Tag: Quality of Life

Vital City | Safe Only at Certain Speeds

Not since the 1980s has New York been so roiled by bicycles. The offending element then was unruly bicycle messengers slicing through Manhattan gridlock with contracts, renderings and other valuable bits of commerce and culture. Today’s controversy is more diffuse. It encompasses a new industry (food deliveries mediated by rapacious app companies); a new class of workers (immigrant deliveristas, whose economic precarity is now compounded by Trump’s crackdown on undocumented workers); and a new technology (the e-bike) that lets any rider hit cruising speeds of 20 or even 25 miles per hour.

— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/safe-only-at-certain-speeds

Vital City | Want to Fix the Subway? Stop Asking It To Be What It’s Not

It’s a New York tradition for politicians to refer to the subway system as “the lifeblood of the city” and the “economic engine of our region.” They’re right, but they’re hardly stepping out on a ledge: The New York City subway is the largest in North America, moving millions of people each day and allowing the city to generate billions in economic activity. The system is inarguably the most important entity in the city — more important than any roadway, bridge, financial institution, single employer or other economic driver. 
— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/want-to-fix-the-subway-stop-asking-it-to-be-something-its-not

Broken Windows Policing Is Still the Best Way to Fight Crime

If you’re familiar with the Broken Windows theory of policing, you may have learned of it, perhaps indirectly, from Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point, published 25 years ago. In the book’s most-discussed chapter, Gladwell sought to explain why New York City, in the 1990s, suddenly experienced the greatest drop in violent crime ever recorded. True, other cities saw crime declines in this period, but nowhere else did crime plunge so significantly and so swiftly. In just a few years, New York went from being one of the most dangerous and frightening big cities in America to one of the safest. Why?

Gladwell surveyed various possibilities having to do with the economy, changing demographics, and the waning of the deadly crack trade, but found them unpersuasive. The real difference-maker, he said, was the NYPD’s commitment to Broken Windows policing—the disarmingly simple idea that serious crimes are more likely to occur in disorderly environments than orderly ones. By upgrading people’s surroundings, the theory says, you can improve their behavior.
— Read on www.city-journal.org/article/broken-windows-policing-crime-malcolm-gladwell

Masturbation, bus sex, taunts of ‘bitch’ — Muni drivers endure it all

Interesting article about the perils of bus drivers that is not getting reported.

Muni drivers say now is the toughest time they’ve had to work in decades as too many bus passengers are violent, erratic and troublesome.
— Read on missionlocal.org/2023/07/masturbation-sex-bus-taunts-bitch-muni-drivers-endure-it-all/

Are America’s downtowns unsafe? The data says no. – Vox

This is an interesting article about fear of crime. Historically fear of crime has always been greater that actual crime measured. Maybe not – especially the inaccurate way crime has been calculated lately. Nonetheless fear of crime is real and drives people’s behavior. This article discusses some of the impact of fear of crime.

People are scared of urban centers. They shouldn’t be.
— Read on www.vox.com/future-perfect/23663437/crime-violence-murder-homicide-cities-downtown