[syndicate] \\ O R D N U N G \ Z E R O T O L E R A N C E

[claudia westermann]

>
>
>>  tell me another one.
>>
>
>only if sarkozy ...
>

ha ... I heard someone was asking for "zero tolerance for sarkozy"
               I agree



zero tolerance policy

it never worked anywhere else but in New York -as 
far as I know - and there are people very 
suspicious about the statistics given out - i.e. 
the crime rates at the borders are not measured 
for example

they tried it in Hamburg in the nineties with the 
result of a collapse of one quarter

they implemented it in Sao Paolo with frightening 
results as far as I know - collapse



now Paris




below part of an an older text - am not 
necessarily too happy with the style of this text 
etc. and I think some passages would need to be 
rewritten (was my first longer text written in 
English I think) etc.... whatever ...

however, regarding what is happening at the 
outskirts of Paris at the moment, this might be 
interesting as it points to the sources if the 
"zero tolerance" policy  (remark: Philip Zimbardo 
psychologist become famous for the "prison 
experiment" - due to ethically very problematic - 
there exists a pretty bad film based on this)



- c


------



In the year 1969 Philip Zimbardo, Professor for 
Psychology at Stanford University, conducted 
following experiment: two old cars were placed in 
an urban setting. One car in a rather affluent 
area next to Stanford University and one in the 
Bronx in New York City, an area known to be 
socially problematic. On both cars the license 
plates had been removed, signaling that they were 
out of use. Within three days the car in the 
Bronx was completely stripped. First all useful 
elements were taken, then it was completely 
destroyed. However nothing happened to the second 
car for over a week. Zimbardo decided to pursue 
with his experiment, took a sledgehammer and 
destroyed one of the windows of the car. It took 
only a few hours and the car looked similar to 
the car in the Bronx. It had been destroyed. The 
actors in the second car's destruction were 
described to be white and obviously belonged to 
the middle class, residents of the area, which 
previously had been regarded to be safe and calm. 
What had happened?1)

In the book "The Fall of Public Man" Richard 
Sennett describes the change of the words 
"public" and "private"2) parallel to a change of 
society from being turned outwards to being 
turned inwards, beginning with the fall of the 
Ancient Régime (18th century). The earliest known 
English language source used the word public in 
the sense of "well of society" (publyke wele). An 
additional meaning was added to the word public 
in the 16th century: that which is obvious, 
accessible to common observation. The word 
"private" was used in the sense of "privileged" 
at that time. Only toward the end of the 17th 
century finally the complementary pair "public - 
private" became more and more used in the sense 
in which we use it today. Being private is to be 
at a place, which is closed and restrictedly 
accessible, normally for just family and friends. 
Being in public means to be exposed to everyone's 
view. In 1726 however Joseph Butler in his 
Sermons3) still wrote: "Every man is to be 
considered in two capacities, the private and 
public; as designed to pursue his own interest, 
and likewise to contribute to the good of others. 
Whoever will consider may see that, in general, 
there is no contrariety between these; but that 
from the original constitution of man, and the 
circumstances he is placed in, they perfectly 
coincide, and mutually carry on each other. But, 
among the great variety of affections or 
principles of actions in our nature, some in 
their primary intention and design seem to belong 
to the single or private, others to the public or 
social capacity."

It is the public capacity in man which Richard 
Sennett describes to have decreased and which has 
a parallel in the decrease of public space in the 
city. At the same time an increase in intimate 
communication is perceivable as well. However, 
the public capacity is the capacity to 
communicate and to do this without "undressing" 
one self, to "perform".

The mass media, also considered to be the "news 
media", actually presents a mirror of the changes 
that have taken place. Nowadays the media report 
more and more on intimate subjects. Talk Shows 
where people describe their personal problems in 
every detail and Reality TV, which follows 
citizens preferably into intimate or embarrassing 
situations, have become daily media "life." It 
has also become common in society to be "open", 
to merely talk about intimate subjects 
juxtaposing an extremely "closed" tacit 
behaviour, when transiting the spaces, which are 
accessible to everyone or at least a larger group 
of people, which are recognized as strangers.

What is communication? Niklas Luhmann, a German 
system theorist, defines the term in the 
following way4): communication is a "unity of the 
difference of information, message and 
understanding, without being able to communicate 
this unity. But it uses for retrospective 
self-observation the difference of information, 
message and understanding in order to be able to 
determine if the subsequent communication has to 
react on doubts within the information, on 
assumed message intentions (for example the 
intention to cheat) or on difficulties in 
understanding". A social system is an autopoietic 
system, a recursive system. And communication is 
the defining part of a social system. Without 
communication there is no social system, since a 
system is defined to be always a combination of 
different elements which interact with each other 
and which are in fact relating to each other in 
various ways. The environment begins where there 
are no interactions anymore.

Philip Zimbardo's car experiment supports 
Sennett's thesis of the "Fall of Public Man". In 
contemporary urban society the links in between 
the different elements are extremely weak.
A single object not fitting into the system can 
lead to an immediate loss of identification 
within the system and subsequently the system 
destroys itself. Based on Zimbardo's experiment 
later a theory which became known as "broken 
windows theory" was developed. As human's 
behaviour is strongly influenced by symbols of 
order and disorder, preventing street crime, it 
is stated, means preventing the first window 
being broken, the first graffiti marks and the 
first drunkard from a public display. The broken 
windows theory introduced Neighborhood Watch 
Programs and increased police foot patrols, 
ironically perhaps merely in order to protect the 
"good" citizen from his own potential of 
aggression, perhaps even to protect him from the 
experience of recognizing his own potential of 
aggression and this way securing him and assuring 
identity.

A problem of enforcing hierarchy in order to 
prevent crime and aggression, is that it is only 
to a minimal extent capable of re-establishing 
links, very often it even counteracts 
communication and the links in between the 
elements of the system become even weaker (less 
and less public communication). Subsequently the 
protection methods have to be augmented 
permanently, producing not at last extremely high 
financial strains for the governments.

However, there exist different concepts. 
Contrasting the term urbanism, the idea of the 
Urban Project5) is based on the perception that 
the problems the contemporary city faces can 
hardly be solved with the means of traditional 
planning. The Urban Project means 
decentralization and participation of the people 
living in the addressed area on every possible 
level. It means assuring identification by 
reintroducing means of communication into the 
area in order to stabilize the system to a degree 
that it becomes capable to protect and stabilize 
itself. It means a decrease of authority in 
favour of communication. In fact the "urban 
project" is a process, which is not thinkable 
without the context of the area addressed. The 
process is rather characterized by interpretation 
than by explanation. However, because of the many 
ambiguities of the city, interpretation cannot be 
achieved completely. The Urban Project in fact is 
based on a game situation,  network game. It is 
supposed to establish links in order to stabilize 
the system. Once it is stabilized establish 
further links in between the different elements 
of the system. Networking is learnable.

In the late 90s the city of Hamburg in Germany 
tried to solve the rising problem of crime by 
following the famous example of New York City. 
The concept "Zero Tolerance", a radical version 
of the "broken windows theory" seemed to be 
extremely successful and had made Rudolph W. 
Giuliani Mayor of New York City for a second 
legislative period in 1997. However in Hamburg 
the banishment of drug addicts, homeless and 
alcoholics from certain areas in the city 
especially the area around the train station led 
to a collapse in the area Schanzenviertel not far 
from the train station. Experts predicted that 
the area would become a slum within short time. 
The Schanzenviertel would have been the first 
slum in Germany's history.

In the year 1999 in the Schanzenviertel an area 
management program was established and an Urban 
Project initiated. Since then the situation in 
the area has remarkably improved and today it 
seems far from being in danger of collapsing 
completely.


* (excerpts  of: Westermann, C., "Tactics for the 
Urban and the Virtual Space. Play." (published in 
Portuguese translation) - in: Redes Sensoriais, 
Contra Capa Livraria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 
2003; ISBN 85-86011-74-6 )

(1)Philip Zimbardo has a web page at 
http://www.zimbardo.com. Compare as well: James 
Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, Broken Windows: 
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/crime/windows.htm

(2) compare: Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public 
Man, 1974, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York (German 
edition: Verfall und Ende des öffentlichen 
Lebens. Die Tyrannei der Intimität, 1986, Fischer 
Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, p. 31)

(3) the work of Joseph Butler is available on the 
web at: 
http://www.farid-hajji.net/books/en/Butler_Joseph/hn-index.html. 
The excerpt quoted can be found at: 
http://www.farid-hajji.net/books/en/Butler_Joseph/hn-index.html

(4) compare: Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der 
Gesellschaft, Erster Teilband, 1997, Suhrkamp 
Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, p. 87

(5) in the mid 90s, when Germany faced enormous 
reconstruction tasks in the Eastern part of the 
country and it became clear that there had to be 
other solutions than the traditional urban 
planning the "urban project" model was discussed 
in some German journal publications together with 
a general sustainability discussion. However it 
is rather difficult to locate the origin of the 
term. It was probably introduced by Bernardo 
Secchi in 1989. Bernardo Secchi is professor of 
Urban planning at the Institute of Architecture, 
University of Venice (IUAV). The "diary of a 
planner" 
(http://www.planum.net/topics/secchi-diary.html) 
is published In English.
Marco Cremaschi is another key figure for the 
"urban project" concept. He is a lecturer at the 
Dept. of Architecture and Town Planning, 
University of Rome. He contributed to establish 
the PhD Program on Urban Project and Policy.  He 
also served as program coordinator of the Master 
"The new urban policies", Third University of 
Rome. He is the president of Planum, a network 
publishing the European Journal of Planning on 
line (http://www.planum.net) and editor of 
urbanisticatre  (http://www.urbanisticatre.it)