The connection between disorder, fear, and economics.

St. Louis has observed a decades-long downward trend in population. It grew in numbers until hitting a peak of 822,000 in 1930, and has fallen ever since.

In 2000 its population was down 12% from 1990, to 348,000 people. Not surprisingly, the city has experienced falling tax revenues and diminished clout.

Where did they all go?

Well, they moved out or -equally important- they never moved in.

In cities like St. Louis, where population migrates out and has little new growth, the problems of the city become separated from the resources in the suburbs.

From Urban Growth and Decline: San Jose and St. Louis in the 1960's :

"Transitional problems associated with persistent and severe outmigration also arise: accumulation of disadvantaged citizens, declining demand for city housing, and a diminished replacement capacity in the population."

The pattern is clear: Neighborhoods lose people and then loses revenue. Rent and housing values decline. Vacancies increase. The blight begins to spread. The city cuts back on services even further in a spiral that grows larger and ever larger. The city as a whole becomes even weaker and less desirable.

Some books like Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City by Colin Gordon focus on racism as the cause. I disagree.

The cause is disorder, and the crime that attends it.

We in Rochester have had in 2008 numerous episodes of gunfire, an experience new to Mayberry. Catching the actual offender does very little to assuage the fear this pattern of violence has caused. Suggesting the fear is exagerrated misses the point.

The prospect of confrontation with a violent or drunk or rowdy or drug-dealing person, whatever his race, induces fear. This is especially true among the defenseless, including the elderly. Their only available responses when the police do not respond to the disorder (and instead focus on the crime alone):

• stay inside, doors locked


• move away

Few resort to violence themselves.

Visitors soon hear of the shootings and become unwilling to visit or move here. The decline begins. It has begun in Rochester. It threatens Mayo Clinic and IBM and the Civic Center. Will Jehovah's Witnesses still rent a hall when they don't feel safe? Youth sports tournaments won't come to a town they are afraid to be in. Patients can visit Johns Hopkins and see a bad neighborhood and good doctors. So why travel here?

What will the city leaders do?

Broken windows and Shots fired

Gunshots. Sirens. Arrests. Drive-by shootings. Gangs.

Sounds like Minneapolis, Chicago, or Detroit.
But it's not. It's our own Mayberry, MN.

In the last few weeks there has been many incidents. The headlines are simple.





3 suspects in drive-by shooting appear in court
Five arrested in shooting; neighbors still worried

Is Rochester no longer a safe city?
What can we do?

We are witnessing in real time the Problem of Broken Windows.
In their 1989 article, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling tell us:

"The conventional police strategy is "incident-oriented"--a citizen calls to report an incident, such as a burglary, and the police respond by recording information relevant to the crime and then trying to solve it. ...But if responding to incidents is all that the police do, the community problems that cause or explain many of these incidents will never be addressed, and so the incidents will continue and their number will perhaps increase."

But the source is not poverty, but social structure and character:

"If the first broken window in a building is not repaired, then people who like breaking windows will assume that no one cares about the building and more windows will be broken. Soon the building will have no windows. Likewise, when disorderly behavior--say, rude remarks by loitering youths--is left unchallenged, the signal given is that no one cares. The disorder escalates, possibly to serious crime."

In another article they describe how this cycle of increasing disorder results in the decay and decline of communities:

"But we tend to overlook or forget another source of fear: the fear of being bothered by disorderly people - not violent people or necessarily criminals, but disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people: panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed."

In short, the job of the police is not merely to solve crimes, but is first and foremost to maintain order. Disorder is linked with crime, so goes the broken windows theory.

At present Rochester MN has a serious problem with disorder.
What does the City Council say? What about Mayor Brede?
Come to the neighborhood forum and ask them.

Thursday, September 11, 7:00 PM at the Boys and Girls Club