Quiz question of the day: have you noticed that crime started to increase in Montreal at the same time that the city started to get ugly?
It seems that the uglier the metropolis became, the more dangerous it became.
As if the two phenomena went hand in hand.
In criminology, we call this the broken window hypothesis.
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
This theory was developed by the political scientist James Q. Wilson and the criminologist George L. Kelling in the American magazine The Atlantic in March 1982.
In an article titled Broken Windows, these two professors affirmed that it is not delinquency that causes a city to deteriorate, on the contrary: it is the degradation of a city that encourages delinquency!
They called it the broken window theory because they noticed that the more broken windows there are in a building, the more people who live near that building will tend to break the other windows that are not broken. .
There is a ripple effect: the more windows broken, the more people will break windows.
What we call here the Hygrade law (the fresher they are, the more people eat them, the more people eat them, the fresher they are).
For Wilson and Kelling, the more a city becomes dilapidated, the more the people who live there tend to behave in a rude, boorish, not to say uncivil, manner.
When you live in a city that is beautiful, you tend to behave well.
When you live in a town that looks like a “dump,” well, you tend to act like a “bum.”
Montreal looks like a “dump”.
No wonder crime is increasing!
You look around and you say to yourself: “Gee, what difference will it make if I piss or shit in the street? The neighborhood already looks like a toilet! One turd more or less…”
One day, it’s your hygiene that takes the edge.
And the next day, it’s your moral.
Failure to respect the premises leads to failure to comply with the laws.
THE NEW YORK EXAMPLE
Before he became a pitiful clown who licks Trump’s boots and dyes his hair with shoe polish, Rudolph Giuliani was mayor of New York.
And a good mayor, it seems.
To get his city out of the septic tank where it had languished for too long, he did two things: he considerably increased the number of police officers patrolling the streets, and he tackled the ugliness of the city.
Boarded up businesses, dirt, graffiti. And, yes, broken windows.
Result: the face of New York has changed completely.
The city has not only become more beautiful. She has become less dangerous.
Some nostalgic people miss the 70s when the Times Square area looked like an old porn cinema, with its sticky floors and sagging benches.
They deplore what they call the “Disneysation” of New York.
Indeed, New York has become a city “for the whole family”. It’s less “folkloric,” let’s say.
But it’s a lot nicer!
Our elected officials want to get Montreal out of trouble?
Let them start by tackling the potholes, the broken streets, the graffiti, the slums, the abandoned buildings, the boarded up businesses, the squats, the dirt…
And that they make young police officers want to come and work there.
The young recruits from Nicolet will want to patrol the streets of Montreal the day they feel they have the support of city hall.
Let us not consider them as “a necessary evil”.
And that they will not be forced to do their hard work with one hand tied behind their back and a sword of Damocles swinging over their heads.
PREFER CANCER TO ISRAEL?
So, if I understand correctly the pro-Palestinian campers who are very present when the time comes to criticize Israel, but strangely discreet when the time comes to criticize Hamas, Quebec universities should cut all their ties with Israeli universities.
As anyone who reads the newspapers knows, Israel is at the forefront in biomedical research.
Does this mean that these campers agree to NEVER take a drug developed and produced in Israel? Even if an Israeli university one day discovers a cancer drug?
LONG LIVE “SOCIAL MIXITY”!
Understand who can: we cannot open an SQDC branch near a school… but an injection center, yes!
Mayor Valérie Plante calls it “social diversity”. Apparently it is excellent for “living together” for six-year-old children to see drug addicts urinating and masturbating in public. Apparently it teaches them respect for differences…
An idea: why doesn’t the mayor of Montreal open an injection center in one of the city hall premises? This would allow elected officials to see the true face of their city… without setting foot outside their offices!
A “NEW” HEALTH SYSTEM?
The government wants to turn the health system upside down.
But we can’t get rid of faxes. We cannot get rid of private employment agencies.
And the famous Quebec Health File which was supposed to come into operation in 2022 is still not ready and already costs $42 million more than the originally planned price.
I want to be optimistic.
But something tells me it won’t go as well as we hope…
