Comments on: Street Food: Good eats important on the Path to Prosperity

By: Casey Frank

Casey Frank — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:18:51 +0000

I was mindful of over-romanticizing as I was writing. It’s probably the case that crime wasn’t less decades ago. It was just different. That’s getting too speculative and I have no evidence for it. The list I gave of eyes on the street is a factual list. The only speculation I’ve made is that it had an affect on property crime. I think it’s a fairly safe speculation given the research that’s been done since Jane Jacobs coined the phrase “eyes on the street,” and given that some anti crime programs was focused on that issue.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:16:35 +0000

Great comments – thanks. Casey, 2 things – 1) I think your point about many vendors later graduating to rent space is a critical item to consider. These are great, cheap incubators for business. 2) The point about crime is fascinating – it would be very interesting to research. I wouldn’t want to over-romanticize things; after all, there was plenty of crime 80 years ago, too. But, I would be inclined to agree that the presence of many more people on the streets (including cops walking a beat instead of driving) in urban neighborhoods helped to keep things in check better.

By: Casey Frank

Casey Frank — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:37:03 +0000

Street vending of any kind can serve a similar purpose. When Quincy Market was renovated in Boston back in the early ’70s, the developer hadn’t rented all of the market space. Somebody had the idea of using vendor carts to make the market look fuller than it actually was. Many cart vendors later graduated to renting shop space.

Another aspect of this is that vendors are going to have just as high an aversion to crime as property owners. They don’t want the cash they’ve earned to be stolen. They are, as Jane Jacobs put it, “eyes on the street.”

I’ve often wondered if there’s a connection between the change in the way we delivered goods and services, and urban crime just after world war II. (I have not researched this.) Imagine a guy trying to break into a city house circa 1920. If he’s out during the day, he could at any given moment bump into the milk man, the ice man, twice daily mail deliveries, and most importantly, beat cops on foot. There were also, if I’m not mistaken, produce vendors who wandered neighborhoods selling to housewives. And, as if that weren’t enough, retired people didn’t lock themselves into retirement enclaves. (The retired couple who lives on my street notice EVERYTHING.)

In other words, property crime was probably much harder to do eighty years ago.

By: Dave Reid

Dave Reid — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:23:09 +0000

In Milwaukee we have recently seen a surge in new street vendors and it has been great. I completely agree this is an area we some deregulation is needed.