> poorer communities where gang-related activity can thrive
I know the parent comment only said this in passing, but let's be careful about assuming poor communities are gang-infested or dangerous. AFAIK, gangs are not a problem in most American cities.
Not trying to overgeneralize but there’s definitely a correlation between poverty and gang activity. I’m also not necessarily suggesting gentrification is a net positive, just a big factor in declining crime rates in NYC.
In Manhattan, I think the last pockets of seediness were in Alphabet City but that has quickly gentrified as well. As far as I know gang-related activity near NYC is now concentrated in parts of Brooklyn and Long Island (I.e MS-13)
There was a major gang bust at the houses on Amsterdam Ave in Harlem a couple years ago. Plenty of bad shit still happens uptown. But it definitely is concentrated in pockets now, and it's definitely less bad than it was even a few years ago.
MS-13 is around in some isolated pockets on Long Island. About 1100 identified members total in Nassau and Suffolk, though not all are active. Generally stick to El Salvadoran neighborhoods in certain large-ish communities.
> there’s definitely a correlation between poverty and gang activity
Broadly, I agree. To refine my point: Most street gangs are in poor areas but most poor areas don't have street gangs.
> gang-related activity near NYC is now concentrated in parts of Brooklyn and Long Island (I.e MS-13)
Does anyone know any hard data on MS-13 activity? Government has made it a talking point recently but I haven't seen data on how common it really is.
> I’m also not necessarily suggesting gentrification is a net positive, just a big factor in declining crime rates in NYC.
That seems true to me and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
I guess my general point, which was not a criticism of yours (yours just made me think about it), was: Let's be careful about broad stereotypes which can and do result in criminalizing poor people. I will add an observation by the esteemed Woodrow Wilson Guthrie: "Some will rob you with a six-gun, / And some with a fountain pen." I would guess that the latter cause far more harm each year than the former, and in NYC especially.
Per the FBI there are 10,000 MS-13 members out of an estimated 1.4 million US gang members total. MS-13 is in every major city in the US, the scale obviously varies. They get so much attention due to the extreme violence they tend to utilize, rather than the sheer number of members.
> MS-13 is in every major city in the US, the scale obviously varies.
Is that also from the data?
> They get so much attention due to the extreme violence they tend to utilize, rather than the sheer number of members.
This is the kind of thing I try to avoid: Do we know that the violence is more extreme than other gangs? And I suspect they get attention because it fits the White House's / GOP's immigration narrative. But who can say why something gets attention?
I'm from Iowa. Pretty much every city with at least 50k people has gang activity. There are parts of Podunk, Iowa that you simply do not drive through, unless you're buying crack.
I know the parent comment only said this in passing, but let's be careful about assuming poor communities are gang-infested or dangerous. AFAIK, gangs are not a problem in most American cities.