Is Planning to Blame for Violence?

After a recent shooting death in Toronto, one writer lays the blame for urban violence on city planners.

1 minute read

March 19, 2008, 10:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


"How is it possible, in this city we cherish, where we raise our children and pay our police handsomely and restrict gun ownership and carefully shovel the walkways of public housing complexes, that a man can take human life so casually, so easily, with such nonchalance?"

"We can find the killer, maybe, and convict him. Even so, there will be another shooter, another dead boy."

"So who to blame? I blame urban planners and politicians. We concentrate our poor people in places like Lawrence Heights, far from the bureaucrats who designed it. Areas like this teach its residents that they are less valuable."

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