The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 9
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Federal pressure is one reason, but a bigger one iseconomic self-interest. An often-cited study followed 15 men aroundMoved on, but not housedSan Diego for a year and a half and found that they cost almost$100,000 each in hospital fees. Combine that with a yen to lure touristsand loft-dwellers to downtown districts, and the case for cleaning up the bad streets becomes overwhelming.Los Angeles, which has more homeless than any other American city, has focused on the toughest spot. For thepast five months a beefed-up police force has been arresting people for drug dealing and petty crimes such aslittering in Skid Row, an area just east of downtown also known as Central City East. Missionaries accompanythem, cajoling the homeless to join their drug-treatment programmes. The effect has been startling.
Accordingto the police, crime in downtown Los Angeles is now at 1940s levels. On February 1st some 800 people werecounted on the streets of Skid Row. There were 1,900 in September.Advocates for the homeless are furious at such heavy-handedness, but for the most part the cops seem to havepicked on the right people. Skid Row veterans say that the number of genuinely needy folk in the area hasdiminished only slightly, which helps to explain why the shelters are still full almost every night. Most of theheroin and cigarette traffickers have pushed off, though. So have those who came to the area to buy and takedrugs.The trouble is that part of the problem has moved elsewhere. Politicians in other parts of Los Angeles complainthat they are seeing more homeless people. Breaking up big encampments such as Skid Row is no bad thing:they are so lawless that they can quickly turn mildly-troubled people into serious cases.
Still, Skid Row hasplenty of shelters. The areas where the homeless are going may not.Cities that have managed to reduce the overall level of homelessness over a period of several years, such asNew York and San Francisco, have built lots of temporary assisted-housing where people can be taught moreorderly habits. Los Angeles has been slow to follow. The political will is lacking—Skid Row may be horrific, but itis hidden in a warehouse district where few Angelenos venture. The patchwork nature of Los Angeles' city andcounty governments doesn't help either.Philip Mangano, who heads the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness, tells a story about visiting LosAngeles during an earlier, smaller crackdown.
The mayor had boasted that hundreds of homeless people hadleft Skid Row, but Mr Mangano soon found them cowering under a freeway entrance ramp. They eventuallyreturned to the streets—something that could happen again. Remove the extra police, says Mr Bales, and thearea will be back to normal within a week.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipReviving NewarkThe phoenix of New Jersey?Feb 8th 2007 | NEWARKFrom The Economist print editionThe mayor has a practical vision for a long-neglected cityAPCORY BOOKER, elected mayor last summer, is trying to revive hisneglected Newark, and about time too.
Newark is one of America'spoorest cities, with over a quarter of its people living in poverty.Unemployment is high and violent crime common. Over half of pupilsdrop out of high school. But the city also has some things going for it.It is only eight miles from New York, it has a busy port, a bustlingairport and a top-notch transit system for would-be commuters. It hasa few good universities. Companies as well as ordinary people pricedout of Manhattan are beginning to discover Newark.The city has long been synonymous with urban decay. Mismanagedgovernment was the norm.
Two former mayors have been convicted:one spent time in jail. Sharpe James, the mayor before Mr Booker, isno angel either. Federal agents are investigating his financial dealings:he racked up over $150,000 on two city-issued credit cards during hislast two years in office. Trips to Rio de Janeiro, the Dominican Republic,Florida, Puerto Rico and Martha's Vineyard are being looked into. And itappears that some of his top aides may have profited from the sale of city property for below-market prices.Mr Booker is proposing a sweeping package of ethics legislation, though he admits much of his time is spenton damage control. He inherited a fiscal nightmare.
Mr James boasted of a $30m surplus before he left officeand promised a 5% cut in property taxes. State auditors then discovered there was no surplus, but instead a$44m deficit. So Mr Booker had little choice but to raise property taxes almost immediately. He stilldelivered Newark's budget on time on January 12th, a first in almost 20 years.Mr Booker is overseeing a lot of firsts. One of his top priorities is to make crime-ridden Newark safe so hecan attract more residents and jobs.
Last month he and Garry McCarthy, his police director, unveiled a newcrime initiative. For the first time, Newark will have a centralised intelligence-gathering narcotics division.Drugs have been openly sold on city streets for decades, but fears of police corruption prevented aprogramme before now.Guns are cheap and plentiful and even available to rent by the day. Mr Booker recently joined the MayorsAgainst Illegal Guns coalition, formed by Michael Bloomberg, New York's crime-fighting mayor, to help getthem off the streets. A video surveillance programme, with gunshot detection technology, will soon beready.
Still, the year is barely a month old and the murder count in Newark, a city of 280,000, is already at12. The 2006 death toll of 104 was the highest in over a decade. The murders are overshadowing theprogress being made to make Newark a safer city, but overall crime is down 35%. Shootings, robberies andcar thefts experienced double-digit drops.Mr Booker is also working on Newark's long-term growth and development.
He is trying to rationalise thearchaic city zoning rules by creating a new Planning Department. He is talking to national retailers aboutopening branches in Newark, long ignored by major chains and department stores. There's a long way to go:but at last something seems to be happening.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipShooting wolvesIn danger againFeb 8th 2007 | SHERIDAN, WYOMINGFrom The Economist print editionThe grey wolf may soon be hunted againIN THE last week of January, a female grey wolf stepped into a steel leg-hold trap on a ranch outsideLaBarge, Wyoming.
It was set for a coyote. Old, teeth worn down to the gum, the wolf had enoughstrength to uproot the trap from its anchor. She was hardly free, however: she took the trap and itschain with her, and within a few days, a US Fish & Wildlife Service wolf specialist had tracked the injuredwolf down and, out of compassion, shot her.This is a fairly common event. Various wildlife agencies shot 152 wolves last year. But now, the grey wolfmay be about to die in much greater numbers. Within days of the female wolf's demise, the Fish &Wildlife Service proposed booting the grey wolf off the endangered-species list throughout the northernRockies, and did delist them in the western Great Lakes area. Grey wolves have been protected in almostall of America since 1974, when it was feared they were headed for extinction.The justification is that wolves are far more abundant than they used to be. Back in 1995 and 1996, agroup of 32 wolves were introduced into Yellowstone National Park and 35 into Idaho: now, roughly 370wolves roam in the contiguous area of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.
Add in wolves drifting from Canadainto Montana, and the total number in the northern Rockies is around 1,250.But all these wolves need food. Elk make up about 90% of wolves' diet in the greater Yellowstone region.That is fine for the overgrazed park, say hunters, but what about the very obvious decrease in elk herdsin the surrounding states? Ranchers are also unhappy. In 2006 wolves in the Rockies killed 170 cows,344 sheep, eight dogs, a horse, a mule and two llamas.The Fish & Wildlife Service has already approved wolf management plans from Idaho and Montana—much to the glee of Idaho's governor, Butch Otter, who declared that he is “prepared to bid for that firstticket to shoot a wolf myself.” The service is still waiting for a sustainable management plan fromWyoming.
But once it has that, wolves may once again be fair game for hunters.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipEnvironment awarenessNo child left insideFeb 8th 2007 | SAN FRANCISCOFrom The Economist print editionPut down that Xbox, young manTO THE alarm of environmentalists and park managers alike, interest in the great outdoors seems to betailing off among young Americans. The country's extensive system of national parks includes some of themost photographed and best preserved landscapes on earth—like Yosemite Valley in California, thecrenellated Teton Range in Wyoming, Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park or the white edifice ofMount Rainier in Washington state. But attendance at the parks is falling.
Between 1995 and 2005,overnight stays in them declined 20% overall, and camping and backcountry stays dropped by 24%,according to statistics compiled by the National Parks Service.No park, it seems, is immune to the decline: even in Yosemite, one of the system's oldest parks andprobably its best known, the number of visitors dropped 17% over the ten-year period. The number ofvisitors to Death Valley, an easy drive from vigorously growing Las Vegas, went down 28% over the samespan.
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