> 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?
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.