I was saddened to wake up to the news yesterday that in Colorado Springs, the city is
removing trash cans and streetlights in the most ill-advised move I can imagine.
The rationale behind such a move is to save the city money. To be fair, CS laws require that all tax increases must be taken to the polls, and the townsfolk chose not to raise their own taxes. But given the many programs that could be reduced or eliminated, these are perhaps two of the worst.
James Q. Wilson's book
Thinking About Crime proved a correlation between the amount of litter in an area and an increase in its crime rate. His theory was that broken windows, litter and graffiti sent a message of instability in the neighborhood that only led to increased levels of broken windows, litter and graffiti. Couple this with the limited reach of street lighting, and you've got a perfect storm for even more vandalism, perhaps even violence. The only thing they could have done worse would be to
cut down the trees.
As bad as that may seem, the problem will only compound when the values of the homes on these dark, dirty, littered, unsafe streets begin to plummet, taking their tax revenue with them.
Soon the streets that used to be so clean and bright and wonderful to walk down in the evening may be so dangerous that increased police presence (and all associated costs) will be needed just to maintain civility. Even if you claim reductio ad absurdum on my last point, the littered streets will require additional manpower to keep them clean. And absent any good-willed denizens, that job falls to the government.
Colorado Springs is an area with lower rates of crime, and I suppose there's a chance they may be spared the same fate as the cars used in John Q. Wilson's experiments. But by dismantling two of the three *virtually free* pillars of a safe community in order to save the city money in the short run makes the city still looks penny-wise and pound-foolish.
