Guns and Butter Blog

Link to the original Seattle Times column here (req. registration):

Here's the real poop on civic-minded Seattle

By James J. Na

Special to The Times

With the weighty issues of Iraq, the war on terror, Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II occupying the minds of many Americans, I would like to discuss a lighter topic, one that is nonetheless still relevant to life in Seattle: canine waste matter.

That's right, dog poop.

Every morning, I walk my dogs and — in an attempt to retrieve what they leave behind — cautiously step into grassy minefields of dog poop so thoughtlessly uncurbed by other dog owners, I think about the vaunted and reputed civic-mindedness of Seattleites.

Many Seattleites, citing politeness of personal interactions and the relatively low (for a major urban area) violent crime rate of Seattle, claim that Seattle is a high-civic-minded city. One former neighbor and area native proudly declared to me that Seattleites have a strong sense of community while Eastsiders in comparison are individualistic and selfish, a sentiment I often hear from other neighbors as well.

However, neither polite-but-passive-aggressive interactions nor disinclination to commit crimes that are still vigorously prosecuted speaks much about true civic sense. The real test of whether a community holds such a value dearly, indeed, is how its residents obey regulations that are rarely if ever enforced. In other words, the true test of civic mindedness is whether members of the community follow rules, the violation of which incurs little if any cost to perpetrators.

In this regard, Seattle does not deserve as high a grade as many Seattleites think it does. It isn't simply about uncollected dog poop. It is also about stopping cars for pedestrians, especially at crosswalks, parking without blocking other people's driveways and a myriad of other small things on the edge of law and politeness.

In fact, in Seattle so often do I see cars parked on sidewalks, blocking pedestrian traffic, as well as cars racing by as I patiently wait for them to stop at crosswalks in residential areas, that I am temporarily convinced I am in some less-developed part of Asia where such behavior is routine.

But who cares about dog poop? Or cars on sidewalks? How does that really affect the civic sense and the quality of life in this beautiful city?

As an old Korean proverb goes: A needle thief will become a cattle thief.

As population continues to grow in the region and municipal and police resources are more thinly stretched, there is a tendency to ignore "minor" violations of the law in order to concentrate on "real" crimes. Witness Seattle's lackadaisical prosecution of car thieves and the recent change of law to de-emphasize enforcement of "non-violent" drug offenses. Unfortunately, this tendency often has a vicious downward cycle. The boundary between "minor" and "real" violations slowly creeps toward the latter, with more and more crimes being considered "minor" and unworthy of attention.

For a counter-example, look at New York City. When I lived there some years ago, the city was a veritable murder capital. "Minor" violations rarely merited police attention. Crime was rampant, and prostitutes and drug dealers abounded in highly visible areas of Manhattan.

All that changed when Rudy Giuliani became mayor. By enacting a policy of tough policing, even on minor transgressions of the law, he created an atmosphere of law enforcement that carried credibility. Giuliani was initially demonized as a fascist — one "civil rights" leader reputedly pressured a police-brutality victim to claim falsely that an officer shouted "It's Giuliani time" as he commenced his abuse. Nevertheless, while by no means solely responsible, the change of enforcement atmosphere led to a dramatic decline in law breaking, both small and big. New York City was livable again.

There is a lesson in this for Seattle. While I am not suggesting we turn the city into a surveillance and police state in the mold of Singapore, there has to be a greater awareness among Seattleites that the general tolerance for even minor violations of the law inevitably degrades the civic sense and ultimately the quality of life of a city.

I know such a concept is difficult to accept for the 1960s hippie-generation grownups who still view resisting police arrest as heroic. But if Seattle is to maintain its famous quality of life as the region becomes more densely populated, Seattleites must accept and provide for tougher enforcement and increased police resources to combat creeping disintegration of civic-mindedness that inevitably accompanies congestion.

After all, Seattle doesn't want to become San Francisco, does it?