This an articulate endorsement of traditional Western liberal principles. Have you considered on how lack of a social safety net and government compassion as well as ruthless suppression of American democracy might contribute to this dysfunctional American individualism? The Scandinavian countries seem to do better while still being liberal societies.
Thanks for the comment, Jeffrey. I alluded to it briefly in the piece—the "abdication of responsibility" to those who can't support themselves. The systems we have to address homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse are not serving those people well. We have tested solutions on the housing front, but I'm not sure we have consensus about the other two.
Thanks for the article. Perhaps a summation would be freedom has traditionally relied on rights and responsibilities, but of late too many places are light on responsibility (personal and societal). Canada is experiencing the same issues as the US - as usual, not as severely, but still not great.
Some places in Canada are worse than most places in the US. I spend one week a month in Hamilton, Ontario which is informally known as the "Zombie Capital of Canada." I live the other three weeks in NYC. Hamiltonians are always surprised to learn that the problems described in this article are orders of magnitude greater in Hamilton, and frankly in Toronto, too (though not as bad), than in the Big Apple.
I've never been to Hamilton. I was in Toronto and didn't find it too bad; Montreal seemed worse. Halifax is not great at all - homeless encampments and a lot of visibly struggling people. By some measures Halifax is the least affordable city in the country.
This is one of the sharpest reframes I've read on urban disorder, your distinction between political individualism and mere individuality gets deep for me, and the line about disorder being evidence of liberty's retreat rather than its price is so true, liberty retreated while greed crept in.
What I'd like to explore further is the institutional rebuilding piece, you name the failures - SROs banned, mental health infra etc, I’d add that the institutions that once sustained civic order weren't just government programs, it includes local civic infrastructure like mutual aid societies, settlement houses, neighborhood associations with *actual* power, cooperative housing models (it used to be the institutional layer between the individual and the state)...but that middle layer didn't just erode passively b/c it was also actively defunded, delegitimized, and in many cases regulated into oblivion - the same pattern you describe with SROs and when we talk about rebuilding institutions, I think we have to reckon with the fact that top-down institutional design is exactly what gave us the incoherent policing and exclusionary zoning you describe. The institutions that actually worked were local, democratic, and built by the people who had to live with the consequences. The liberal city also needs civic architecture that keeps decision-making power where the stakes are highest i.e. at the neighborhood level, among the people who walk those streets every day.
Thank you for your article. I really didn’t mean for this reply to get so long ☺️
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment, Shawna! Yes, I think you are 100% right—those middle-layer nongovernmental orgs are a huge part of our civic infrastructure, and can often span the gap between changing policy and serving their communities directly in a way the top-layer can’t.
Here are some eyewatering facts: NYC spent $81,705.00 per homeless person last year. That number is expected to increase to ~$97k next year. Between 2019 and 2026, homeless spending tripled and the homeless population rose 26%. I guess NYC must have had an explosion of individualism over the last 6 years?
Silly, silly, silly.
The idea that individualism is to blame for the problems described in your article ignores the fact that Americans have always been defined by individualism, and arguably, were more individualistic in the past than they are today. Why weren't our cities plagued with homeless encampments, drug abuse, drug paraphernalia, public defecation, and so on for most of American history, but they are now? What changed?
You hit the nail on the head: "Political individualism requires more than formal rights on paper; it requires the protection of shared space in practice."
Two areas where order is breaking down in cities--public nuisance behavior (public intoxication, street harassment, etc.) and dangerous use of electric bikes and scooters on sidewalks and shared use paths--are very different urban challenges, yet there's a shared reason that they aren't being enforced. In each case, there are existing laws and rules against the problematic behavior.
Both public nuisances and illegal e-bike riding are viewed by police as under the threshold for them to get involved. To be fair, given that police have to catch bank robbers and burglars, it's understandable that they don't want to spend time giving $60 tickets for public intoxication or riding an e-bike at 40 mph on a sidewalk.
What could help with enforcement might be the creation of a several lower-paid bylaw enforcement units, in which the officers do not carry firearms and have limited arrest powers, to enforce street and roadway laws.
Since they don't carry firearms, their approach would be more about engaging with people, de-escalating, and, as needed, calling in the police or other first responders (e.g., mental health team if a person is showing signs of psychosis, or ambulance if it's an overdose).
Thanks for the comment, Nathan. Yes, I think something like this is definitely in the right direction...it's in the category of crossing guard or traffic cop, someone whose role is to enforce the rules of the road but not necessarily with lethality. In Austin, we've been piloting a program to deploy teams with a police officer, paramedic, and mental health clinician to respond to certain mental health emergencies downtown. I think there's a lot of room for experimentation here.
I like how you framed your argument. It nearly persuaded me, but I still find myself in agreement with Arnade. I think the prevalence of so much social dysfunction is the result of our individualist culture for two reasons. Systemically, so much of this social dysfunction is a result of our limited social saftey net, and we lack a social saftey net because enough of us want to protect our own wealth or dream of being wealthy: an individualistic desire. Then, on an individual basis, many people see others who are struggling with drug addiciton and homelessness, and they think it isn't their problem, or worse, those who are suffering must have messed up, and they need to take responsibility for themselves, and it is up to them as individuals to do better. It is communal cultures like those of Korea that mantain quality, safe public spaces. What is fascinating to me is how conservative Korea is culturally while still agreeing on political policies that benefit everyone, like socialized medicine and funding for transit.
As they say about horseshoes and hand grenades… 😊 I’ll try to get a little closer here.
I think where I get stuck is that we’ve had orderly, functional cities in the U.S. in living memory under broadly similar cultural conditions, so it’s hard for me to see “individualism” as the root cause.
I also struggle with the international comparison. Europe has a stronger safety net than we do, but it also has public spaces that work, without being especially “communal” in the way Korea or Japan are often described. Part of that is functional: the public realm is well-activated and amenitized, which attracts everyday people, and shared norms seem to hold up better in practice.
What feels different to me is American civic life. Fewer people see themselves as responsible for maintaining shared spaces or shaping outcomes. That can look like selfishness, but I think a lot of it is people not knowing how to engage the system, or not feeling like it works for them. This feels downstream of the trends Putnam identified in “Bowling Alone.”
So the question, to me, is how to rebuild that. I don’t think it starts by dialing back individualism, but by channeling it into civic life again. In a sense, it’s about rediscovering a tradition of participatory self-government.
The individualism of America also frames how so many view the solution to the problem too.. That it will just work itself out, on its own, because many feel it’s their individual choice to not have a life on the streets or with an addiction that intrudes upon and abuses the public space. The lack of a civic engagement or thought structure means we’re left with a few people trying to tackle this tough problem, igniting for resources, instead of collectively dealing with it.
I think it is true that some of the policies that have led to increased disorder were justified by arguments for liberty: deinstitutionalization and the end of involuntary commitment for the mentally ill is one example, drug decriminalization is another. I think debate is about what combination of liberties and restrictive rules and norms entails actual liberty. I would characterize those who have supported these kinds of permissive polices as libertarian, in the sense that they take considerations of certain personal freedoms as overriding competing concerns for public order and and the feelings of others ( I agree that they're often not actually in competition, but proponents often frame them this way).
Since “individualism” is being questioned, I’ll offer a libertarian solution: Privatize the “commons”, to avoid “tragedies of”. Where are you more likely to see undesirable behavior - in a private shopping or business plaza, or a “public” square?
Thanks for the comment, Bennie. I think this position is defensible on philosophical grounds, but it's a political nonstarter: public ownership of the commons is the default position, and I don't see a pathway for a political constituency to emerge to counter it. Still, I think who owns "public" spaces doesn't matter as much as how they are managed: any place open to the public has to deal with the question of disorder. Shopping malls, which rely on heavy public foot traffic, are almost always policed—thus the infamous "mall cop." In some places, buildings/businesses own the rights of way that front them; that access is required to attract foot traffic, but it can also attract disorderly elements if not defended.
This an articulate endorsement of traditional Western liberal principles. Have you considered on how lack of a social safety net and government compassion as well as ruthless suppression of American democracy might contribute to this dysfunctional American individualism? The Scandinavian countries seem to do better while still being liberal societies.
Thanks for the comment, Jeffrey. I alluded to it briefly in the piece—the "abdication of responsibility" to those who can't support themselves. The systems we have to address homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse are not serving those people well. We have tested solutions on the housing front, but I'm not sure we have consensus about the other two.
The Scandinavian societies all have universal health care, including mental health care and drug treatment. If only we did too!
Canada has universal health care, including mental health care and drug treatment, and it has the same problems as the US.
Not as badly. Toronto and Vancouver do, but it’s less widespread.
Thanks for the article. Perhaps a summation would be freedom has traditionally relied on rights and responsibilities, but of late too many places are light on responsibility (personal and societal). Canada is experiencing the same issues as the US - as usual, not as severely, but still not great.
I think that’s right. Thanks, Sean!
Also, this might be the type of response you are thinking of in terms of society taking more responsibility: https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.7652653
This is deliberately moving mental health response away from the police, unless the situation is clearly dangerous.
Some places in Canada are worse than most places in the US. I spend one week a month in Hamilton, Ontario which is informally known as the "Zombie Capital of Canada." I live the other three weeks in NYC. Hamiltonians are always surprised to learn that the problems described in this article are orders of magnitude greater in Hamilton, and frankly in Toronto, too (though not as bad), than in the Big Apple.
I've never been to Hamilton. I was in Toronto and didn't find it too bad; Montreal seemed worse. Halifax is not great at all - homeless encampments and a lot of visibly struggling people. By some measures Halifax is the least affordable city in the country.
This is one of the sharpest reframes I've read on urban disorder, your distinction between political individualism and mere individuality gets deep for me, and the line about disorder being evidence of liberty's retreat rather than its price is so true, liberty retreated while greed crept in.
What I'd like to explore further is the institutional rebuilding piece, you name the failures - SROs banned, mental health infra etc, I’d add that the institutions that once sustained civic order weren't just government programs, it includes local civic infrastructure like mutual aid societies, settlement houses, neighborhood associations with *actual* power, cooperative housing models (it used to be the institutional layer between the individual and the state)...but that middle layer didn't just erode passively b/c it was also actively defunded, delegitimized, and in many cases regulated into oblivion - the same pattern you describe with SROs and when we talk about rebuilding institutions, I think we have to reckon with the fact that top-down institutional design is exactly what gave us the incoherent policing and exclusionary zoning you describe. The institutions that actually worked were local, democratic, and built by the people who had to live with the consequences. The liberal city also needs civic architecture that keeps decision-making power where the stakes are highest i.e. at the neighborhood level, among the people who walk those streets every day.
Thank you for your article. I really didn’t mean for this reply to get so long ☺️
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment, Shawna! Yes, I think you are 100% right—those middle-layer nongovernmental orgs are a huge part of our civic infrastructure, and can often span the gap between changing policy and serving their communities directly in a way the top-layer can’t.
Here are some eyewatering facts: NYC spent $81,705.00 per homeless person last year. That number is expected to increase to ~$97k next year. Between 2019 and 2026, homeless spending tripled and the homeless population rose 26%. I guess NYC must have had an explosion of individualism over the last 6 years?
Silly, silly, silly.
The idea that individualism is to blame for the problems described in your article ignores the fact that Americans have always been defined by individualism, and arguably, were more individualistic in the past than they are today. Why weren't our cities plagued with homeless encampments, drug abuse, drug paraphernalia, public defecation, and so on for most of American history, but they are now? What changed?
You hit the nail on the head: "Political individualism requires more than formal rights on paper; it requires the protection of shared space in practice."
Two areas where order is breaking down in cities--public nuisance behavior (public intoxication, street harassment, etc.) and dangerous use of electric bikes and scooters on sidewalks and shared use paths--are very different urban challenges, yet there's a shared reason that they aren't being enforced. In each case, there are existing laws and rules against the problematic behavior.
Both public nuisances and illegal e-bike riding are viewed by police as under the threshold for them to get involved. To be fair, given that police have to catch bank robbers and burglars, it's understandable that they don't want to spend time giving $60 tickets for public intoxication or riding an e-bike at 40 mph on a sidewalk.
What could help with enforcement might be the creation of a several lower-paid bylaw enforcement units, in which the officers do not carry firearms and have limited arrest powers, to enforce street and roadway laws.
Since they don't carry firearms, their approach would be more about engaging with people, de-escalating, and, as needed, calling in the police or other first responders (e.g., mental health team if a person is showing signs of psychosis, or ambulance if it's an overdose).
Thanks for the comment, Nathan. Yes, I think something like this is definitely in the right direction...it's in the category of crossing guard or traffic cop, someone whose role is to enforce the rules of the road but not necessarily with lethality. In Austin, we've been piloting a program to deploy teams with a police officer, paramedic, and mental health clinician to respond to certain mental health emergencies downtown. I think there's a lot of room for experimentation here.
I like how you framed your argument. It nearly persuaded me, but I still find myself in agreement with Arnade. I think the prevalence of so much social dysfunction is the result of our individualist culture for two reasons. Systemically, so much of this social dysfunction is a result of our limited social saftey net, and we lack a social saftey net because enough of us want to protect our own wealth or dream of being wealthy: an individualistic desire. Then, on an individual basis, many people see others who are struggling with drug addiciton and homelessness, and they think it isn't their problem, or worse, those who are suffering must have messed up, and they need to take responsibility for themselves, and it is up to them as individuals to do better. It is communal cultures like those of Korea that mantain quality, safe public spaces. What is fascinating to me is how conservative Korea is culturally while still agreeing on political policies that benefit everyone, like socialized medicine and funding for transit.
As they say about horseshoes and hand grenades… 😊 I’ll try to get a little closer here.
I think where I get stuck is that we’ve had orderly, functional cities in the U.S. in living memory under broadly similar cultural conditions, so it’s hard for me to see “individualism” as the root cause.
I also struggle with the international comparison. Europe has a stronger safety net than we do, but it also has public spaces that work, without being especially “communal” in the way Korea or Japan are often described. Part of that is functional: the public realm is well-activated and amenitized, which attracts everyday people, and shared norms seem to hold up better in practice.
What feels different to me is American civic life. Fewer people see themselves as responsible for maintaining shared spaces or shaping outcomes. That can look like selfishness, but I think a lot of it is people not knowing how to engage the system, or not feeling like it works for them. This feels downstream of the trends Putnam identified in “Bowling Alone.”
So the question, to me, is how to rebuild that. I don’t think it starts by dialing back individualism, but by channeling it into civic life again. In a sense, it’s about rediscovering a tradition of participatory self-government.
Thanks for the comment, Allen. Much appreciated.
The individualism of America also frames how so many view the solution to the problem too.. That it will just work itself out, on its own, because many feel it’s their individual choice to not have a life on the streets or with an addiction that intrudes upon and abuses the public space. The lack of a civic engagement or thought structure means we’re left with a few people trying to tackle this tough problem, igniting for resources, instead of collectively dealing with it.
I think it is true that some of the policies that have led to increased disorder were justified by arguments for liberty: deinstitutionalization and the end of involuntary commitment for the mentally ill is one example, drug decriminalization is another. I think debate is about what combination of liberties and restrictive rules and norms entails actual liberty. I would characterize those who have supported these kinds of permissive polices as libertarian, in the sense that they take considerations of certain personal freedoms as overriding competing concerns for public order and and the feelings of others ( I agree that they're often not actually in competition, but proponents often frame them this way).
Since “individualism” is being questioned, I’ll offer a libertarian solution: Privatize the “commons”, to avoid “tragedies of”. Where are you more likely to see undesirable behavior - in a private shopping or business plaza, or a “public” square?
Thanks for the comment, Bennie. I think this position is defensible on philosophical grounds, but it's a political nonstarter: public ownership of the commons is the default position, and I don't see a pathway for a political constituency to emerge to counter it. Still, I think who owns "public" spaces doesn't matter as much as how they are managed: any place open to the public has to deal with the question of disorder. Shopping malls, which rely on heavy public foot traffic, are almost always policed—thus the infamous "mall cop." In some places, buildings/businesses own the rights of way that front them; that access is required to attract foot traffic, but it can also attract disorderly elements if not defended.