Spreading Crime like Cream Cheese

There's a fantastic story in this month's The Atlantic about the negative consequences of razing high-rise housing projects. As Hanna Rosin explains, the push to demolish project towers was once seen as a triumph of progressive urban management, but research has shown that it merely dispersed the crime that was concentrated in a small area, resulting in crime waves in previously tranquil areas. The overall impact on cities that tear down high-rise projects may be a rise in violent crime.

As with most urban dilemmas, the issue popped up in The Wire, in the first episode of season three. Bodie and Poot boiled the essence of Rosin's article down to a three-minute dialogue, though of course with more profanity and gratuitous comments about sexually transmitted diseases.