St 22 června 2005

While reading Guiliani’s farewell address I was quite surprised how much liberal it sounded—if I am not mistaken then the biggest achievement he saw in his work as a mayor of the New York City was that the situation of the poorest has visibly improved. I don’t know if this is genuine compassionat conservatism or he was just trying to apeace liberal New York public (after all New York is very blue state, isn’t it?).

Another thing is that his point of view on the Boston-NYC discussion about policing seems to be much less radical, then what I would expect from (mostly liberal and pro-Bostonian) articles I read so far. It sounds more like his wounded defense of a good work he did (and Compstat strategy) against the attack of liberal professors then anything else. Actually, when reading his address I thought that the difference between Boston community policing strategy and New York more policing strategy may be more political and virtual then real (after all, most supporters of the Boston miracle are liberals). Yes, Boston policing was probably more participatory then New York one, but it seems to me that the root of the idea (“Broken windows”) is present in both of them. In New York the broken windows are taken much more literally (petty crimes, disorder, etc.) and in Boston more abstractly (lonely kids, conflict resolution, having a bullet), but the idea that fight against huge crimes should begin with clearing out small issues is the same.

Category: research Tagged: dissertation BostonMiracle