Uncomfortable Truths, Backed Up with Data

As public housing projects were demolished and residents were given vouchers to move to other areas, the two main areas they moved to had the biggest upswings in violent crimes. Surprise, surprise, Sargent Carter!

• About six months ago, they decided to put a hunch to the test. Janikowski merged his computer map of crime patterns with Betts’s map of Section8 rentals. Where Janikowski saw a bunny rabbit, Betts saw a sideways horseshoe (“He has a better imagination,” she said). Otherwise, the match was near-perfect. On the merged map, dense violent-crime areas are shaded dark blue, and Section8 addresses are represented by little red dots. All of the dark-blue areas are covered in little red dots, like bursts of gunfire. The rest of the city has almost no dots.

Forced moves and demolishing neighborhoods do as little to reduce crimes as jetties do to stop erosion. They both just concetrate it elsewhere.
- posted by john @ 9:59 PM