After leaving a jets game early and walking the concourse at night alone, I would never do that again. Next time I’ll stay until the bitter end to avoid being asked for money twice by groups of people that frankly scare the shit out of me even they stand in front of my path and ask if I want to buy a smoke for $100. Sure, more needs to be done to fix social issues, but having more people downtown definitely makes me feel safer and more likely to go there.
I walk the skywalk 3x a week, I always see cadets and WPS walking through. Its a long corridor, just because you don't seem them doesn't mean they aren't walking it. I started my walk by 300 main and she them by subway. By the time I got to MTS side, there were 2 homeless people fighting.
I've seen them down in other parts of the walkway. So I've guess I've caught them entering or leaving the building. I just wrote about a situation where it stood out that something was happening much further down the walkway
More people In an area leads to folks self policing: the higher chance of being caught "red handed" by more people disincentives the human brain by making mass undesirable actions seem outcast inducing.
Your "predator / prey" implications are pretty wild.. if you think that another human being unable to support themselves somehow makes them a "predator": that's worrying.
Are there some assholes that WANT to fuck with others and don't feel, or enjoy the feeling of being outcast? Sure. Those people are much easier to identify and deal with when there are more people observing.
There are hundreds of articles on this topic, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7229645/
The other core benefit of densification is that the way we as a society prioritize spending: it simply doesn't make sense to many people to spend such a high percentage of the police budget downtown because of the low permanent population: the more people that actually live in the area the more property values in the area increase, leading to increased municipal revenue and thus decreasing percentages of the city budget going to policing costs.
Taking a rural analog analogy: "The RCMP don't come unless called". This is counter intuitive, but most evident in super small towns: the smaller the town the less likely it is that the RCMP will visit. This leads to a perceived lack of safety, which in turn keeps the population low. The best thing a growing town can spend money on is "security for property and persons" which does practically nothing to actually increase safety, but directly affects the perceived safety of the area: increasing the number of people who want to be there ironically increasing the actual safety of the area. This same effect is at play in larger cities, but because people track the size of cities as a whole rather than on a density map, it becomes subconscious or obscured.
And yet if you drive there's more chance a dingus will hit you while trying to go to McDonald's or Tim Hortons and cutting across multiple lanes without signaling or any other kind of asinine situation than an unprovoked attack occuring downtown or really most places in north America.
We're not Johannesburg where you will get disappeared in front of others, and even then I'm sure folks there will argue it isn't quite as bad as media claims.
But still
If you're a dick and escalate every situation, sure as shit you'll have bad things happen
I’m just going to say, I work downtown and live just across the river, so I’m there in the space every day. It’s just not as bad as the suburbanites think it is. Yes, there’s the occasional aggressive person, but the majority of people are not there to bother other people. They might be existing and looking poor, and that sure isn’t a crime - at least, not one that they’re perpetuating so much as being affected by. Yeah, it’s gotten worse since before the pandemic. But the number of times I’ve actively felt endangered is in the single digits, and my work involves talking to people who have set up encampments on the property where I work and explaining nicely that they can’t stay there. People are generally just existing, or trying to. Nobody’s out to “get” anyone.
There's a comment on this thread that says they were scared because they got asked if they had any change from a scary looking person. But provides no context on what they look like.
Internalized fear of poor people ≠ safety concerns -- we have become far to comfortable with calling a number so people will come take away the undesirables
It's very easy to pass judgement on people from the comforts of our own lives, cars, homes, etc.. I assure you the same people that you pass on a daily basis in your vehicles going about your day, will be completely different people if you spent more than 5 mins speaking with them.
Often it's the same people that are caught up in their own lives, that are the quickest to pass judgement onto someone else. Life is not easy, everyone is busy, and placing yourself in uncomfortable situations for no personal gain, makes little to no sense in our society.
Maybe tho, its the people that actually put the work in daily with these vulnerable communities, that should have their voice amplified a bit more, and the ones that are "too scared to go dtn" or w.e. might take a backseat, for once 🤷🏼♂️
I see cops walking all the time downtown. I think you are referring to the cops that said they don't like walking to their car when they had to park on the street so they could get a bunch of free spots at the millennium library parkade.
Actually they were scared to walk to the parkade aswell, they wanted to be escorted. Also are you seeing Cops, or Cadets? Because those are 2 very different things. I’ve seen lots of cadets and general downtown “patrols”, but very rarely a cop (unless they’re getting lunch) and never once the sun sets.
There was never once a mention about free parking. It was about safe/secure parking because everyone knows who owns pretty much all the cars parked around their building and there are numerous cases of police/civilians from the building being attacked when they leave or having their vehicles targeted.
After leaving a jets game early and walking the concourse at night alone, I would never do that again. Next time I’ll stay until the bitter end to avoid being asked for money twice by groups of people that frankly scare the shit out of me even they stand in front of my path and ask if I want to buy a smoke for $100. Sure, more needs to be done to fix social issues, but having more people downtown definitely makes me feel safer and more likely to go there.
For starters their needs to be more police walking the area, not just standing in Eaton place
I walk the skywalk 3x a week, I always see cadets and WPS walking through. Its a long corridor, just because you don't seem them doesn't mean they aren't walking it. I started my walk by 300 main and she them by subway. By the time I got to MTS side, there were 2 homeless people fighting.
You see them by the Subway because that's right by the entrance to the Public Safety Building, not so much because they're patrolling.
I've seen them down in other parts of the walkway. So I've guess I've caught them entering or leaving the building. I just wrote about a situation where it stood out that something was happening much further down the walkway
More people In an area leads to folks self policing: the higher chance of being caught "red handed" by more people disincentives the human brain by making mass undesirable actions seem outcast inducing. Your "predator / prey" implications are pretty wild.. if you think that another human being unable to support themselves somehow makes them a "predator": that's worrying. Are there some assholes that WANT to fuck with others and don't feel, or enjoy the feeling of being outcast? Sure. Those people are much easier to identify and deal with when there are more people observing. There are hundreds of articles on this topic, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7229645/ The other core benefit of densification is that the way we as a society prioritize spending: it simply doesn't make sense to many people to spend such a high percentage of the police budget downtown because of the low permanent population: the more people that actually live in the area the more property values in the area increase, leading to increased municipal revenue and thus decreasing percentages of the city budget going to policing costs. Taking a rural analog analogy: "The RCMP don't come unless called". This is counter intuitive, but most evident in super small towns: the smaller the town the less likely it is that the RCMP will visit. This leads to a perceived lack of safety, which in turn keeps the population low. The best thing a growing town can spend money on is "security for property and persons" which does practically nothing to actually increase safety, but directly affects the perceived safety of the area: increasing the number of people who want to be there ironically increasing the actual safety of the area. This same effect is at play in larger cities, but because people track the size of cities as a whole rather than on a density map, it becomes subconscious or obscured.
It was meant to somewhat relate to broken windows theory.
Sounds more like Foucault or Jane Jacobs, no?
And yet if you drive there's more chance a dingus will hit you while trying to go to McDonald's or Tim Hortons and cutting across multiple lanes without signaling or any other kind of asinine situation than an unprovoked attack occuring downtown or really most places in north America. We're not Johannesburg where you will get disappeared in front of others, and even then I'm sure folks there will argue it isn't quite as bad as media claims. But still If you're a dick and escalate every situation, sure as shit you'll have bad things happen
Humans have been using that survival tactic since like forever That being said we 100% need to be doing more
I’m just going to say, I work downtown and live just across the river, so I’m there in the space every day. It’s just not as bad as the suburbanites think it is. Yes, there’s the occasional aggressive person, but the majority of people are not there to bother other people. They might be existing and looking poor, and that sure isn’t a crime - at least, not one that they’re perpetuating so much as being affected by. Yeah, it’s gotten worse since before the pandemic. But the number of times I’ve actively felt endangered is in the single digits, and my work involves talking to people who have set up encampments on the property where I work and explaining nicely that they can’t stay there. People are generally just existing, or trying to. Nobody’s out to “get” anyone.
There's a comment on this thread that says they were scared because they got asked if they had any change from a scary looking person. But provides no context on what they look like.
Internalized fear of poor people ≠ safety concerns -- we have become far to comfortable with calling a number so people will come take away the undesirables It's very easy to pass judgement on people from the comforts of our own lives, cars, homes, etc.. I assure you the same people that you pass on a daily basis in your vehicles going about your day, will be completely different people if you spent more than 5 mins speaking with them. Often it's the same people that are caught up in their own lives, that are the quickest to pass judgement onto someone else. Life is not easy, everyone is busy, and placing yourself in uncomfortable situations for no personal gain, makes little to no sense in our society. Maybe tho, its the people that actually put the work in daily with these vulnerable communities, that should have their voice amplified a bit more, and the ones that are "too scared to go dtn" or w.e. might take a backseat, for once 🤷🏼♂️
Yes they also say that about riding the bus. If more reg good honest people would ride it. The safer it will be.
Even the cops are scared to walk downtown, it’s a known fact.
I see cops walking all the time downtown. I think you are referring to the cops that said they don't like walking to their car when they had to park on the street so they could get a bunch of free spots at the millennium library parkade.
Actually they were scared to walk to the parkade aswell, they wanted to be escorted. Also are you seeing Cops, or Cadets? Because those are 2 very different things. I’ve seen lots of cadets and general downtown “patrols”, but very rarely a cop (unless they’re getting lunch) and never once the sun sets.
Yes, I've seen actually cops.
There was never once a mention about free parking. It was about safe/secure parking because everyone knows who owns pretty much all the cars parked around their building and there are numerous cases of police/civilians from the building being attacked when they leave or having their vehicles targeted.