Putting Trolleys Behind Us and Focusing on Crime

Now that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has abandoned the trolley proposal for Madison, let us hope that his administration responds to the public demand that he focus his energies on crime.

Here are some related reflections on the administration of city government and its impacts on crime:

• As my first two year term as mayor came to an end and I faced re-election in 1975, some of my firmest supporters were my toughest critics for having brought little change to City Hall. While laying the groundwork for a variety of programs like the State Street Mall and Child Care Program, I spent those first two years proving to the public and myself, that I could govern the city, not just in an acceptable manner, but better than average.
• I carefully listened to the managers, not just for their professional and technical expertise, but their management skills as well. They were not always right, neither was I, but we learned and grew.
• There is a compact between the voters and the elected officials. Take care of the basics, and the voters will give the elected leaders a pretty free hand to experiment and improve the community. Malls, Civic Centers, large housing projects from Capital Centre to the Triangle.
• A city cannot survive without its middle class. They pay the bills, they fill the schools; they may not develop the malls but they are the creative class.
• A city will not retain its middle class if taxes are too high relative to the surrounding communities, if their children are not safe, or if public education is weak.
• Poor communities are not the only source of crime.
• Crime is more likely to emanate from poor communities. That is because the drug dealers, the pimps, the thugs are more likely to intimidate its residents into sheltering them.
• Rich communities as well as poor ones are vulnerable to crime.
• A community needs strong values to combat crime; but it also needs the will of the people to carry out the mission. The Police Department and other city agencies are simply resources in that struggle.
• If the local government fails to support the will of the people, the people surrender and flee and the neighborhood is lost.
• There are three variables that control the crime rate in a community. One is far more significant than the others.
  • The most significant is demographics, particularly the number of young men in the 18-35 age bracket. As our nation's population in that age group shifts, crime shifts accordingly.
  • The second variable, is in-migration of criminals. That will occur when gangs attempt to open new territories and markets. This occurred in Madison in the mid 1980's through the early 1990's.
  • The third variable is the community response which includes community policing, programs to combat poverty, and programs to strengthen the neighborhood.
• A comparison of Madison in the 1990's and the 2000's:
  • Young men committing crime started to decline in 1991; that demographic is even lower now.
  • The city was under greater pressure from gangs in the 1990's but also had a more effective response. Consequently, the in-migration of thugs is worse now than then, because the city has not effectively sent a message that Madison is not an easy target and because the city has not pressured neighboring communities to control their crime. Of course, that is hard to do if you are not setting an example.
  • The present community response is wholly inadequate. The response, "we do not have sufficient funds to provide community police officers, NRT staffing of building inspectors, public health nurses, social workers, blah, blah, blah, is totally inadequate. Fail to do that and you might as well kiss the city goodbye.
  • If the city cannot do these things, what is its purpose?
  • (Brenda Konkel is correct, evictions are a matter of state law. I should have been more careful.)
• To pay for these programs, the city must do the following:
  • Not be afraid to raise property taxes. People will complain but they will be good natured about it if they think their money is spent wisely.
  • Enlist the private sector for contributions to effective community service programming. Use the Madison Community Foundation.
  • Encourage as much commercial, business, and high density residential  development in Madison as possible. Those developments are profit centers. Unlike single family housing which does not pay 70% of the costs of services they use, the higher density developments are great source of revenue to pay for social services.
  • Commit to quality in management that will provide better service at less cost.

Comments

[Michael Basford]

These are all good points but you always leave one out in these posts: It *does* matter who is President of the United States. Bill Clinton simultaneously increased funding for police and programs like Weed and Seed while increasing economic opportunity. There is a major difference between then in now in this area and it can't be discounted. It's not blah, blah, blah.

[Paul]

Michael: Yes and No. Weed and Seed was a George Bush program from 1991. Madison began its first grant in May of 1992 (if I remember correctly) at Vera Court. Clinton provided funds for additional police in a bill adopted in 1994. Both programs were the result of mayors, working together, applying tremendous pressure through the U. S. Conference of Mayors to get congressional approval. It meant going to the White House and the Congress and not taking 'no' for an answer. Richard Nixon also supported some programs. I think it matters more how mayors approach these matters than who is the president.

A Republican view of Weed and Seed from 2001:

http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/082701nationalweedandseedconfer.htm

[Thomas J. Mertz]

What happened with the Enhanced Dane County Youth Gang Prevention Task Force? I can't find much beyond the initial press release (http://www.countyofdane.com/press/default.asp?frmPRID=669) and reference in the Youcth Commission minutes to holding listening sessions and surveying agencies.

Uh, what crime in Madison?
Did I miss something? Isn't Madison an extremely safe place to live?
I mean, relatively speaking, of course.

[Ex Madisonian]

Having lived at 7022 Harvest Hill Road (within the Meadowood area) from the early 80s until the early 90s, I was shocked to read that this area has become a crime-ridden area. I've read through this blog and it seems that the crime increase is a result of "increasing poverty in Madison". That comment shocked me even more! The last 10 years have not been a recession for Madison, in fact I would be that Madison's economic growth has utterly boomed in that period.

So I ask two questions: (1) WHY has there been an increase in poverty in Madison - what is the root cause?, and (2) If the root cause is immigration of households living in poverty from Chicago and Milwaukee, why is the City of Madison not taking steps to reduce this exodus of poverty from other cities into Madison which will drive the middle class out of Madison and into surrounding areas that are easily commutable to Madison (Waunakee, Oregon, Verona, De Forest, etc.)?

It seems to me that allowing Madison to remain a magnet for an influx of those who consume inordinate amounts of social services compared to the tax revenue they provide, the city will follow a very familiar course of many other cities; the middle and upper income folks will simply move out to suburbs or exurbs, eventually taking the businesses out to those areas as well. The result will be Madison with deterioration of its housing stock, property tax base, and business acivity. Of course accompanied by suburban sprawl, heavy commute traffic, and increasing demands on city social services while tax revenue will decline or at least underproduce relative to historical trendlines - leading to more city tax increases and more middle class flight out of the city.

I lived in Madison from 1979 to 1991 and it was substantially a great place to live. It is such a shame to see that it is following the path of decay by incentivizing poverty (and crime) to move to Madison from other locales. The amount of low-income multi-unit housing should not be increased, as you will simply exacerbate the influx of poverty and crime.

One thing is certain: doing nothing to stem the in-migration of poverty and crime from Chicago, Milwaukee, etc. will result in one thing - the urban decay death spiral we've seen in so many other cities.

[Michael Basford]

Paul: I certainly don't disagree with your last sentence. But I would note the following:

1) When you talk about "going to the White House and the Congress and not taking 'no' for an answer", were they really saying "no" in 1994? I mentioned Weed and Seed, but I failed to mention the more relevant COPS program. Both programs were very successful and both programs have been reduced to a mere fraction by an Administration singularly focused on funding Homeland Security over real police in the streets of our cities (not like this Administration really cared about our urban areas).

2) If you go to the city's website, you can look at the operating budget #'s going back to 1998. You can see that the funding for Field Operations has gone from $29.5 million in 1998 to $44 million in 2007. The summaries of the police budgets in the earlier years mention funding new officers through the COPS program. The later summaries don't mention COPS. BTW, how many new police officers were funded from the COPS program from '94 to '98? I may be wrong, but it looks to me like we're already relying more on the property tax for funding police than we used to. And I agree that we shouldn't be afraid to raise more.

3) That is an interesting speech by Ashcroft. I note that he mentions Milwaukee and a substantial reduction of murder in a W/S area in that city. I wonder what area he's talking about and how things are going there now?

[Michael Basford]

Ex Mad:

The funding for "inordinate amounts of Social Services" has risen in Madison from $3.4 million to $5.4 million - a drop in the bucket compared to what we fund police.

And when you say:

"So I ask two questions: (1) WHY has there been an increase in poverty in Madison - what is the root cause?, and (2) If the root cause is immigration of households living in poverty from Chicago and Milwaukee, why is the City of Madison not taking steps to reduce this exodus of poverty from other cities into Madison which will drive the middle class out of Madison and into surrounding areas that are easily commutable to Madison (Waunakee, Oregon, Verona, De Forest, etc.)?"

I ask: What do you suggest - moat or fence?

[Aaron Robertson]

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[Ex Madisonian]

I thought I was pretty clear. Do not increase the amount of multi-unit low-income housing. What part of that do you fail to understand?

[Michael Basford]

Well, you never mentioned the availability of affordable housing in your post (which isn't as prevalent as you think). So people who are here already and, for reasons beyond their control, need to find affordable housing are SOL in Madison. Great policy. Too bad you don't live here so you don't have to deal with all that extra homeless on the street.

[Dan Sebald]

Ex Madisonian (class I'm in now too) writes:

"It seems to me that allowing Madison to remain a magnet for an influx of those who consume inordinate amounts of social services compared to the tax revenue they provide, the city will follow a very familiar course of many other cities; the middle and upper income folks will simply move out to suburbs or exurbs, eventually taking the businesses out to those areas as well."

This pretty much comes back around to one of Paul's main themes as of recent. "consume inordinate amounts of social services compared to the tax revenue" is poverty, and I think that Paul is arguing that providing jobs and training bumps up the "tax revenue" part of the equation.

Another part of the sprawl/flight equation is the fact that government resource allocation is in that direction. But that's digressing...

Let's not forget that America has traditionally been the "land of opportunity"--"Give us your tired, your poor, your hungry" (whatever the exact quote is) wasn't a founding principle, but it did become a credo somewhere along the way. The canal system out east was built primarily on the backs of Irish immigrants. The rail system out west was built primarily on the backs of Chinese immigrants. Eventually, these classes build wealth, and that I think is what Paul is saying a role of government is, i.e., to provide the vehicles for wealth.

And if you look at it, the over-simplified economic models of recent republican governance simply doesn't do that. Rather, it takes advantage of the poor and powerless (see Paul's Mattel Toy's post of Aug 15).

Neal Peirce had an article earlier this year, "Can 'Gentrifying' Cities Create New Bridges To Wealth?"

http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/peir0325.html

Inclusionary zoning was discussed, and the insightful point is that too many restrictions on the inclusionary zoned household (so that it remains affordable for the next owner that comes along) is a problem because the household is an American's vehicle to wealth in today's economy. We borrow against it, etc.

I've long held that taxation laws should be set up to encourage people to build *some* wealth, and I think you'd agree with that, Ex Madisonian, given your argument. Tax breaks for reinvesting in the home would be nice. (Improving one's property up to the norm is sort of penalized by higher taxes, if one thinks about it.) Also, a higher return on savings would encourage saving money and building wealth. (Come on, 1% savings rate? What is the fed doing?)

It's a complex issue, important issue, and somehow it seems like the country has unlearned its fiscal principles with the "own something" (Bush administration quote... translates to "buy something") policy. I mean, these concerns about wealth and equity go back to colonial times.