New Cities/New Soviets

January 13, 2003

1.13.03

There are easily 50% more suicides than homicides in the U.S. every year, and today I know why. Yes, I have been dealing with the NYC bureauocracy yet again. I am trying to get a permit to operate a food cart in Tompkins Square Park, and the lazy oafs in the parks department are putting up every form of passive resistance possible. These fools have been entrusted with my neighborhood's greatest public resource, and they are content to let it atrophy and die. In fact, under the urging of local landlords, they have been doing everything in their power to kill it for over a decade. Did I say oafs? I meant murderers.

But I digress. Molly has been reviewing the CDCs cause-of-death records for 2000, and this fact stood out: the number of homicides per year is dwarfed by the number of suicides! Public policy has been corralled by the pressure to "make the streets safe," under the pretense that murders are the number one social problem.
Of course, driving claims enourmously more lives than either. That, together with the prevalance of suicides, points to a much different conclusion--our communities need to be reformulated on the basis of providing public space rather than restricting it.
Oh yeah, one more thing. I also happen to know that even most murders are committed by someone the murdered knows, so the application of murder statistics to the treatment of public space is doubly corrupt.
My head is spins with confused rage at the sensless hash that has been made of urban policy...

Posted by Sam at January 13, 2003 12:51 PM

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