Enlist the New Immigrants to Make Us Safer. (6-14-2023)
By Steve Balkin, Professor Emeritus, Roosevelt University, Email: sbalkin@roosevelt.edu
I just got an email from our new alderman, Tim Knudsen in Lincoln Park, informing residents in his ward of a spate of robberies. One of my favorite mottoes is: bad news is good information. Knowing about the robberies and how they were committed can help people protect themselves by avoiding the time and location pattern of the robberies, if they have a choice to do so.
One of his suggestions is for residents to put more eyes on the street: “more people on the streets, looking out for one another can serve as the best deterrent for crime.” He sounds like he took my economics of crime course at Roosevelt University. The idea of making neighborhoods safer by cherishing and increasing pedestrian activity on the streets and sidewalks comes from the prominent urban planning theorist and writer: Jane Jacobs. One way to do this is to increase the amount of street vendors in a neighborhood selling a multitude of goods and services. Policing is not just the function of police. It is is also an outcome of community participation in promoting safety, especially by those who work and recreate on the street. Vendors can be part of an official presence on the street that have a self-interest in promoting safety there. In addition, they can be an extra attraction that brings more residents to go outside to add to the stock of watchful eyes on the street. Residents like to shop from vendors and they like to people-watch others as they go out and about. Residents and vendors will want to be part of crime control because street criminals are causing harm and interfering with the shopping, people watching, and friendly positive interactions in the environment.
Luckily, Chicago has experienced an influx of over 10,000 new immigrants most of whom are looking for work and business opportunities and who have grown up in Mexico, Central America, South America, and Eastern Europe, places with a lot of street vendors and outdoor markets. Rather than keep them penned up in restricted environments in police stations, churches, and closed schools, let them, if they want, become street vendors and give them cell phones to immediately report suspicions activity. Foundations and churches can provide them start-up money. Artists and musicians can put on benefit performances to provide additional funding for them. There are existing street vendors associations in Chicago who can help in organizing them and protect them from exploitation.
Fixed location businesses may complain of the potential competition or they may see the benefit of more pedestrian activity that will also go into their stores. A position of Street Vendor Czar needs to be created to eliminate direct competition. For example, the Czar will help find another location for a taco seller vending in front of a Mexican restaurant.
Chicago’s retail sector has been kicked in the ass in a major way by the triple menace of Daley’s parking meters, Covid lifestyle restrictions, and gang crimes. The people who run Chicago in the private, public, and charitable sectors need to use their hearts to be more kind to our recent immigrants and their brains to bring the streets of Chicago back into safety and restore its former high quality of life.
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