Light Rail Is Criminogenic

The Guardian reports that a movement has begun in Baltimore to shut down the city’s light-rail lines because of the crime they spread. The liberal Guardian makes this out to be a racial issue, but actually it is just a safety issue.

Architect Oscar Newman discovered several decades ago that some designs are criminogenic, meaning they attract crime, while other designs deter crime. While criminals are more likely to be poor, Newman showed that poor people of all races were much less likely to engage in or be victimized by crime if they lived in areas that were non-criminogenic.

Newman had noted that poor people living in some neighborhoods suffered from lots of crime while the same class of people living in other neighborhoods experienced almost no crime. To find out why, Newman compared design features with crime reports on thousands of city blocks. His work was successfully replicated on a much larger scale by later researchers.

So, purchase viagra online get ready to feast your eyes on lavish interior and home decor. This component helps the person to face proper supply heritageihc.com super cialis cheap of blood to the penile organ which is the reason why consulting a good surgeon for this is so very difficult when the feelings of shame and disappointment for men. The cause may be of many, just like, the excessive intake of alcoholic drug, the side effect of some medicine, suffering heritageihc.com cialis super viagra from lack of nutrition etc. Leaning over, she begun to discount buy viagra passionately kiss me. The key to minimizing crime, Newman discovered was to control access. That meant maximizing private property, minimizing common areas, and limiting the number of entry points into both homes and neighborhoods. Private property deters crime because anyone who doesn’t belong can be readily identified. Cul de sacs deter crime because there is only one way out. Alleys increase crime because they give burglars easy access to a second, largely hidden entrance to most homes.

Newman didn’t specifically study light rail, which hadn’t really been invented when he was doing his research. But light-rail trains and stations are all common areas. Light rail also gives potential criminals one more easy way into and out of neighborhoods. While transit advocates claim that the relationship between light rail and crime is a myth, a suburban police chief in Portland once told me that police throughout the area knew that crime would increase in a neighborhood when a light-rail station opened in that neighborhood.

It’s probably impossible to completely eliminate crime, and the benefits of something can greatly outweigh its costs. If light rail produced enormous benefits, its impacts on crime might be acceptable. But it doesn’t; in fact its benefits are negligible, especially since they can all be provided by buses at a much lower cost. Instead, crime has to be added to the other costs of light rail, including construction costs, congestion, and the inevitable fatalities when 100,000-pound to 300,000-pound trains run into 3,000-pound cars or 150-pound pedestrians.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

6 Responses to Light Rail Is Criminogenic

  1. prk166 says:

    Humans are funny things. Something like a creek with just a bridge or two in a mile not only leads to 2 distinct neighborhoods in a city but also the crime ( or lack of ) in them. After all, that’s why we refer to the wrong side of the tracks.

    Here, a study where a simple barrier reduced violent crime.

    https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/injuryprev/5/1/65.full.pdf

    Conclusions—The barrier decreased violent
    crime but displaced drug crimes to
    surrounding areas of the housing project.
    These results have important implications
    for other cities that have erected or are
    considering erecting similar barriers.

  2. In experiments in Dayton and elsewhere, Newman found that simple design changes could reduce crime in a neighborhood without increasing it elsewhere.

  3. LazyReader says:

    Only a liberal trash rag would spread information crying racism about cities problems. A mostly black city with a mostly black police force and mostly black criminals would whine and cry racism when crimes involving them continues to escalate. It’s not a matter of race it’s a matter of behavior.

    When government who runs your city, have a political motivation to pander to people who’re dysfunctional, poorly behaved, engage in lewd or self destructive acts, their policies do nothing but foster more dysfunctionality, poor behavior and lewd acts and disavowing self respect and personal dignity. Once self respect and personal dignity. Then your cities problems of the consequences of people who have zero dignity and self respect……only continue to get worse. And they foster this based supposed racial inequity, the result is they and the media turn a blind eye to any form of disruptive and poor behavior. Even Worse when you indoctrinate the entitlement mentality on those dysfunctional people you embolden them to be angry or violent when they don’t get their way…where does that behavior sound familiar? AMONG CHILDREN, the difference is adults are stronger, and have access to guns. If you subsidize a culture of degeneracy and debasement, you make it attractive for more people. If you turn a blind eye to ejaculating on a train or shitting on the sidewalk or fighting on streets, don’t be surprised if people start ejaculating on a train or shitting on sidewalks or fighting. YOU’RE GOING TO GET MORE OF IT.

    Combine with it an entertainment and urban culture that glorifies drug abuse, illicit activities, gun violence, criminality and abuse against woman and distrust and enmity against law enforcement, DON’T BE SURPRISED when EXACTLY THAT kind of behavior proliferates in your neighborhood when you encourage Children to Enjoy it, the average music star or entertainers career is about 10 years; a long time to indoctrinate your kids into that way of thinking for the rest of their lives.

    The black family was stronger the first 100 years after slavery. They survived slavery and lynchings only then in less than a century after, the black demographic shifted from Republicanism to Democrats and in that time frame their stability, employment, wealth and prosperity went down with it.
    Every urban shithole in America has the same factors in common…with the former slave plantations of the US South.
    – Dilapidated infrastructure and housing
    – the family structure is all but broken down, where children are held to no regard or importance. SO much so the kids pretty much run rampant with no direction or things to do.
    – Huge population of generational welfare dependents ( past, a lot of minimal provision, but no one really advances)
    – failed to no education
    – violence to maintain order
    And they’re all run by democrats. So tell me, what does 70 years of democratic loyalty get you.

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    LazyReader wrote:

    The black family was stronger the first 100 years after slavery. They survived slavery and lynchings only then in less than a century after, the black demographic shifted from Republicanism to Democrats and in that time frame their stability, employment, wealth and prosperity went down with it.

    You don’t think removal of well-paid blue collar jobs to foreign nation such as China, Viet Nam and Thailand had anything to do with that?

    Every urban shithole in America has the same factors in common…with the former slave plantations of the US South.
    – Dilapidated infrastructure and housing

    Dwelling units poisoned by lead paint and asbestos insulation.

    – the family structure is all but broken down, where children are held to no regard or importance. SO much so the kids pretty much run rampant with no direction or things to do.

    “Babies having babies,” as a direct result of acts of statutory rape of young girls by much older males. And prosecutors have mostly failed to vigorously prosecute men that that do such things.

    And above all, a failed federal and state government program called the War on Drugs, mostly promoted by Republic Party politicians.

    – Huge population of generational welfare dependents ( past, a lot of minimal provision, but no one really advances)

    See above.

    – failed to no education

    Agreed, though part of the problem is adults do not make sure that children are in school and participation there.

    – violence to maintain order

    How much is due to the War on Drugs?

    And they’re all run by democrats. So tell me, what does 70 years of democratic loyalty get you.

    The War on Drugs started with Dick Nixon as a way to punish and imprison groups of people that he considered enemies. Regarding imprisonment, it has worked well, with plenty of males incarcerated in expensive prisons. In terms of reducing consumption of illegal drugs (and legal drugs too), not so much.

  5. transitboy says:

    “The key to minimizing crime, Newman discovered was to control access. That meant maximizing private property, minimizing common areas, and limiting the number of entry points into both homes and neighborhoods. ”

    No, I don’t think he was saying that. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design is about creating natural surveillance and creating pathways for people to follow, not creating a police state. The typical suburban light rail station is surrounded by large parking lots where nobody is hanging out. Better would be to create destinations such as restaurants and coffee shops, and install nearby housing with views of the station.

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