Urban planning can help curb violence (Marie Harf isn't the only idiot)

The Boston Globe ^ | February 20, 2015 | Renée Loth

[2ndDivisionVet]

Can better urban planning help prevent terrorist attacks? The idea sounds fanciful, even disrespectful to victims of extremist violence. But officials in Paris, still reeling from last month’s deadly terrorist attacks on a satirical magazine and a kosher deli, are putting some hope in a plan to re-zone the city and annex the notorious inner suburbs, or banlieues, where the terror plot was born.

In what would be perhaps the greatest redesign of Paris since Baron Haussmann laid out its famed boulevards in the mid-19th Century, the “Métropole du Grand Paris” would attempt to bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods to the north of Paris inside the municipal fold, sharing resources but also fostering a greater sense of belonging.

The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, described the alienated pockets of unemployed young men on the fringes of the city as a “territorial, social, ethnic apartheid” that can foster violent ideologies. The plan is a long way from realization, but it reflects an awareness that seemingly mundane urban design decisions — from housing density to the location of subway lines — can exacerbate social isolation, with profound effects.

Of course, terrorism has a complex provenance, and solving it will require a multi-faceted approach. But Paris is not the only place where racial or social violence has been blamed in part on poor urban planning. After Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood vigilante in Sanford, Fla., because he looked suspicious simply walking down the street...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Yes, she went there.

[expat2]

Hey, we tried that in the US and it worked beautifully. Built projects, moved losers into them and the violence and drug-dealing disappeared, NOT.

[BenLurkin]

bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods to the north of Paris inside the municipal fold, sharing resources but also fostering a greater sense of belonging.

That is laugh-out-loud funny.

[PistolPaknMama]

fostering a greater sense of belonging.

Oh yeah. This is exactly what the islamofacists are looking for and have been denied. They blow up people and buildings out of frustration of not belonging. THEY ARE NOT HERE TO ASSIMLATE, you morons!!!

[Mike Darancette]

Gentrification is what they need.

[henkster]

She’s right; better urban planning is the key. The urban plan should have no sharia zones.

[ChicagahAl]

Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood vigilante in Sanford, Fla., because he looked suspicious simply walking down the street...

Excuse me?

[2ndDivisionVet]

You didn’t hear about his vicious murder by that Klansman? LOL

[fieldmarshaldj]

I guess she forgot the part where St. Skittles bashed the skull of the so-called “vigilante.”

[Intolerant in NJ]

So this is what the Muslim faith teaches? - kill ten Christians and get a new green park?......

[TigersEye]

That explains the Tsarnaev brothers. Boston’s lousy urban planning.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[Moltke]

It’ll work great if they rezone those suburbs to one of their overseas territories. Anything else, not so much.