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Comment by temphn | Hacker News Reader

Well, be Bayesian about it.

The incidents described in the full article include huge violent fistfights that led to curfews. Low income people are unlikely to spend lots of money. Lots of theft and violence is accompanied by lots of broken windows behavior that may not rise to the level of a criminal offense, but does scare away higher income people (example: screaming at the screen in a movie theater). And very few retail shops operate at 100% margins such that a doubling of revenue would exactly compensate for a doubling in theft.

All in all, it is highly likely that events transpired as predicted by the project's critics. No doubt the proponents like homosaur did not sell the project as "violence will increase, thefts will double, and your previous patrons like Johnny Fields will leave, but...". They instead tried to insinuate that "rich white people be crazy" to think something like this might happen.

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Violent fistfights are what make news. Just because something is news doesn't mean there is an underlying statistical basis to justify the conclusion of the article. Articles in papers are anecdotal in nature.

Actually low income people spend HUGE amounts of money, if you study economics you'd know that poor people pay more for almost any good than do the rich. What I mean by this is that the poor will by 500mL of milk rather than 4L, and so in a year when you look at the costs of milk for the poor they are more than the rich. Similarly, the poor shop at convenience stores and the rich shop at warehouse stores further exacerbating the price differential.

I will say, in rich white folks' defense, that the particular incident that is discussed in that article was pretty shocking; it wasn't just a couple of fistfights, it was a mini-riot. We're talking about 50 kids fighting here.

The issue of violence amongst teens has not been solved yet in St. Louis, even if the Galleria figured it out. The Delmar Loop, the other area talked about there, still has a major problem with petty crime and even had a shooting related to the spontaneous gathering of urban teenagers quite recently. The businesses can't have this both ways. They want all the increased business but they don't want to deal with paying for security. SLPD cannot solve these problems on their own and the Loop has dropped the ball on security and people are well aware of it now.

> They want all the increased business

Don't think it has yet been shown that their business actually increased due to these kids. The quotes from the article indicate otherwise: high income residents and middle lass kids were driven away by the violence and then the curfew. The mall owners aren't conflicted here, things transpired just as they had predicted.

That just isn't accurate though. That's not what happened at all. Yes, there was a period of about a year where they did not increase security or have a curfew or parental supervision policy in place where there were several incidents and a higher crime rate. That IMMEDIATELY plummeted over 25% after the parental supervision policy went in to place and by 2010 had dropped to levels that were essentially the same rate as existed before the metro stop was built.

You can't judge this from an outdated article about 2007. That was from that time period when it was a security free for all out there. The people who want to cause trouble certainly know they are not welcome at that mall anymore and will be arrested if they cause any trouble.

I'm guessing the Nordstroms, which is a very high end designer-centric dept. store with $200 silk ties and the like didn't move a 2 story store last year because the high income residents stopped coming. In fact, I'm sure the complete opposite is true.

And very few retail shops operate at 100% margins such that a doubling of revenue would exactly compensate for a doubling in theft.

They don't need 100% margins to come out on top if they sell more units than are stolen.

So if a shop was selling 10 units an hour and losing 1 unit an hour to theft, and footfall doubled (simplistically doubling sales and thefts), then the shop is now selling 20 units an hour and losing 2 to theft. At realistic margins, the shop is more profitable than it was.

The article says that arrests doubled, not that the costs associated with theft doubled.

Note that "costs associated with thefts" is not just the cost of the goods stolen. It includes the costs of security.

I also like how you think that they should be happy with your model, that how they feel about the situation is of no consequence.

They have to live with this situation; they've got skin in the game. You just post.

The article says that arrests doubled, not that the costs associated with theft doubled.

I wasn't discussing the article, but correcting errors in someone else's post.

I also like how you think that they should be happy with your model, that how they feel about the situation is of no consequence.

I never said what I think about the situation. I merely corrected someone else's financial misunderstanding.

They have to live with this situation; they've got skin in the game. You just post.

You're clearly angry at something. I strongly suggest you deal with this yourself, rather than continue to flail around and vent your frustration on strangers over the internet.

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