SB79 is a well-intentioned step in the right direction, but I fear that neighborhoods and anti-growth cities are now just going to fight against or eliminate transit stops, just watch. A better bill would have legalized everything up to four-plexes by right on any lot in the state and scale that number up based on census tract population. Bonus for reducing front setbacks, allowing commercial and offices in certain locations, and allowing neighbors to pay each other or negotiate to eliminate side and rear setbacks.
Broad rezoning is the ultimate goal, and you’re absolutely right that the bill warps the incentives around transit. But we only had political capital to pass a bill focusing housing near transit this year. The only way to build power and influence toward passing bigger bills is successfully passing smaller ones at every available opportunity
for the word "tax" and find zero hits. I can't find if that was even one of the choices offered to emigrants on why they left, since clicking "get the data" did not work. Same for the word "crime."
Maybe respondents WERE able to cite these things -- were they? If not, then I think this is what we would call a "push poll."
You’d have to look at the 2024 Current Population Survey data for that info. I suspect respondents to the survey could enter all kinds of info and “housing,” “jobs,” and “family” happened to be the most common answers, but maybe I’m wrong! Median taxes and overall crime rates are not higher in CA than Texas so I’d be surprised if those were the primary drivers anyway
Yeah, Texans pay less in income tax, but more in property tax, and the net effect is that on average they pay similar taxes, but the taxes are more regressive, falling harder on middle- and lower-income people. OTOH their state income is less volatile -- California's budget alternates between deficit and surplus, depending whether rich folks had big capital gains this year.
The rate of violent crime, especially murder, is notably _higher_ in most Texas cities than in LA or San Francisco, but what most people actually mean by "crime" is "visible homelessness, mental illness, and drug use". CA does need to move towards more involuntary commitment, but the "tuffoncrime!" policy of just throwing everyone in jail, rather than getting drug and mental health treatment, is both inhumane and expensive.
No, crime in NYC fell in tandem with the rest of the country. The question of why there was an enormous secular decline in crime across the nation is a subject of debate — the end of leaded gas may have made a difference. But Giuliani’s broken-windows policing didn’t make a huge difference relative to other places that weren’t doing it.
Bloomberg definitely did some things that, again, improved the sense of order, which is different from actual crime rates.
You apparently don't like broken-windows policing but I don't see anything more than dislike there. Citizen and police morale and sense of safety is just as important as raw crime numbers.
That paper doesn't say what you want it to. (It also gives more aggressive estimates of effects than some meta-analyses, but I'll leave that aside.)
Part of the problem here also is defining what "broken windows" _means_. I am referring specifically to the emphasis on spending limited police man-hours on aggressive enforcement against visible signs of disorder; and somewhat by extension rolling in the idea of giving cops free rein, or even encouragement, to engage in intrusive enforcement tactics against people who "look like" they might be criminals (stop and frisk).
NYC's crime rate went down as you would expect it to, given the factors _other_ than the more-aggressive enforcement on "disorder" charges, and the stop-and-frisk policy -- particularly the demographics, and the number of police per capita. The main thing that happened is just that NYC got _a lot richer_, so that the slice of the demographic pie that commits most crimes became much smaller. Then on top of that, the city put a lot more eyes on the street. Once you control for those two things, the decline in crime doesn't look so impressive, and this is acknowledged in the paper you cited. (There's an entire section estimating how much of the decline -- beyond the nationwide decline -- has to do with the police-per-capita factor.)
The paper also mentions the implementation of "hotspot" policing. ( https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-spatial-misallocation-of-police ) This is an effective policy that a _lot_ of cities have pursued, it is quite distinct from the Giuliani broken-windows stuff. The author of the paper specifically says he is skeptical of the stop-and-frisk policy.
<quote>
The biggest and most costly police change with an unknown impact is the aggressive program of street stops and misdemeanor arrests that the police use in almost every patrol operation. There were more than half a million stops in 2009 and two hundred thousand misdemeanor arrests. The police believe these tactics increase the effectiveness of preventive interventions but there is no rigorous evidence on the value added in New York City. The contrast between my conclusions on aggressive stops and “hot spots” is the clear evidence that hot spots work in other cities with scientific evaluation. What separates the street stops verdict of “not proven” from COMPSTAT which I label a probable success is that COMPSTAT’s lack of proven effectiveness is a result of its novelty. Aggressive patrol has a history almost as long as that of street policing, so the absence of definitive evidence from other cities is more problematic.
</quote>
Having more cops on the beat does help reduce crime. (This is a topic Matt Yglesias writes about a lot, see for instance: https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-really-boring-way-to-solve-more ) Having those cops waste their time harassing non-criminal black people or gray-market food cart vendors is not the greatest way for them to spend their time, though.
As for the point about compulsory treatment: Cycling people with drug and mental illness issues through jail _obviously_ doesn't help them, and in fact makes their condition worse, in a manner that _raises_ the chance that they will commit a worse offense after being released. Prison time for people who might benefit from treatment is _actively counterproductive_, it is criminogenic.
While involuntary mental holds and treatment are, sadly, not hugely effective in actually getting people off drugs, they are equally effective to prison with the basic "incapacitation" aspect of prison (i.e. people aren't on the streets), and they at least don't make people _worse_, and people put through compulsory treatment programs reoffend at lower rates.
"The results indicate that therapeutic interventions, specifically rehabilitative treatment, are more effective than incarceration in reducing recidivism. Furthermore, longer prison sentences did not show any significant impact on reducing recidivism rates, whereas extending rehabilitation programs had a substantial effect on altering the behavior of drug abusers."
SB79 is a well-intentioned step in the right direction, but I fear that neighborhoods and anti-growth cities are now just going to fight against or eliminate transit stops, just watch. A better bill would have legalized everything up to four-plexes by right on any lot in the state and scale that number up based on census tract population. Bonus for reducing front setbacks, allowing commercial and offices in certain locations, and allowing neighbors to pay each other or negotiate to eliminate side and rear setbacks.
Broad rezoning is the ultimate goal, and you’re absolutely right that the bill warps the incentives around transit. But we only had political capital to pass a bill focusing housing near transit this year. The only way to build power and influence toward passing bigger bills is successfully passing smaller ones at every available opportunity
Politics is the art of the possible. That bill you’re proposing could never get off the ground.
Beverly Hills fought like hell to keep metro stops out, and it lost. I don’t think it could uproot them now.
I'm still pinching myself. I can't believe this is really the law now!
I search one of your references:
https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-moving-in/
for the word "tax" and find zero hits. I can't find if that was even one of the choices offered to emigrants on why they left, since clicking "get the data" did not work. Same for the word "crime."
Maybe respondents WERE able to cite these things -- were they? If not, then I think this is what we would call a "push poll."
You’d have to look at the 2024 Current Population Survey data for that info. I suspect respondents to the survey could enter all kinds of info and “housing,” “jobs,” and “family” happened to be the most common answers, but maybe I’m wrong! Median taxes and overall crime rates are not higher in CA than Texas so I’d be surprised if those were the primary drivers anyway
Yeah, Texans pay less in income tax, but more in property tax, and the net effect is that on average they pay similar taxes, but the taxes are more regressive, falling harder on middle- and lower-income people. OTOH their state income is less volatile -- California's budget alternates between deficit and surplus, depending whether rich folks had big capital gains this year.
The rate of violent crime, especially murder, is notably _higher_ in most Texas cities than in LA or San Francisco, but what most people actually mean by "crime" is "visible homelessness, mental illness, and drug use". CA does need to move towards more involuntary commitment, but the "tuffoncrime!" policy of just throwing everyone in jail, rather than getting drug and mental health treatment, is both inhumane and expensive.
Unfortunately, can you show any evidence that " drug and mental health treatment" has ever reduced crime? Ever?
Because Giuliani and Bloomberg did reduce crime, dramatically, in NYC, and it was not because they threw money at drug treatment.
No, crime in NYC fell in tandem with the rest of the country. The question of why there was an enormous secular decline in crime across the nation is a subject of debate — the end of leaded gas may have made a difference. But Giuliani’s broken-windows policing didn’t make a huge difference relative to other places that weren’t doing it.
Bloomberg definitely did some things that, again, improved the sense of order, which is different from actual crime rates.
And _compulsory_ treatment definitely does help.
I'm afraid you're wrong about that. New York's crime rate declined much faster than the rest of the country:
https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/siwp/WP9Zimring.pdf
You apparently don't like broken-windows policing but I don't see anything more than dislike there. Citizen and police morale and sense of safety is just as important as raw crime numbers.
As for the last sentence: where's the evidence?
That paper doesn't say what you want it to. (It also gives more aggressive estimates of effects than some meta-analyses, but I'll leave that aside.)
Part of the problem here also is defining what "broken windows" _means_. I am referring specifically to the emphasis on spending limited police man-hours on aggressive enforcement against visible signs of disorder; and somewhat by extension rolling in the idea of giving cops free rein, or even encouragement, to engage in intrusive enforcement tactics against people who "look like" they might be criminals (stop and frisk).
NYC's crime rate went down as you would expect it to, given the factors _other_ than the more-aggressive enforcement on "disorder" charges, and the stop-and-frisk policy -- particularly the demographics, and the number of police per capita. The main thing that happened is just that NYC got _a lot richer_, so that the slice of the demographic pie that commits most crimes became much smaller. Then on top of that, the city put a lot more eyes on the street. Once you control for those two things, the decline in crime doesn't look so impressive, and this is acknowledged in the paper you cited. (There's an entire section estimating how much of the decline -- beyond the nationwide decline -- has to do with the police-per-capita factor.)
The paper also mentions the implementation of "hotspot" policing. ( https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-spatial-misallocation-of-police ) This is an effective policy that a _lot_ of cities have pursued, it is quite distinct from the Giuliani broken-windows stuff. The author of the paper specifically says he is skeptical of the stop-and-frisk policy.
<quote>
The biggest and most costly police change with an unknown impact is the aggressive program of street stops and misdemeanor arrests that the police use in almost every patrol operation. There were more than half a million stops in 2009 and two hundred thousand misdemeanor arrests. The police believe these tactics increase the effectiveness of preventive interventions but there is no rigorous evidence on the value added in New York City. The contrast between my conclusions on aggressive stops and “hot spots” is the clear evidence that hot spots work in other cities with scientific evaluation. What separates the street stops verdict of “not proven” from COMPSTAT which I label a probable success is that COMPSTAT’s lack of proven effectiveness is a result of its novelty. Aggressive patrol has a history almost as long as that of street policing, so the absence of definitive evidence from other cities is more problematic.
</quote>
Having more cops on the beat does help reduce crime. (This is a topic Matt Yglesias writes about a lot, see for instance: https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-really-boring-way-to-solve-more ) Having those cops waste their time harassing non-criminal black people or gray-market food cart vendors is not the greatest way for them to spend their time, though.
As for the point about compulsory treatment: Cycling people with drug and mental illness issues through jail _obviously_ doesn't help them, and in fact makes their condition worse, in a manner that _raises_ the chance that they will commit a worse offense after being released. Prison time for people who might benefit from treatment is _actively counterproductive_, it is criminogenic.
https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/from-the-magazine/crimes-of-the-mind/
While involuntary mental holds and treatment are, sadly, not hugely effective in actually getting people off drugs, they are equally effective to prison with the basic "incapacitation" aspect of prison (i.e. people aren't on the streets), and they at least don't make people _worse_, and people put through compulsory treatment programs reoffend at lower rates.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477370809341128
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/jj_etds/331/
"The results indicate that therapeutic interventions, specifically rehabilitative treatment, are more effective than incarceration in reducing recidivism. Furthermore, longer prison sentences did not show any significant impact on reducing recidivism rates, whereas extending rehabilitation programs had a substantial effect on altering the behavior of drug abusers."
I did SOME digging. Someone else's turn now.
We're talking about the perceptions of emigrants, not the reality, which they may or may not see the same as you.