Blight, Mathematics, and Evil
How do you fight blight without being evil? There are so many factors to it. Raising average property values seems like a good thing, but then: are you pushing out lower-income folks? Are you disenfranchising people? Is your very infrastructure racist (or at least poverty-ist, but those often turn out to the be the same things).
St. Louis’ very infrastructure has racist undertones. The public transportation stops let out in poorer (black) neighborhoods. But the highways let out in the richer neighborhoods! It’s socioeconomic segregation! If you live in a poor neighborhood, you wouldn’t be able to access the highways. If you’re richer, and you own a car, you’re never going to go on the public transportation — it’s not at all convenient.
Then there’s urban deserts. You live in the middle of a neighborhood, but the closest grocery stores are a few miles away. You don’t have a car, so you can’t even get to the stores. Maybe there’s a gas station or convenience store near you, but the food prices there are exorbitant, and the choices are generally less healthy. By the way, bus/subway fare for the MTA (in New York) is $2.75. You might have to choose between eating that day or walking several miles home.
Now I’m looking at blight improvement. The point seemed to be to make property values in HHF (hardest hit funds) areas go up. Well, it worked. I saw good numbers like 9% improvement or 14% improvement. But this means these houses are selling: who’s buying them?
I live in Detroit, which is turning into a land of hipsters. Are they pushing out people who have lived here for ages by making property values go up too high? Are the economic incentives and blight improvement work actually making that problem worse?
I want people who live here to actually have their lives improved. But what does that mean? They’d likely want access to transit, parks, schools, and food. Less crime. Access to voting locations, whenever those opportunities come around. People that look like them in respected jobs. Employment. I suspect some of them might want Black Bottom (this being Detroit) back. But this is just me guessing! I don’t know what’s most important to a bunch of people I’ve never met. I have only a glimpse through articles and economic studies.
How do you decide what’s right? For example, perhaps successful multi-family dwellings would be more economically viable (cheaper and provide for more families) than single family houses. At the same time, people might not want to live in multi-family dwellings.
Most of the homeless here are mentally ill. I love the idea of providing housing for homeless for free, but does it work when they’re that ill? Shouldn’t we rather open up outpatient (or even inpatient!) care hospitals for them? But then again, will that give a good ROI?
Economists make me nervous. I’m just worried it’s a bunch of privileged white guys who have developed policies without considering the morality. I’m privileged: I have a job, I’m educated, and I have enough to eat. I have enough money to get to places, even though it might sometimes be a bit dear to buy a plane ticket and get a taxi to the airport. But I can afford it! I have good enough credit and no criminal history, meaning I can get an apartment. I can pay the security deposit and first month’s rent. There are many people who can’t do this.
The last thing I don’t know is whether economists are evil or not. People don’t like how they’re always about cold, hard facts. That may not truly make them evil. But in deciding public policy, moral repugnance (or acceptance!) might actually be a good dimension to consider. The weight you give moral repugnance or whether it is dependent on other variables can be modelled mathematically.
If you visit Detroit, visit Diego Rivera’s mural and see the two sides of technology. We have vaccinations, but we also have mustard gas. My point is: we can use mathematics, science, economics, and lots of other things as a reason to be evil. Let’s not do it.
