesias is apparently able to say that standards of human behavior have declined, and so people naturally turned to Donald Trump. I think he's missing something important here.
Thanks for the rapidly approaching Trumpgiving.
Sane Americans understand that they will never have to deal with Trump taking a shit in the alley behind their workplace, sitting on their car hood doing meth, or walking up behind them or a family member and playing the knock out game.
Your attempt to conflate Trump's bad behavior with the disruptive and criminal behavior that Americans care about is the kind of thing that got us President Trump Part II.
Come on, man. The knock out game? Might as well say "They're eating the dogs! They're eating the cats!"
And BTW I would put nothing past that MFr Trump. Would not be in any way surprised to see him taking a shit in the alley behind my house. But I truly can't wait to hear his solution to the problem of homelessness. I'm sure we'll get that in a week or two.
It is indeed sad that 49.9% of the voters (and you) don't care about Trump's many misdeeds and illegal acts first and foremost spending two months denying the results of the 2020 election, working a crowd up into a frenzy and then watching them attack the Capitol for almost three hours on television without doing or saying anything while even his own family begged him to speak up. In other words, you are quite willing to have Trump take a shit on our system of government - perhaps you prefer the phrase grabbing the democracy by the pussy - as long as your f..king taxes go down.
"they will never have to deal with Trump taking a shit in the alley behind their workplace"
Perhaps not, but Trump did promise to pardon the January 6 rioters, including the folks who did take a shit in the national capitol. So, if you or anybody else voted for Trump on the basis of public-shitting, you should know that Trump is very pro shitting-in-public spaces, and in fact considers those who break into public spaces for the purposes of shitting on the floor to be patriots.
[My comment got lost. This may be a repeat.]
"Yglesias sure has trouble looking at issues straight in the face."
Another way of saying that, perhaps:
"He's not familiar with the issues."
Another way of saying that, according to this helpful guide about swearing (see #11):
"He's got his head up his f***ing a*se."
Contra the guide (which is a parody), swearing is often the best way to state the truth.
Yglesias is a blight on public discourse. He is not particularly crude but he does have influence on so-called liberal thinking and that influence is invariably to steer attention in the wrong direction.
He, along with others, seem desperate to find reasons to explain Donald Trump's hold on a large segment of the American public. Once upon a time, it was "economic anxiety." The last few weeks we've heard a slew of other explanations. Now, maybe there's a problem with "public disorder." Look how much time people are spending talking about it. What a waste. It's all b.s.
If it wasn't public disorder, it would be something else. Whatever it is, everyone will agree that it's the job of Democrats to fix it. If Democrats do fix it, there will be something else Democrats need to fix. If Democrats don't fix it, then sorry, folks, we will have to cede to authoritarianism. And that will be the Democrats' fault. Those are the rules.
All the diagnoses about what the Democrats did wrong and prescriptions about what the Democrats need to do will be useless in the future. Assuming we do have elections that are free (enough) and fair (enough), the country will be looking back on a few years of Trump (not ahead), and we'll know what crises arose and whether catastrophe did or didn't happen. That knowledge will drive what Democrats can and need to do in the future.
Meanwhile, Democratic politicians and Democratic-friendly media need to do a better job of getting the attention of the public. I'd suggest starting with the truth.
"Donald Trump is trying to destroy the United States of America. The country elected a man who is now at war with the American Constitution, American institutions, and the American people. He is not the solution to the problems we have at this time. He is the problem. Let me explain why...."
Then explain it to the people like they're five.
I realize that some analysis says Democrats lose by talking about big things like democracy. They ought to talk about the little things that make people's live's better instead. Little things are not unimportant, but big things are the context for everything else, and if you can't talk about them with emotion (deep appreciation for our heritage, disgust at Trump and his party), then you should get out of the business of politics altogether.
(I guess I drifted off-topic. So be it.)
Thumbs up anyway.
"If "public order" were actually an election issue, then the votes would not have gone to the felon who threatened violence if he lost the election, then lost the election, then delivered on the threat of violence, then referred to the people who invaded the US Capitol as "hostages."
YES. I witness a lot of in-your-face hooliganism in my part of the country (PNW). Reckless driving, random bird-flipping, rude tee-shirts and bumper stickers. I attribute it to Trump's behavior having given permission to millions to let their asshat flag fly.
But at Costco this morning, I was wearing a red baseball hat (not a MAGA hat) and the paint-brush bearded guy in front of me wearing a Hell's Angels tee-shirt smiled at me and hoisted the two Christmas wreaths he was buying and we exchanged pleasantries. I think he thought I voted for Trump!
That and people have forgotten how to act in public after covid lockdowns.
I'll take things that never happened for $1000.
Highly unlikely that a Hells Angels member or affiliate would be wearing gang colors while alone - very risky if he bumps into the wrong people.
Anyone who is not a member or affiliate stupid enough to wear Hells Angels colors is risking major problems if he meets a real Hells Angels member or anyone from a rival club that does not like Hells Angels.
In short, bull shit.
Glad you said that; now I can call bullshit on your story, you MF. Do you ever wait to engage your mouth before thinking through the implications, particularly the implications of what you've previously said?
You can buy a Hells Angels tshirt at Kohls or Walmart these days. Marx said the market profanes all that is sacred.
Their "brand" is commercial now. It's no more risky than wearing a t-shirt with John Gotti on it.
+1
"rude tee-shirts and bumper stickers."
Indeed. I see plenty of "Fuck your feelings" and "Let's Go Brandon" t-shirts in public places in my neck of the woods, but I guess that's not the public disorder we're supposed to care about.
What Matt Yglesias sees on his social media timelines is not necessarily an accurate reflection of reality. He does not care about reality.
As much as i think Yglesias is long past his serious phase he’s right. As much as I hate the broken windows theory the fact is there’s a general sense of lawlessness in the country. People regularly go 20mph over posted speed limits. Public use of marijuana even in jurisdictions where it’s not legal. Politicians now openly solicit bribes. No longer we elected a criminal.
Excuse me, they're not bribes, they're gratuities--which are perfectly fine, just ask our Supreme Court.
As much as i think Yglesias is long past his serious phase he’s right
I'm an Yglesias subscriber and I'd draw the exact opposite conclusion. I think he's plenty serious and insightful about lots of things (the election, urbanism, the abundance agenda) but, like Kevin, I have doubts he's right about "disorder."
As a subscriber I have access to his comment threads, and on this one I suspect he's been influenced by his commenters, many of whom seem quite impatient at what they view as woke overreach (which in their view leads to inadequate policing of social disorder). Plus, Yglesias is a DC resident, and, that city really did suffer a pretty big crime increase coming out of the pandemic (in particular Yglesias has been quite obsessed with the issue of unregistered cars on the streets).
As for me personally, I live abroad, but my last two times in the US (summer of 23, winter of 24) things seemed...fine. West coast "obvious" homelessness in particular appears to have declined signifiantly, at least in Seattle and the Bay Area (not sure about LA).
One of the things that a visitor might not notice is that homelessness has spread from mainly being a city issue to being an issue for every town even the small ones. Many of these poor folks have substance and or mental health issues and as a result the associated disorder issues are everywhere.
Well, I've said this before, but the retail shrinkage figures don't capture the very visible aggressive measures retailers have undertaken to combat shoplifting in recent years, and I would assume suffer from some survivorship bias - i.e. shrinkage stays steady at 1.5% because any retailer who can't keep it there goes out of business. But consumers notice both of these things - they notice that many goods are now kept under lock and key, they notice that armed guards are now posted at the exists of many stories, and they notice the vacant storefronts.
but the retail shrinkage figures don't capture the very visible aggressive measures retailers have undertaken to combat shoplifting in recent years
Well, in some sense they do capture this. That is, retailers have spent a lot of money on anti-theft infrastructure, with not much of a change in shrinkage. Which suggests there really might be a problem, because, absent the anti-theft measures, it seems probable shrinkage would increase.
That's like the wolf-abeyance ritual keeping wolves out.
It doesn't mean it actually keeps them out, since the vast majority of time there are no wolves.
In which case, why are retailers spending so much money on anti-shoplifting measures?
Exactly. "Shrink" is not just shoplifting. It's store personnel pilfering. It's poor accounting practices.
You ask any thoughts? Police in NYC have been guided to stop traffic pullovers. So people drive crazy and the rate is flat. Not a mystery. Police enforcement of many minor crimes is way down. They just aren’t mingling with the public over minor crimes. I’ve lived in NYC for two decades. It’s not a vibe. Things are very different. You have to live and commute in a major city to really appreciate this.
Citation actually needed.
Pre-textual stops were literally never stopping people for driving badly.
Hilariously, the people who bitch about the police no longer doing traffic stops and drivers increasingly taking advantage of that to drive crazy tend to be the same people who vehemently oppose traffic cameras that issue massive tickets automatically without the risk of the traffic stop escalating to gunfire killing drivers or passengers or bystanders or even the cops themselves.
Drivers would quit driving so crazy if NYC and other places had one red light or speeding camera on every single block that issued hefty (think $1000+) fines automatically. And cops would be freed to do other stuff like go after more serious crimes they feel are plaguing our society. And both civilians and cops wouldn’t have to fear traffic stops going awry either. But no… even though this “law and order” traffic future exists in other countries around the world… we cannot have it here. Because Americans at heart love lawbreaking… I mean, “freedom”… and only hate it when certain other people exercise their “freedom” in ways that they don’t approve of.
(Counting down until somebody says “yeah but the traffic cameras enrich private companies managing them” or “cities use them as cash cows” or whatever… as if paying thousands of cops to enforce traffic laws doesn’t enrich the cops themselves or municipalities haven’t been caught telling cops to meet monthly quotas of tickets to help balance the municipal budget. The concept of notorious “speed traps” - existing not to improve safety but just solely as a way for corrupt municipalities or police forces to extract cash from hapless motorists - occurred long before traffic cameras were invented. Yet somehow this is never cited as a reason to get rid of human-staffed speed traps.)
I am a huge fan of cameras at traffic lights, *if* they are big, obvious, with posted signs saying that you will be photographed if you run the light. Living in Boulder, many years ago, there was one intersection near the University that I saw many accidents at (including one dog getting clipped), until they put up a very visible camera that would flash in a way that was impossible to miss, with signs leading up to it. Then people started stopping at the light. It was wonderful. I doubt that they made much money on tickets, but I'm sure they saved a lot on emergency services.
As opposed to the time the day before Thanksgiving when the y posted a State Trooper with a camera hidden on an overpass overlooking the road from the airport merging onto the highway where the speed limit dropped from 65 to 55. That was a pure cash grab that did nothing for traffic safety. Boulder would put up similar speed traps (e.g., cops hidden at the bottom of a hill) during the height of the Jon Benet Ramsey investigations.
Here in St. Louis, it sure seems to me that incivility in cars has shot way up post-pandemic. I just assume there will always be 3 or 4 cars that run any red light. Driving through bike lanes and parking spots on the side of the road is routine. For some reason folks also *love* to pass on the right, even if the left is free and clear. And there's many a car without license plates since the ticket is cheaper than the taxes and registration (and very rarely given out -- I literally have seen someone pulled over only once every two years or so).
Traffic cameras were deemed unconstitutional here a number of years back. They're still up on many street corners with blinking lights, but everybody knows they don't do a thing.
I lived in St. Louis for 40 years. One of the very few times I drove in North St. Louis City, I was nearly killed by a car driving ca. 90 mph (police report) against the light at an intersection. Within 30 seconds, there was an unmarked police car at the site of my totaled Honda. It was a car chase, and I was just meant to be collateral damage for law enforcement.
Feh.
Agree completely, particularly with the big, obvious camera sign that says 'Camera Posted'.
Why no trend line for Retail Shrink? A trend line was added to nearly every other line chart in the post.
There's a set of responses both from people who are being generally disorderly and from the way the institutions react to them. So from BLM forward there's more criticism of the way police are handling traffic enforcement and stops, so it slows down and correspondingly there is an increase over time as disorderly drivers realize they won't be pulled over, and it only shows up in rates of accident, death and car insurance rates, not in arrest records. Similarly where before the pandemic there were areas with a lot of homelessness that was sheltered and in a particular area, but with the pandemic and afterward that shifted towards unsheltered and those unsheltered were appearing in new areas. And where the shelters before might have been somewhat effective at making pro-social skills more useful for those homeless folks, if they are unsheltered people can learn survival and coping skills that are very anti-social. And while overall drug and alcohol use might be down the legalization and destigmatization might mean that residents see more of that use in public and it bugs them but not enough to narc on the public use. All of it is fixable, but it's not just one police response- evenly spread red light cameras will reduce cars and scooters running red lights and are not going to be racially biased. There can be outreach programs that are more effectively engaging unsheltered homeless to move into shelters or at least be better neighbors in where they are staying.
Pretextual stops were literally stopping people for acting normal. Not for speeding or other bade behavior. So that's a lie.
The you blame homelessness on 'social skills' - uhh, no, not having social skills isn't associated with homelessness.
And never have they placed red light cameras 'evenly' - and those tickets can be weaseled out if you have money. So they are biased.
Lots of homeless in California who, in addition to consuming huge amounts of government dollars, lower the quality of life immensely. For about a decade I lived 1,000 feet from a large encampment under the freeway. Did IT support and was privy to security cam footage of people sneaking into apartments, stealing bicycles, breaking car windows, and occasionally scaring a resident. The police did virtually nothing. In one case, there was good footage of the bicycle thief, and we witnessed her taking the bike to the homeless camp. Would the police go in and get the bike? Not without a search warrant. So she got away with it. Weeks later, she got into the apartment a second time.
The homeless are not responsible adults. By responsible I mean, no defecating on the sidewalk, no open drug use, no collecting worthless garbage, and not being loud at all hours. There is no excuse for those actions, unless you posit they are mentally ill, in which case they should be removed from public spaces.
So you blame the police for not acting - having video footage should get them a search warrant.
But instead, you're just a lying asshole.
You're not a responsible adult.
"By responsible I mean, no defecating on the sidewalk,"
Good luck finding a public restroom in any American city...
Before or after the homeless crisis.
So people should just accept bums defecating on the sidewalk?
Most big cities have open-air drug markets
Is this the case? I know Philadelphia has one, and it's obviously possible to buy illegal drugs in US cities. But that's always been the case. And it's usually a guy coming up to your car and furtively exchanging his drugs for your cash (or else they're delivered to your home, or the exchange is made at a pre-determined meeting place).
But actual "open air" drug markets?
I'm not saying Kevin's wrong (maybe I'm hopefully naive) but I wonder if there's any backup to the claim that a majority of US cities are home to "open-air drug markets."
*hopelessly naive
I thought it was deliberate and I like it. Put a smile on my face.
lol
I’ll be honest I don’t either, but I have experience quite a few events on public transit that unsettled me far more than anything prior to pandemic. Same with completely crazy driving on highway and of course the locked up items in pharmacies.
None of it has been earth-shattering, but it feels very distinct to me.
If you are on Nextdoor or any similar neighborhood chat group you constantly see posts from people telling you about the rude neighbor or the stranger who parked down the street on the kids who rode their bikes by suspiciously looking into backyards etc etc etc. I don't take any of this as meaningful evidence of much of anything. A Political Scientist friend of mind wrote a book in the 1980's pointing out that the neighborhoods with the lowest crime rates usually reported the highest levels of fear of crime. A current example of this is neighborhoods with little to no immigration nevertheless report high levels of concern about immigration. This is more a social psychology issue than a real issue of public
disorder.
"...neighborhoods with the lowest crime rates usually reported the highest levels of fear of crime."
That seems pretty intuitive to me. People that live in nice neighborhoods want to keep them nice. Anything that looks suspicious (justifiably so or not) will stick out more. Especially when the people are more sensitive to crime-related activity.
I will say as someone who has been to the US and California 6 times over the last 24 years the level of homelessness has gotten far worse than the first time o went there in 2000.
I first went to Pokez restaurant in downtown San Diego in 2000, then in 2009 and 2016 and I don’t remember the area being scary. But when I went there in 2023 I saw multiple people having mental health crisis’ running around screaming and checking if cars were locked. The US and especially California increasingly appears to have more visible signs of disorder. It doesn’t need to be backed by data - it’s almost entirely vibes based.
Literally it was a crime to be visibly homeless in 2000 and 2009, aand the court ruled they couldn't just hassle people for being homeless if they didn't provide them a place to be homeless. So then they were visible again.
"Literally it was a crime to be visibly homeless in 2000 and 2009, aand the court ruled they couldn't just hassle people for being homeless if they didn't provide them a place to be homeless. So then they were visible again."
Court decisions have political consequences whether one to allow states to ban abortions or one to prevent states from banning people from being visibly homeless.
This could of course have been random. But it wouldn't be all that implausible if it reflected some real changes going on at street level over that time.
Pokez is on the corner of 10th & E. In general, downtown SD's skid row has been moving eastward over the last couple of decades, as redevelopment has pushed in from the west. These waves have washed over & around Pokez, with varying effects over time.
20-odd years ago, I don't remember that corner having a particularly high concentration of homeless either. But at that same time, there were plenty of people sleeping rough as far west as the edge of the Gaslamp (like over on 7th). This was understandable, given that the area in between was dominated by parking lots, warehouses, and Salvation Army buildings.
These days, that same area is massively transformed--dominated increasingly condos and storefront retail. And partly as a result, you're far more likely to encounter homeless people in large numbers on its eastern edge, or even further out, say beyond 12th.
That shifting front line, between prosperity and desperation, eventually reached old Pokez (which had been a kind of rare outpost of commercial vitality in its area back in the day). It's passing east of it now.
the last 24 years the level of homelessness has gotten far worse than the first time o went there in 2000.
I was living in Seattle during much of 2020 (pandemic-related stranding) and I was utterly shocked and dismayed by the amount of homelessness. Giant tent cities sprawling all over the place. A veritable US-version of Latin American shantytowns.
However, I spent some time there again three years later (summer of 2023) and the situation had definitely improved. And this wasn't just "vibes" because I had detailed memories of where certain tent encampments were situated, and the formerly-plagued areas had practically none.
Just my two cents.
No more Mr. Nice Guy Blue Sky,
https://swearsky.bagpuss.org/
Swear words posted on Blue Sky read aloud in an angry tone, in real time.
Part of the homelessness issue is a residue of the opioid epidemic and covid. Obamacare has helped get more people get (some) medical treatment, but there still is huge deficits in providing half-way homes and supervised care facilities for those who need it, not to mention re-hab facilities. The VA also has to step up to care for our vets.
This is always an ongoing problem for middle age and older folks, isnt it?
We are always in the middle of yet another degradation in general public order. Every generation says this.
Nobody can drive anymore, everyone is ruder than they used to be, feels less safe in certain parts of town, nobody works hard anymore, etc...
Perhaps the social media crowd has finally reached the median age where this happens for each generation.
Surely one question along these lines is: is it better for a mob to beat a policeman with fists or flagpoles with American flags attached? The American people just chose door number 2! I am skeptical that there is any more disorder than Jesse Watters says there is.
Funny story in the NY Post this morning. Subway assault caught on video and placed by the post at the top of its webpage. Just two jackasses getting into it because… they are jackasses.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/25/us-news/straphanger-slugged-by-irate-seatmate-wrestlers-attacker-to-ground-turned-into-a-little-bh-right-away/
I don’t live there so I think this is hilarious but the “victim” says it all, “To be honest, like everybody sees the way the city is — it’s not like it’s changing. I already saw that the city is like this, that you’re in a constant danger of aggression or violent crime,” he said.
“But I'm skeptical of this "epidemic" of disorder. Partly this is because I can't figure out why there should be one. There are a few things that might plausibly underlie low-level disorder, but they're mostly getting better.”
Ok Mr. Drum. Why do you think the two guys on the subway escalated their interactions to the point of a punch and all that followed? This is the disorder people see. A bump in a crowded space followed by an apology which is accepted is something no one notices. But this time it escalated into disorder. Why?
Why do you think the two guys on the subway escalated their interactions to the point of a punch and all that followed?
There are always episodes like the one you link to. Whether this is representative of a trend depends entirely on whether there's in increase in frequency of this sort of activity, or a decrease, or no change, or whatever. Data count infinitely more than anecdotes.
Certainly if the homicide rate is a proxy for anything, NYC is about as orderly as it's been since JFK was in the White House.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/murder-rates-down-new-york-san-francisco-philadelphia-508b6855
This Oscar-winning short from 1989 sure makes it look like the late 80s in NYC were at least as bad as our current era:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epuTZigxUY8&ab_channel=SpringboardSchools
As someone who grew up in and has lived in bigger, East Coast cities for over 40 years, it sure seems the "increase" in public disorder is massively exaggerated compared to my baseline experience and it seems to be going down. I see less street crime and street disorder than I did when I was significantly younger. I don't see "open-air drug markets" the way I did as a teenager or young adult (the occasional deal, but that's not the same thing), and my city has done a lot to reduce the "homeless encampments." Yes, there are still homeless people and some uncomfortable moments, but that's been true my whole life. There was an increase during the pandemic, starting in the Trump years, but it seems to be decreasing, and it was never as high as when I was much younger. To be sure, I see a lot of "reckless drivers" and "people who are just plain annoying," but I think those are kind of distinct. And I strongly suspect a lot of those people are the very ones who whine about public disorder.
Moreover, I do think a lot of people's social skills and behavior got worse during the pandemic, and some of that has persisted, but I am hopeful even that is getting better. My personal pet-peeve is that I had a significant increase in the number of encounters where a complete stranger would feel free to lecture me on my behavior when I failed to meet some standard they had (holding the door and letting them get ahead of me in line in a busy store, not managing to get out of their way fast enough when they weren't paying attention and plowing ahead, trying to politely navigate past them when they positioned themselves to block an entire aisle or sidewalk unnecessarily, etc.), and my theory was that these people enjoyed that the pandemic gave them an opportunity to lecture strangers and were trying to carry that over. But even that seems to be decreasing.
And the "standards of conduct" that have slipped the most in recent years often seem like those of big businesses and elite, political society. It feels like trying to get companies just to honor their contracts or provide services or even just cancel a service (when the contract fully allows it; not early) is a huge, unnecessary hassle. In one instance, I tried to cancel a service before it automatically renewed, which I had every right to do, and it took me six hours of phone calls and threatening to file a lawsuit to do it (once I started threatening a lawsuit repeatedly, I suddenly was transferred to someone who could easily do it in less than 5 minutes, after hours of being yanked around). The result is that I approach almost any commercial transaction of any detail or length of time with great hesitation. And various pundits, political news, and politicians are not only dishonest and deceptive (that's always been true), but also just relentlessly, relentlessly dumb. That a lot of people just seem to wallow in mendaciousness and stupidity is exhausting. But no one seems to have a plan for solving that.
"a significant increase in the number of encounters where a complete stranger would feel free to lecture me on my behavior when I failed to meet some standard they had"
So, a lot of Germans moved in? (haha, also true)
In the past couple of days I've read about laws being passed (not sure at what level of government) about various services making it really hard to cancel, like finding something obscurely listed several steps in on their website, requiring a phone call (to a probably hard to find phone number) so they can try to talk you into continuing etc.
IMHO this is just a trend arising from the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the US combined with an economy that has left the very poor to fend for themselves during periods of recession and inflation. I suspect that a more granular look would find that disorder, which is almost always connected with younger people, is rarer in counties that have older populations. It's also seasonal -- Ft. Lauderdale and Miami have recently had to crack down in the summer, as have local towns in tourist areas elsewhere. Of course privileged college students mixing it up in big city resorts with people who want to target them isn't new, but there does seem to be more police involvement than before.
In my personal experience, "disorder" has gone down quite a bit in the last two years. Crimes experienced by people I know personally have gone down. My kids report less vandalism at school. I see less reckless driving. The transit system is much cleaner with fewer disruptive people.
The only recent increases in my experience are stolen wires from streetlamps, and shootings near places I frequent (though shootings are down generally). Wire theft should go down soon (permits for reselling wire will be required starting next year). No idea why shootings have shifted geographically.
As I type this, one homeless guy on the train just told another that he can't vape on here, and the guy agreed. Hooray! The desire for order is everywhere.
I went to NYC this month. One thing that was very noticeable, and fits with the "disorder" idea, was the sheer pervasiveness of turnstile jumping. I literally did not get on the subway once outside midtown without seeing someone jump a turnstile - in at least half the cases, with subway employees and/or security present and completely ignoring it.
True. A lot of people have been hired to do something about it. But two stories:
I walked down into one station past a bunch of cops. As I walked by them a bunch of teenagers ran by - and jumped the turnstile which was past the cops but in their sight. Nothing.
At the busy Coney Island (Stillwell) station there is a ramp along the wall leading straight to the emergency gate at the right end of the turnstiles, so a lot of people walk that way instead of up stairs. Two people wearing security guard uniforms and day glo vests (hired to watch the emergency gates) were standing at the top of the ramp leaning on the railing facing 90 degrees to the gate about 10 feet away from it. Someone opened the gate and a bunch of people streamed in. The two kept looking at their phones.
The MTA is starting to install less easy to get through turnstiles. A problem is that since it's a one-fare system you don't have to check out, so there are not entry and exit turnstiles like in London but combos which have to open both ways. The stations are not designed with room for both.
I REALLY like the Germany/Austria no turnstiles system, but that only works in a high compliance society and the US isn't one (it's more in the middle), and NYC even less so.
I'll go out on a limb and suggest that maybe some of the decline in civility might be emanating from the folks who wear "Fuck your feelings" T-Shirts, , post images of Kamala Harris bending over to suck cock, and voted for a rapist who also sent a mob to ransack the Capitol. That is a very small list, by the way, of the awfulness emanating from MAGA.
Oh, wait, none of that matters. The folks doing that are just salt of the earth patriots. It's all the liberals fault.
Yes. And of course liberals have never promoted any distasteful messages in regards to Trump.
Just stop . The difference is that Trump was (and still is) actually guilty of many ugly and disgusting things even before he tried to blow up our democracy bewtween November 2020 and January 2021. Distasteful messages and much worse have been emanating from Trump and his followers for almost 10 years now and the time for making excuses about it is long past. I have no respect for the people who voted for him in just the same way I have no respect for Benedict Arnold or Jefferson Davis or George
Wallace. .
Got it. So as long as the purveyor of the distasteful message believes the target of the message deserves it, that doesn't count.
I didn't vote for Trump and am definitely not a supporter of his. That doesn't mean I can't call out the hypocrisy MrPug's comment.
You completely missed my point in an effort to bothsides this.
What hypocrisy are you referring to ? Are you suggesting that distasteful comments about Mussolini are the same as distasteful comments about Martin Luther King ? If your problem was with John McCain getting slimed by people complaining about John Kerry getting slimed you might have a point but calling out a rapist who also sent a mob to ransack the Capitol is not sliming, it's the truth.
I basically agree with you. I was referring to the tone of the message. MrPug was insinuating it was only republicans who are vulgar in their “sliming”. I was just pointing out I saw plenty of vulgarity from the left when Trump was first elected.
Anecdotally, most of the complaints about public disorder are voiced by people who don't actually experience it.
For example, I live in downtown Los Angeles a couple blocks from Skid Row, and haven't experienced any increase in public disorder in the 8 years we've been here.
But I routinely interact with people who live far away, or even in other states, who lecture me on how my neighborhood is a Mad Max hellscape.
I think t6his ties into the way people perceive the economy, where MAGAs are convinced we are in a recession when it just isn't true.
And it ties into the way people talk about why they voted for Trump.
To be blunt, they lie their ass off.
No one says "I voted for Trump because I am insecure about my status as a white male in a BLM/ #MeToo world."
So they reverse engineer a rationale about outtacontrol crime or disorder or crime to justify their choices.
I think we can measure disorder by some proxy metrics.
For example, if public disorder is rising, we would expect an increase in other forms of anti-social behavior such as STDs and unplanned pregnancies resulting from reckless sexual encounters, or a rise in drug addiction as a symptom of fraying relationships and lack of life prospects, or maybe a rise in suicides or misdemeanor assaults.
But we aren't seeing much of that. By most statistics I've seen, most of these things are either flat or declining.
Its weird then, that people who are clean and sober and have decent jobs and satisfying personal relationships are just somehow freaking out and jumping turnstiles and shoplifting candy bars.
Disorderly conduct is the catch-all for anything that does not comply with social or police-state standards of what a peaceful society should be, as was the case in Demolition Man.
Notice how the loudest yelps for Order come from the most staunch apologists for white collar crimes?
When a poor person steals a candy bar, that is a violation of the Social Order;
When a rich person steals from his employees, that IS the Social Order.
+1 (+2 for the Samuel Johnson reference. Well played, sir.)
Not every day you get a Samuel Johnson reference though they probably happen all the time on Sean Hannity's program amirite ?
+1
Converting diesel pickup trucks to blow black smoke exhaust, 'rolling coal' is the slang for this modification, appears to be increasing. Deliberately increasing automobile air pollution to annoy some people, those concerned about air quality and global warming, reveals a pettiness but also an unconscious recognition the environment is at risk from car exhaust. I learned about this when someone smoked me while I was walking the neighborhood. 'Black Soot' is his vanity license plate.
Low levels of public disorder have been adopted by environmentalists, too. Throwing soup at paintings in museums is an example. An example activists need to adopt since there is no popular support for reversing global warming, ending economic equality, stopping the march to war. Chaos is partly attributed to Trump's appeal and sowing chaos has been adopted to change the political economy of exploitation and destruction. The response by the rich and powerful to the campus protests against US subsidy of Israel's genocide of Palestinians, like that of environmental protests, leave little choice but to utilize low level methods of disorder to exhibit discontent.
Walked home last night through the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle and saw at five or six people sleeping on the sidewalk. I am a skeptical of public disorder as a global construct that has a clear trend, but here is what I think drives this perception: (1) fentanyl taking over illicit opioid drug market, resulting in more ODs and more people wandering around out of their heads; (2) reductions in policing of traffic laws; and (3) increase in online work and online shopping, resulting in a decrease in the proportion of folks in downtown areas who are working or shopping and an increase in the proportion who are very poor, unhoused, mentally ill, and/or strung out on fentanyl.