So how Come no one Thought to Call the Kids' Dads?

There's an Atlantic Monthly article by Hanna Rosin that is an absolute treasure trove of blog posts. It's all about how knocking down the projects and spreading the residents out into the suburbs has lowered crime in the cities, but increased it in the suburbs. It is so filled with data that restates the obvious that you practically have to poke your eyes out with sharp sticks not to see it.

And that, of course, is precisely what Hanna does. Here's a tidbit.

I visited Shaw (a woman who was moved from the projects to a new place in the suburbs) in February, about a year and a half after she’d moved in. The view outside her first-floor window was still pretty nice—no junk littered the front lawn and few apartments stood vacant. But slowly, she told me, Springdale Creek has started to feel less like a suburban paradise and more like Dixie Homes (the old projects). Neighborhood boys often kick open the gate or break the keypad. Many nights they just randomly press phone numbers until someone lets them in. The gate’s main use seems to be as a sort of low-thrills ride for younger kids whose parents aren’t paying attention...

When Shaw recounts all the bad things that have happened at Springdale Creek, she does it matter-of-factly... Car thefts were common at first—Shaw’s neighbor Laura Evans is one of about 10 victims in the past two years. Thieves have relieved the apartment management company of some of its computers, extra refrigerators, and spare stoves. A few Dixie boys—sons of one of Shaw’s friends—were suspected of breaking the windows in vacant apartments. Last year, somebody hit a pregnant woman in the head with a brick. In the summer, a neighborhood kid chased his girlfriend’s car, shooting at her as she drove toward the gate; the cops, who are called in regularly for one reason or another, collected the spent shells on the grass.

Well, with all those problematical boys, how come no one thought to call their dads and get some discipline and respect for others instilled in them? I mean the dads are around, aren't they?

The whole thing has the standard pack of overpaid academics mystified.

If replacing housing projects with vouchers had achieved its main goal—infusing the poor with middle-class habits—then higher crime rates might be a price worth paying. But today, social scientists looking back on the whole grand experiment are apt to use words like baffling and disappointing.

I don't know, how about using words like totally predictable and well, duhhh.

I've got to run and do some more unpacking and organizing in my new house. In the meantime, take a gander at the article. It has some embedded video, shot extraordinarily poorly and with dialog that is meandering and unfocused. I guess the money they pay the academics to do these studies doesn't cover professionally presenting their ideas.

In any case, the thing is just filled with forehead-smacking stories that makes you want to grab Hanna by the collar and shake her until her synapses connect correctly.

Enjoy.

Update: Classical Values thinks the real problem is that drugs like crack, methamphetamines, and heroin aren't legal. Sigh.

Update 2: The total destruction of the libertarian viewpoint is seen in the young boys trying to break into the gated compound. Illegal drugs have nothing to do with it. The boys have no authority figures in their lives because the men in the community are not held to account for their children. That, in turn, derives from the total breakdown of societal moral standards. The boys grow up with no forceful, male guidance until they meet a police officer. The policeman has but one tool - the arrest. Hence, the prisons are full.

For more on the topic, see Rachel Lucas' outstanding piece on the high school girls who made a pact to get pregnant. The libertarian point of view takes a beating there, too.