Philadelphia
H/T Paul Kersey. Who, if you’ve been under a rock for the last several months, is now blogging at Unz.
NPR’s Philadelphia affiliate:
Homicide and home values: Why the city controller says Philly needs a fiscal argument to combat murder rate
(snip)
…It found that a single homicide in Philadelphia reduces the value of homes sold within 0.75 miles of the murder by an average of 2.3%, compared to homes purchased slightly farther away.
“Our results suggest homeowners who sold in the immediate aftermath of a homicide received a price about $3,400 lower than they otherwise would have if the homicide [had] not occurred,” the Controller’s Office concluded.
(snip)
If the city could reduce homicides by 10%, the report says, the resulting increase in property values would generate an extra $13 million in property tax revenue. And if Philadelphia maintains that pace for five years straight, an extra $114 million would flow to city coffers.
You read the title of this post.
Correlation-Causation.
That line of reasoning reminds me of that part in Waiting for Superman, where one Eric Hanushek, a well known education researcher at Stanford, claimed that all we needed to do is to replace the bottom ten percent of teachers (whatever “bottom” means in terms of teachers) and replace them with an average teacher (How Sway?), then America’s education median performance would soon soar to that of Finland. Because Nokia 3310, or something like that.
When I saw Waiting, I was 33 years old, but even then, I had already long left the infantile delusion of silver bullet thinking behind. I don’t know what Hanushek’s excuse was.
Now, let’s jump back to the story.
It’s so easy that all we have to do is “reduce homicides by ten percent,” (How Sway?), and property values will magically increase, which means property tax revenue will increase.
Sure.
Here’s the reality:
The reason why property values in homicide-ridden areas of Philadelphia are so low isn’t necessarily because of the homicides, though they don’t help. It’s because the homicide-ridden areas happen to be full of the racial demographic that has a bad reputation for committing homicides. Even if you found some way to eliminate all homicides and change nothing else, that would barely improve the property values. It would still be Bell Curve City, just one that happens to have no homicides.
I asked above how they plan to “reduce homicides.” Well:
Those strategies — which have been tested in other cities, the report says — include targeted “hot spot” policing, group counseling, and the deployment of community activists to intervene in neighborhood disputes.
(snip)
Rhynhart suggested that Philadelphia model its anti-violence initiatives on an effort in Oakland called “Operation Ceasefire” and another in New Orleans named “NOLA for Life.” The New Orleans program earned plaudits for driving down murder rates, but there have been more recent questions about the long-term sustainability of the strategies.
Among the stickier points in Rhynhart’s plan could be its use of “focused deterrence,” a carrot-and-stick approach that targets the “small group of people” considered most likely to commit future homicides. When implemented well, Rhynhart said, the strategy gives those people a “way out” of criminal circles through social services and jobs. If they refuse that help, law enforcement is supposed to take swift legal action.
Most of this stuff has already been tried with very little tangible success. Hotspot policing (“Whack-a-Mole”) might make a difference to an extent, but it is a reactive rather than a preventative strategy. Meaning that whack-a-mole goes where the violence is worst, but it also means there is bad violence to begin with. It’s not precluding or preventing or deterring the violence. It’s like saying that you put the biggest bandage on the bloodiest wound and thinking that you never suffered the wound to begin with.
We all know how the American domestic policy deep state is going to solve this problem: By unloading it on someone else, that being AFFH. That way, Philadelphia will no longer have a homicide problem. Sure, some other place will suddenly have a homicide problem, but who cares about those other places? Out of sight out of mind.
Then there’s this:
District Attorney Larry Krasner
Speaking of the real problem…