Saturday, August 23, 2008

Lowry Bridge Reopening to Reintroduce Crime to NE Minneapolis

A friend of mine asked me last night, "Hey, you hear they're opening the Lowry bridge this week?"

I didn't know it had been closed. And so I said, "No, I didn't know it had been closed."

And that was it. Didn't think anything beyond it. Just kind of looked at him with a "and?????" kind of look on my face.

He said, "Crime fell in NE Minneapolis once they closed the bridge down."

And then the connection was made. You see, the Mississippi splits North Minneapolis more or less in half into two areas; NE and NW.

NE is kind of a blue collar, lower middle income neighborhood while NW is our version of Cabrini Green. And one of the bridges that spans the Mississippi and connects the two neighborhoods is the Lowry bridge. (Lowry bridge is in Green, NW is in Red).


What gets me however is just 1 mi south of the Lowry bridge is the Broadway bridge (blue). One would think just taking out one bridge with another bridge a convenient mile away would not drop crime as the criminals to do their dirty work would just take the short mile detour, but it did.

This confirms something about criminals I've always suspected; they're lazy. If criminals weren't lazy, then they would have gone the "extra mile" and done their business. By by the fact they're criminals, that means they don't care to work or contribute to society because presumably work takes too much effort that it is worth the legal risk to commit crime.

In any case, one can certainly expect an increase in crime in the NE neighborhood.

2 comments:

Hot Sam said...

It would actually be an extra two miles - one each way.

Criminals are extremely lazy; most crimes are crimes of opportunity which is why the crime rate is highly correlated to population density.

But distance isn't the only deterrent here. There is also the availability of a quick escape route.

Then there's racial profiling:

What are you doing in this neighborhood?

In San Francisco, the high-crime Mission District is only a few blocks away from the low-crime Noe Valley. There must be a psychological barrier.

I hope, for your sake, they put high-def cameras and floodlights on that bridge.

Anonymous said...

There is a well known Bar "Stand Up Franks" that sits on the west end of the bridge along with a couple other local dives. "Stand Up Franks" is well known as serving drinks extremely strong...

Thus I conclude that the criminals are not only lazy, but also to intoxicated to walk that extra mile...