With great fanfare appropriate to its great cost overruns, members of Congress opened a new visitor center at the foot of the nation’s capitol building. “What was conceived in the 1990s as a sensible $71 million celebration of democracy,” opined Washington Post writer Dana Milbank, “turned into a half-billion-dollar [actually, $621 million, more than $1,000 per square foot] shrine to legislative excess,” including an $85 million TV studio for senators.
Artist’s rendering of the Capitol Visitor Center.
Which, of course, makes it a great example of how representative democracy actually works.
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Back in the 1960s, Congress decided the nation’s capital needed a place to greet all the people who would visit during the 1976 bicentennial. So they asked the Park Service to turn Washington Union Station, which was no longer used by many rail travelers, into a National Visitor Center. The resulting project went way over budget, eventually costing $100 million (about $300 million in today’s dollars) and proved a miserable failure. “What is the point of looking at slides of the U.S. Capitol when you can walk out the front door and see it?” asked one senator. Within two years it shut down.
The new Capitol Visitor Center is right at the capitol so is expected to be more popular. Unfortunately, says architecture critic Phillip Kennecott, it also obscures some of the best views of the capitol. The East Face of the capitol, says Kennecott, presented an “ideal view of government: grandeur and authority vs. simplicity and openness.” But this “has been demolished by the new Visitor Center, a tragically misconceived and overscale addition” that creates a “false and slick pomposity.”
The real purpose of the visitor center seems to be to keep ordinary citizens out of the way of important members of Congress attending to their duties of transferring public monies to private banks and corporations. “In the summertime,” said Harry Reid at the grand opening, “you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.” Glad they solved that problem.
When the Antiplanner criticizes government excess resulting from inane government plans, many planners say, “it wasn’t our fault — the politicians made us do it.” But that is just the point. Government planning doesn’t work because, even if planners knew how to do their jobs (which they don’t), politicians always mess it up.
Antiplanner wrote:
> Back in the 1960s, Congress decided the nation’s capital needed a place
> to greet all the people who would visit during the 1976 bicentennial.
> So they asked the Park Service to turn Washington Union Station, which
> was no longer used by many rail travelers, into a National Visitor
> Center. The resulting project went way over budget, eventually costing
> $100 million (about $300 million in today’s dollars) and proved a
> miserable failure. “What is the point of looking at slides of the
> U.S. Capitol when you can walk out the front door and see it?†asked
> one senator. Within two years it shut down.
I recall it lasting more than two years, but not much more than that.
The attached Metro(rail) stop on the Red Line opened in 1976, and that
station was called Union Station/Visitors Center until it was re-named
simply Union Station. I think if one looks closely at the signs in
the station, the old name can still be seen, painted over by the
shorter name.
The Visitor Center idea also neglected the grand structure of Washington
Union Station, and millions were spent to (massively) repair and
renovate and otherwise fix-up the place to convert it back to a large
Amtrak station and shopping area (there are no large shops or “anchor”
tenants there, only fairly small retailers and a huge food court).
What’s there today is reasonably successful, though there has been quite
a lot of retail tenant turnover as the years have gone by.
Antiplanner wrote:
> The real purpose of the visitor center seems to be to keep ordinary
> citizens out of the way of important members of Congress attending
> to their duties of transferring public monies to private banks and
> corporations. “In the summertime,†said Harry Reid at the grand
> opening, “you could literally smell the tourists coming into the
> Capitol.†Glad they solved that problem.
I second the Antiplanner’s comments above.
> When the Antiplanner criticizes government excess resulting from
> inane government plans, many planners say, “it wasn’t our fault â€â€
> the politicians made us do it.†But that is just the point.
> Government planning doesn’t work because, even if planners knew
> how to do their jobs (which they don’t), politicians always mess
> it up.
Or the planners give deeply flawed advice to the elected officials,
or, in some cases, the elected officials demand that bad
advice from the planners and then implement the bad advice – often
in the form of overly-optimistic assumptions about rail
transit patronage and the impact of new rail transit lines on
highway traffic congestion – that impact usually being minimal at
best.
C. P. Zilliacus: Or the planners give deeply flawed advice to the elected officials, or, in some cases, the elected officials demand that bad advice from the planners and then implement the bad advice – often in the form of overly-optimistic assumptions about rail transit patronage and the impact of new rail transit lines on highway traffic congestion – that impact usually being minimal at best.
JK: After some recent heated exchanges with three different planners, all with horribly flawed perceptions of reality, I am wondering how this profession go so out of touch with reality. Or do they actually know they are giving lousy advice and do it in order to accomplish some hidden agenda?
Bottom line: are they ignorant, lying or a bit of both?
Thanks
JK
As the Antiplanner more or less acknowledges, this post is essentially an anti-representative democracy post. Under the Antiplanner’s view, once elected, politicians become corrupted with power and the ability to spend money however they want to, which often means spending it on themselves or the private corporations that donated to their campaigns.
It seems to me that this is ultimately the gist of the Antiplanner’s “mission”, and I’d much rather he recognize that and rave against the political system itself instead of acting as if “planners” have all the power and are to blame for society’s troubles. Whether he realized it or not, the Antiplanner admits that politicians are to blame when he says “Government planning doesn’t work because, even if planners knew how to do their jobs (which they don’t), politicians always mess it up.”
In other words, from the Antiplanner’s view, planning is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t, because the politicians ultimately hold the purse strings and the decision-making power.
I hereby suggest that this blog (and its writer) be re-named “The Antidemocracy-er”. The name isn’t catchy and won’t win its holder any Pro-America points, but it’s much more appropriate given its holder’s underlying mission.
D4P said: Under the Antiplanner’s view, once elected, politicians become corrupted with power and the ability to spend money however they want to, which often means spending it on themselves or the private corporations that donated to their campaigns.
Jk: That is a pretty good description of the reality.
D4P said: In other words, from the Antiplanner’s view, planning is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t, because the politicians ultimately hold the purse strings and the decision-making power.
Jk: You didn’t explain why planners willingly lie to the public in order to fool the public into going along with these plans. Please cover that little detail.
Thanks
JK
You didn’t explain why planners willingly lie to the public in order to fool the public into going along with these plans
I disagree with your implication that planners generally the things they say to the public. On the contrary, I think that planners generally DO believe what they say, in which case it would be inaccurate to claim that they are typically “lying”. If you want to argue that what they’re saying is wrong, that’s a different issue.
Perhaps you can explain what motivates planners to lie.
That should read “I disagree with your implication that planners generally don’t believe the things they say to the public.”
D4P,
I’m finding it more and more frustrating to try and answer the questions Karlock posts. If you answer him directly he ignores it. If you don’t answer him directly, he lambast you. Your point that planners believe in what they advocate for is a good one. But anyone who doesn’t advocate for what Karlock believes in is a liar in his eyes.
To illustrate bennett’s comment above, do you tease the constantly-barking dog next door to get it to shut up? No? Hmmm.
DS
Back OT:
This project is a perfect illustration of how it works; bullets that may not happen at lower levels denoted with an ( * ), with lower likelihoods at lower levels (less money available to vacuum):
o Someone comes to lawmaker with a proposal.
o Lawmaker says make it so.
o Someone is directed to make it happen.
o Jackals swarm the carcass*.
o Someone is directed to accommodate jackals*.
o Staff accommodates jackals*.
o Project gets done.
o Ideologues activate hasty generalization fallacy and add planning profession to blame list.
HTH.
DS
I heard a report on this project weeks ago. It is surely testament to something being fubar. It was reported that a good portion of the Visitor’s(?) center is to be dedicated to work space for the legislators and will be off limits to …visitors.
I love myself a democracy.
“Someone is directed to accomodate jackals.”
That sounds like a thankless job, but I’d still love to have it.
Ya’ll are missin the point here trying to get one over on the other like a snarlin pack o’ wolves.
$71 million ballooned into $621 million. That’s almost 9 times over budget.
$621 million for this visitor center could (although, not “should”) have funded operations at Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park, including both of its visitor centers, for 124 years.
Waste, waste, waste. Government is waste.
And promoting criminal behavior is anarchy. If waste is the wage of order, Frank, I’ll gladly pay it.
Ya’ll are missin the point here
No.
No one has missed the point.
There is a larger point – there is a fallacious argument used above.
Namely: opportunists purposely utilize a hasty generalization fallacy to use this outrage to cast false blame.
Such opportunism to cast false blame is used here all too often – the Tahoe fire comes immediately to mind [ 1.*, 2. ].
As this tactic has been called out, the continued use of it can only be purposeful; why it is employed is an open question, but there is no question of its use.
DS
* http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=177#comment-18017
t g,
I highly recommend reading Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” and the history of the American Revolution before characterizing resistance as simply criminal behavior and before equating it with anarchy. Some Founders were to be hanged for promoting independence from tyrannical taxation. I think I would prefer “anarchy” over this type of “order”.
Dan,
“use this outrage to cast false blame”
If Congress (government) isn’t to blame for this boondoggle, then who should be blamed?
16:
Read the last para of Randal’s post. Then my last bullet @ 10. False blame for a profession. Nothing I wrote stated Congress shouldn’t be blamed.
DS
Reid: We won’t smell the tourists anymore
http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/YeasandNays/Reid_We_wont_smell_the_tourists_anymore_12_02_2008.html
Frank,
I appreciate the suggestions. Somewhere in my four years of earning that degree in History I must have missed that lesson on the founding of our country.
Regarding the classical education: they call it moral philosophy for a reason (just like economics) because it is not law (despite what the Cato Institute tells you).
I would have been a loyalist before I sacrificed my son’s blood to reduce my tax burden. Breaking the law for self-serving reasons (like getting in to see the Grand Canyon for free) hardly deserves the association of to the civil disobedience of say, Gandhi or Parks. But what the hey. Call me callous.
t g
I know it’s getting off topic, so please excuse me, but by avoiding paying entrance fees, one would not be “seeing the Grand Canyon for free” as that person has already paid taxes that Congress has allocated to the NPS.
Dan, gotcha. You’re targeting the “even if planners knew how to do their jobs (which they don’t)” line?
Hmm.
Well, in the following case, I’d say The Antiplanner is right about planners’ inability to effectively, well, plan:
City Paying High Price For Biodiesel Fuel. Here’s the video.
How anyone can think the City of Portland paying $7.50 a gallon for biodiesel constitutes effective planning is beyond me.
Frank:Well, in the following case, I’d say The Antiplanner is right about planners’ inability to effectively, well, plan:
City Paying High Price For Biodiesel Fuel. Here’s the video.
How anyone can think the City of Portland paying $7.50 a gallon for biodiesel constitutes effective planning is beyond me.
THWM: Though this isn’t urban planning.
Jim Karlock wrote:
> After some recent heated exchanges with three different planners,
> all with horribly flawed perceptions of reality, I am wondering
> how this profession go so out of touch with reality. Or do they
> actually know they are giving lousy advice and do it in order to
> accomplish some hidden agenda?
>
> Bottom line: are they ignorant, lying or a bit of both?
Many planners (but not all) want to believe in a future
for many U.S. communities that resembles the former East Germany,
with high-density residential development (e.g. mid-rise or
high-rise rental apartment buildings) clustered around rail
transit stations. See the Antiplanner’s brief from a few years
ago for his report from Halle-Neustadt, Germany for one example:
Smart Growth and the Ideal City
In other instances, planners will present the results of collected
data to one or more elected officials, and be greeted with a
response like “This can’t be right” because the transit
patronage was not high enough for the likes of one or more
politicians. I’ve seen and heard this with my own eyes and ears.
Then we have the experience of my own community in Eastern
Montgomery County, Maryland. Back in the 1970’s, the County
Council (which sets land use policy) had established the so-called
Agricultural Preserve in the relatively rural (and mostly
wealthy) part of the county. One of the key aspects of the Ag
Preserve are so-called Transferable Development
Rights (TDRs) which allow an owner of land in the Ag Preserve
to “transfer” his development rights to a part of the county
designated as a “TDR receiving area,” i.e. a community targeted
for densification.
Eastern Montgomery County’s evil 1981 Master Plan was re-written
at the behest of our elected Councilmembers to establish a dumping
ground for those TDRs, even though the impacts of same was not
considered. The planners did as they were told, and the result
was a really bad plan based on a concept of transit
servicability, which was doomed to fail from the day it was
approved. It did.
So yes, sometimes bad policy does not originate with the planners,
but with the people that oversee the planners.
Yet more pronouncements grounded in extreme willful ignorance:
Many planners (but not all) want to believe in a future for many U.S. communities that resembles the former East Germany, with high-density residential development (e.g. mid-rise or high-rise rental apartment buildings) clustered around rail transit stations.
As a function of what I do, I’m in contact with multiple disciplines connected to planning and public health, and speak at or participate in ~3-6 conferences/workshops a year across the country.
I know very few people that believe as in the italicized above. I suspect there are exactly zero comprehensive plans in this country that call for only this sort of housing across their jurisdictions.
That is: the italicized is bullsh*t.
What is a correct characterization is:
Is this ALL the residential development in the community? Absolutely not.
That some hard-core ideologues wish to mischaracterize reality in this way (implying no other residential form will be built) is a clue as to the tenuousness of their argument.
DS
Dan wrote:
> As a function of what I do, I’m in contact with multiple disciplines
> connected to planning and public health, and speak at or participate
> in ~3-6 conferences/workshops a year across the country.
So?
> I know very few people that believe as in the italicized above. I
> suspect there are exactly zero comprehensive plans in this country
> that call for only this sort of housing across their jurisdictions.
There have been numerous efforts to do such things in the Washington, D.C. region (links are to Google Maps):
Grosvenor Metrorail, Montgomery County, Maryland (look on the west side of the Rockville Pike)
East of the Landover Metrorail Station, Prince George’s County, Maryland
Capitol Heights Metrorail Station (especially on the D.C. side of Southern Avenue, which is to the left in this image).
Largo Metrorail Station, Prince George’s County, Maryland – the packed-in development is not there yet, but the county’s planners want it – article here.
> Is this ALL the residential development in the community? Absolutely not.
Thank goodness that’s correct. But many orthodox planners resent that.
> That some hard-core ideologues wish to mischaracterize reality in this
> way (implying no other residential form will be built) is a clue as to
> the tenuousness of their argument.
Oh, it’s going to get built. But there will be much complaining and hand-wringing
about “sprawl” and “induced” demand for highway capacity.
> East of the Landover Metrorail Station, Prince George’s County, Maryland
Here’s what the the local volunteer fire department had to say about this area (not likely this would ever be written by a planner):
WORKER FALLS FROM ROOF OF “NEW” LOW-INCOME HOUSING
Here is the audio of a fire call at or near the location above (run by those same volunteer firefighters).
DS:What is a correct characterization is: “Many planners (but not all) are planning a future for many U.S. communities that features high-density residential development (e.g. mid-rise or high-rise rental apartment buildings immediately adjacent and SFA where apprpriate) clustered around rail and bus transit stations.â€Â
It dishonestly omits the 400-pound gorilla mandate of these champions of freedom:
“Most planners, but not all, want to cordon all future development into small areas around cities which cumulatively – in total, represent only 1-2% of the US surface (UGBs). Champions of freedom indeed!â€Â
No technical expertise is needed to realize that…
If you cordon in development to 1-2% of the US surface, then development will automatically be dense. If you make development legal only within an area equal to the size of Hong Kong then development will be dense. What else can it be? What other option is there?
C.E.
CPZ, I talk to many people across multiple disciplines. I teach some of them. Meaning: I have many in-depth conversations with the professionals doing the work about what works and what doesn’t.
It is a strawman, a mischaracterization, a falsehood, obtuse bullsh*t that planners want all new housing to be ugly concrete blocks a la East Germany (to which I traveled pre-wall falling & am quite familiar with the scary imagery).
Simply. Not. True.
And your false, evidenceless statement about “many orthodox planners resent[ing it]” is bullsh*t.
Simply. Not. True.
You’d look less credulous if you could produce actual evidence backing your false assertion, BTW (and your link implying only planners wanting Largo is not true. The developers themselves state all commercial isn’t going to work there. Presumably you don’t want them to develop their property as they see fit.).
DS
Ettinger:
something is in the way of your rational thought process.
If you cordon in development to 1-2% of the US surface, then development will automatically be dense.
At 2% of US coverage*:
o at 400,000,000 population (projected 2050),
o presuming 20% infra/institutional,
o 160 sf comm’l per capita,
o 20B sf industrial and
o 1.5 ac of urban parks/1000,
each person will have ~3871.5 sf left for residential space.
That is a parcel size of 9292 sf for a HH size of 2.4
Awwww. Poor baby. Everyone can’t have a Mansionette on a 1/2 acre. They’ll have to live on 1/5 acre. Goldarnit! Dang densifying socialists.
Well, good thing not everyone wants to live in a SFD in the suburbs, so that is a larger parcel for those who choose to do so!
Feel free to get back to us presuming 25% infra/institutional and give us the draconian numbers. It took ~5-10 minutes to work up the numbers.
DS
* 3,718,695 sq mi = 103,671,266,688,000*2% = 2,073,425,333,760 sf
Dan: Awwww. Poor baby. Everyone can’t have a Mansionette on a 1/2 acre. They’ll have to live on 1/5 acre. Goldarnit! Dang densifying socialists.
JK: Careful, Dan you are revealing your utter contempt for other people’s freedom.
Thanks
JK
D4P said: Perhaps you can explain what motivates planners to lie.
JK: Because people seldom agree to trash their neighborhood and lower their standard of living. The planners have figured this out and lie to get people to unwittingly trash their neighborhood and lower their standard of living.
Thanks
JK
Dan said: It is a strawman, a mischaracterization, a falsehood, obtuse bullsh*t that planners want all new housing to be ugly concrete blocks a la East Germany
JK: Agreed, CPZhe was wrong. Our planners want to paint their “ugly concrete blocks a la East Germany†in popular colors. Preferably modern dazzle on false hopes that they will disappear.
Thanks
JK
Dan #28 …
Wow! My irrational thinking out-planned in 6 excel moves in 5 minutes! Like playing chess with Gary Kasparov.
But the numbers you came up with must be for the carless new urbanist paradise where everybody works in tower blocks!
My calculation goes as follows:
– 400mil people / 2.4 per household = 167mil households.
– Each household lives on 8,000sqf, multiply by 3 for roads, parking, industry, shopping, schools etc., so 24,000sqf per family
– So 4E+12 sqf total urbanized (/2,590,000sqf/mile2) = 143,000 square miles urbanized
= 3.8% urbanized (out of a total 3,800,000 square miles).
If some prefer high density, then all the more land for second homes (Second homes!!! planners quick “fatwa†on Ettinger) [Second homes is BTW what Europeans do. Desperate from being cordoned in high density cities, many Europeans have second homes in the country. The typical American suburbanite home is, in many ways, a dual purpose hybrid being both a primary residence and somewhat of a home in the country]
Also keep in mind that 2% is a very very very generous amount for the total size of UGBs. If the size of the Portland UGB is any indication, and if other cities establish UGBs of similar sizes, it is questionable whether total inside UGB area will exceed 0.5% of the US surface.
…But let’s follow the line of thought that you presented in your calculation (comment #28) for a minute…
Per your numbers, why do you then need to cordon development inside a UGB (if no more than 2% of the US surface will get urbanized anyway)?
Oooohhh wait! I see. Progressive planners not only want to limit development to 2% of the US surface, but they also want to dictate which EXACT 2%, will be developed.
No! Mr. New Yorker, you cannot move to Portland because government experts have deemed Portland (pop 2 million) saturated! So you have to stay in NY (pop 19 million – BTW would have been deemed saturated too, but it grew in the older days and got away before the planner-enviro-NIMBY coalition could get a grip on it and stem its growth).
So the other remaining big problem. People who want to occupy ½-1 acre of land?
That’s too bad indeed! When is Al Gore moving to his urban flat? [Talking about East Germany where: “ The only people who shall be rewarded with a standard of living higher than the uniform misery that applies to everybody else, are those encharged of the noble goal of uniformity to misery itself. â€Â].
Things would be better if every one just paid a dollar for every mile that they drove and if we had no income taxes.
The point is that Ettinger said 2% would be too dense. It is not. Let us not hand-wave away from this point.
Note: this is not to verify that all th’ plannurz is soshulists.
20% infra for roads/institutions is rule of thumb.
DS
DS: 20% infra for roads/institutions is rule of thumb. [compared to housing]
Huh? Everything else that is not residence (yard+house) in SFH areas amounts to 20 % ? Ridiculous!
Take the typical suburbanite 8,000 sqf lot, 100 x 80 ft.
80 ft frontage. The sidewalk + ½ the street in front of the house alone are at least a 20 ft wide strip (actually 25 ft and 30 ft in most cases).
So that strip alone comes out to 80×20=1600 sqf for every 8000 sqf lot = 20 %.
So that is an additional 20 % per lot; just for the sidewalk and ½ the street in front of your house.
Even your carless all high density fantasy would have trouble fitting everuything else that is non residence into an additional 20%.
But if one does not want to bother with any arithmetic at all, I suggest they simply look up any US city on Google earth. Let’s say Portland, Houston etc.. One 5’ look at the images is enough to get a rough idea what is the proportion of: [local streets, freeways, connecting streets, industrial, commercial, schools, govt buildings etc] vs. [residential space (houses+yards)]. Dan says it’s 20% !
Now folks, this is apparently info from a professional planner? If so, keep in mind, that he gets paid your tax dollars to feed you this stuff and plan your world.
I admit, some planners sound more and more disappointing.
Ettinger,
speaking of disappointing (conclusion from ignorance), although we don’t like anecdote here:
my last town in WA state had 14% infra: ROW, public parking, institutional and WWTP. This means 14% of all land area in that town was ROW, public parking, institutional and WWTP.
My town here is 17% infra: ROW, public parking, WWTP, public wellhead protection zones, etc. This means 17% of all land area here is ROW, public parking, WWTP, public wellhead protection zones, etc.
You may ask yourself why I know these numbers. It is part of the job, like knowing how many lane miles you have in your town, or acres in your current planning area or how many residential parcels in your town. Ask any planner you meet what their rule of thumb is for infra in a town. I’ll wager it’ll be 15-20%.
Note also above in #28 the bulleted categories, which you seem to have missed in your fantastically framed and thought-thru 36. They are separate from 20% – if you have the capacity, try to figure out why.
Now.
Typing even more slowly, as of 2000:
o Urbanized land in US: 93125 sq mi
o fraction of US area: 2.5%
Huh.
Note: Dan’s relaying of these numbers in no way endorses tinfoil hat argumentation about moving people into the 2% area, despite certain small-minority ideologies’ wish for it to be so.
DS
Dan wrote:
> CPZ, I talk to many people across multiple disciplines.
Umm, so do I.
> I teach some of them. Meaning: I have many in-depth conversations with the professionals
> doing the work about what works and what doesn’t.
How many police officers and firefighters do you talk to? How many attorneys working
as local prosecutors?
> It is a strawman, a mischaracterization, a falsehood, obtuse bullsh*t that planners want
> all new housing to be ugly concrete blocks a la East Germany (to which I traveled pre-wall
> falling & am quite familiar with the scary imagery).
Many of them do want East Germany-style density. Which, BTW, can be found in places other
than the former East Germany, such as Sweden’s Rinkeby
(map) and nearby Tensta (map, both designed by stridently anti-auto planners
in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s on top of newly-constructed
heavy rail transit stations.
> Simply. Not. True.
You can deny all you like. I’ve seen the bad results of orthodox
planning, both in the U.S. and overseas.
> And your false, evidenceless statement about “many orthodox
> planners resent[ing it]†is bullsh*t.
See above.
> Simply. Not. True.
>
> You’d look less credulous if you could produce actual evidence backing
> your false assertion, BTW (and your link implying only planners
> wanting Largo is not true. The developers themselves state all commercial
> isn’t going to work there. Presumably you don’t want them to develop
> their property as they see fit.).
Actually, they have the legal right to develop as they like, even in
Prince George’s County. But this is a jurisdiction that has suffered
greatly as a result of residential densification, regardless of what
you assert.
Read this document (.pdf)
from the elected County Executive of Prince George’s County and search
for the string “apartment” and let us know what you think.
You can deny all you like. I’ve seen the bad results of orthodox planning, both in the U.S. and overseas.
Not really sure what your overall point is, but I’m not sure how a document outlining how to fight crime in extant apartments (et al.) counts as evidence toward whatever your assertion is, unless it is everyone is capable of owning a home or wants to own a home, or that density per se causes crime, which is bullsh*t fear-mongering.
DS
I agree with you Dan. I have yet to see anything that shows density in and of itself itself causes crime. With a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful sister who’s a peace officer along with my brother-in-law, I follow these sort of things a bit. I’m not an expert but it’s something that catches my eye and I have yet to see anything that would indicate that density causes crime.
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