Eliminating L.A.'s 'Box Cities'

"The debate comes as the city struggles to develop a comprehensive strategy for solving the downtown district's many long-entrenched problems.

Despite the intense focus on skid row in recent months, progress so far has been hard to measure.

...Others in the LAPD are backing a blueprint for skid row drafted by George Kelling, the noted Rutgers criminologist who is a co-author with James Q. Wilson of the "broken windows" theory of policing that Bratton has adopted. The theory holds that punishing lesser offenses leads to reductions in major crimes...

...In January, a group of downtown business leaders, politicians and community activists traveled to New York to examine how that city had cleaned up Times Square. They learned that the effort had required cooperation among government, business, police and social services agencies.

Skid row is one of three areas â€" along with Hollywood and MacArthur Park â€" that Bratton has targeted for the "broken windows" approach."