Thursday, March 31, 2005

Droppers, Walkers, and Pickers

For my many sins as a bureaucrat, I fully expect to be reincarnated as a lower form of life, perhaps an economist. Here's some meditations along the lines of the "broken window" thesis of James Q. Wilson:

My wife and I have lived in Reston, in the townhouse I bought in 1976. It's walking distance to the grocery store and I walked occasionally during my working years, more often now I'm retired. The neighborhood has had its problems over the years, as two of the section 8 subsidized housing projects in Reston were a ways down the street. ("Were" not because they've been destroyed, but Fairfax county has converted them somehow.)

Anyhow, with regard to trash on the ground, there are three categories of people:
  1. Droppers, including people in cars, who drop trash
  2. Walkers, including people in cars, who just pass by.
  3. Pickers, excluding people in cars, who pick up trash.
The sources of trash tend to be fast food places and the grocery, particularly drink containers. There's got to be some math that would describe the possible balances among the people. If 1 percent of everyone who passes drops something, and 2 percent are pickers, the walkways will stay reasonably neat. But we have to account for feedback, if it's 2 percent droppers and 1 percent pickers, then some pickers may get discouraged and give up. There's feedback also for the droppers, the neater the place, presumably the less likely you are to drop something. That's perhaps because you feel a social norm in place, because there's the possibility of oppobrium being expressed, or because the first piece of litter does the most harm. (If you're a rebellious youth, trying to do damage, you get the most utility by writing graffiti on the Washington monument.)

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