Stream of Steeg

As President-Elect Biden puts together his cabinet and begins sketching out his priorities, expectations for his administration are beginning to crystalize. Some, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are still pushing for widespread forgiveness of student loans. Others are pushing for enormous spending packages complete with large stimulus checks. Resources, however, are not infinite. Even Biden’s choice for Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen (previously of the Federal Reserve), has said that. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled openness for a reduced spending package, but it will not be anywhere near the size that House Democrats have been seeking. Economic policy should also be constrained by the Federal government’s ability to bear the debt. Some flexibility is warranted given the situation, but the last four years have not prepared us for another spending spree; the deficit was already high.

With all that in mind, Biden should be focused on where Federal dollars can go that would have the greatest impact both in the short and long term. The tagline to his campaign was “Build Back Better.” We can do precisely that with targeted investments in energy, infrastructure, and scientific research while ensuring everyone can utilize the resources of a new and improved America by providing direct cash payments. Choosing to invest in things that make our entire economy work better is the only way we can recover without creating an undue burden on our future. Over the next several weeks, I will go into more detail about some of the different options covered here along with the reasons why we do need to avoid overspending.

Politically, the Biden Administration will be flanked by a Senate that will likely be majority Republican or, at the least, split with some Democrats occupying a far more moderate stance than the progressive wing of the party. If he wishes to get anything done, he will have to appeal to a coterie of moderate Democrats and Republicans who are probably not going to support profligate spending on some of the more aggressive programs being proposed. If the staff Biden is putting together is any indication of his intentions, and it almost certainly is, he plans on trying to occupy the middle and perhaps even making bipartisan overtures.

The first priority has to be reigniting the American economy. We have been sputtering along since March with fits and starts, but there has been no momentum. State and local governments have been struggling with those that rely on tourism or retail sales for tax revenue suffering particularly acutely. Working parents have been forced to do their jobs while their children stay home and take classes over Zoom. Many of the people who have lost work are the ones that can least afford to do so and unemployment benefits are set to expire this month. We need to put cash in the hands of consumers so they can turn the crank and get the massive engine that is the US consumer economy humming again.

With that taken care of, Biden can focus on refinement. We have fallen close to $2 trillion behind on maintaining our infrastructure. Our electrical grid is a system cobbled together over the course of more than a century with some parts from the early 1900s still in use. This is not about constructing massive new projects; we need to bring our old system back into working condition. Still, technology has advanced quite a bit since then. We can improve the infrastructure to better accommodate the more sporadic wind and solar power. Highways should be supplemented with a better charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and signage or electronics specifically geared towards autonomous vehicles. 

All those investments in communities across the country should not come without strings, though. We face a housing crisis that is only getting worse. Low- and middle-income families have been blocked from living in high opportunity zones with onerous zoning laws preventing the construction of more housing supply, driving up prices and exacerbating inequality. Infrastructure money should only come in return for loosened zoning laws, which would, in turn, create a new construction boom, bringing more good middle-class jobs. The only thing that will stand in the way is a hardline approach seeking too much.

President Donald Trump often touts how ‘tough’ he has been on China, Russia, Iran, and others, but the actual policy has been less intimidating than he would like you to believe. He has frequently made threatening public statements or Tweets, so it would be easy to assume the actions matched the rhetoric. They have not. The American military presence in Asia has waned just as China has begun to demonstrate a bit more muscle of their own due to a combination of disintegration or weakening of alliances and backing down when challenged. In the Middle East, we have ceded ground to Turkey, Iran, and Russia, even leaving essential allies high and dry without any warning. Perhaps the best characterization would be that of a cowardly bully.

Foreign policy sometimes seems esoteric or unimportant to our daily lives, but the global economy and world order rely heavily on American enforcement of international law. Our military protects our interest and its presence is an important part of projecting power abroad. Rogue regimes follow international laws on trade and conduct because they know that violating those norms might draw consequences they would rather avoid. The existence of overwhelming force is almost always enough to prevent the necessity of its use. However, if the use of that force is sufficiently unlikely, it loses its efficacy as a deterrent. The upshot here is that international competitors or those you would seek to deter from bad action must believe you will actually follow through on the implicit threat of reprisal if they behave badly.

Trump’s barrage of Tweets may have created a bit of uncertainty among them initially, but the believability of that threat has decayed as little pushes have been met with no response. Iran in particular took advantage of that with what was essentially piracy in the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously there were eventually some consequences for General Solemani (assassinated early this year) for some of his adventurous action for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard across the Middle East. Still, Iran launched a face-saving missile bombardment of an American base and continued their aggression in the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is one of the most strategically significant in the world with a sixth of the world’s oil supply and a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas traveling through its waters. Further, the betrayal of the Kurds of northern Syria continued to erode any remaining trust we had in the region. Admittedly, President Obama’s decision not to follow through on his ‘red line’ with Syrian use of chemical weapons on their own citizens was an unforced error, but it pales in comparison to international violations that Trump has let pass unnoticed.

The more important shift, though, happened in Asia. Influence was ceded to China and alliances were shredded. At the same time, combative trade policy has done nothing to endear us to the Chinese. An essential piece to our foreign policy since WWII has been the use of allies, but Trump’s bellicose attitude towards Korea and Japan have them both rethinking their positions and looking at different relationships with both China and the US. The Philippines, a longtime ally and host of American military forces, has declared an end to that close relationship and has openly courted China. China has taken advantage of this perceived weakness by simulating attacks on Taiwan and projecting more power towards our allies in Asia. This contrasts with Obama’s shift to Asia with shows of force to keep China in check despite attempts to militarize the South China Sea with man-made islands.

Most of these policies are easily reversible should Biden win, but even old stalwarts like Australia have voiced concerns about the reliability of the US. There is no other country to step up and coordinate diverse forces against Chinese incursion. The Middle East is in constant flux and steadiness is sorely needed to prevent flare-ups of violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin would like nothing more than to continue stepping into the role of primary influence in the region to expand Russian control over global oil supplies, which are crucial to the balance of power. Protecting democracy against autocrats has never been more important and Trump is simply not the man to do it.

We are approaching four months since the death of George Floyd and the subsequent calls for the defunding of police departments across the country. After Northwest Chicago residents asked for more police presence due to a doubling of shootings over last year, their Alderman (33rd Ward) responded with a resounding no; she wants to push forward with the COHOOTS method instead.  Minneapolis has already cut back on policing after the city council voted to shut the entire police department in an effort at a redesign. We are starting to get some data on what defunding the police might look like, and it looks a lot like rising crime rates.

It is nearly impossible to prove causality when there are so many other earth-shaking factors to take into consideration, though. We are in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years and social unrest that rivals that of the Civil Rights era. Still, we can compare the violent crime in Minneapolis – the only city to take any action on defunding their police department – and other cities across the country. 

Murder rates may be up in major cities across the country, but violent crime overall (which includes things like burglaries) is sharply lower. Minneapolis is an exception; violent crime rates are up nearly 20% in the city as the number of officers has declined and response times have climbed. As a point of comparison, Chicago’s violent crime rate is down about nine percent from last year.

To be fair to the defunders, a replacement for the current system of policing is yet to be implemented. The CAHOOTS program, as mentioned earlier, is one example of a successful implementation of a supplement to police in Eugene, Oregon. The program costs about three percent as much as the police department, but it takes about a fifth of 911 calls. Dispatchers determine whether to route a call to the police or CAHOOTS (crisis assistance helping out on the streets) and the crisis worker is sent to take care of the situation rather than a police officer. Should the crisis worker determine they are not equipped to handle the situation, they will then call for help from the police. This happened 150 times in 2019 in approximately 24,000 calls. 

The program is extremely successful and saves the city millions of dollars (the director estimates approximately $15 million in savings), but it is still only a supplement. Police are absolutely necessary during dangerous situations. The police, in fact, may be UNDERfunded. The US has about 35 fewer police officers per 100,000 residents compared to the rest of the world. The difference is that we spend much more money on our prison system because of uniquely harsh sentencing among all countries in the developed world. We have approximately 155 more corrections officers (prison guards) per 100,000 residents than the average country and more than 300 more prisoners. In fact, spending on police as a ratio to spending on prisons is lower in the US than anywhere else in the world. Laws on policing need to be modified so that we are not protecting police who behave badly, but policing itself should not be discarded. Polling suggests that most people – including black people – want the same or MORE police, not less. Spending money on police is much more effective at keeping us safe than prisons. By taking a hard look at what we want to carry a penalty of prison (and for how long), we might be able to tip the ratio of spending in the direction of police. Funding is tight and police popularity is at a nadir, but we can make police more available for the job of keeping us safe if we spend a bit of money creating positions like crisis workers.

With unemployment numbers hovering near 10 percent and the days of federally enhanced unemployment benefits long behind us, there is a rapidly fading chance to extend a lifeline. As I said nearly three months ago, protecting the consumers of the US and proving to them beyond a doubt that they are protected is the only way we can return to growth. People will not spend money unless they feel like they can be reasonably certain they will continue to have an income and businesses will not spend money unless they are reasonably certain people will be spending money on their goods. This should have been done before the expiration of the CARES Act benefits, but we don’t have a time machine, so now is the next best option. Waiting is simply unacceptable.

In the absence of any federal leadership, states and municipalities have had to take up the slack. This has cost them all of their resources and more; the future has been mortgaged to keep our heads above water. Piling gasoline on this tinderbox has been a catastrophic drop in tax revenues. Sales taxes make up a large portion of revenues for many states and cities, but people simply have not been spending the way they used to. The only way to keep cities and states from mass layoffs and, potentially, bankruptcies, is to include municipal and state aid in the federal packages.

The Federal Reserve did what it could to support local institutions by stepping in and guaranteeing a buyer for the debt, but there is only so much that monetary policy can do. At some point, the debt payments must be made. Loose monetary policy also does very nearly nothing to stimulate demand. We have seen many of the effects of cheap money in the stock market – which has reached all-time highs in the midst of the worst real economy since the Great Depression. In a way, the inflation of paper assets while the real economy suffers causes greater inequality.

Direct support to both individuals and local governments are the most efficient ways to get goods and services to people that need them. Local government understands the service needs of their citizens better than federal government does and, in most cases, is more pragmatic than the federal level (which can be rife with posturing and political theater for every part of governing). People know even better what kinds of things they actually need, so giving them money instead of some substitute that costs more money to administer is both the simplest and most elegant solution.

Additionally, granting everyone support directly disposes of the inefficiencies enhanced unemployment caused. One of the largest complaints about unemployment, and the primary reason Republicans wanted a lower level of support, was that people were avoiding going back to work because some of them made more money from unemployment than they made from their jobs. A basic income bypasses that problem because everyone is receiving the aid whether they are employed or not. It can be clawed back from those who do not need it with a quickly escalating marginal tax with a ceiling of whatever the income is. We could make the $1,200 check a monthly thing and sort out the rest later.

American leaders need to find a way to pass something. Instead of focusing on a fix, our President has decided he should end all attempts at negotiations. In response to questioning, he claimed he was taking the ‘high road’ by cutting off all avenues for the creation of a deal. A bill passed by the Democrat-led House months ago was not even taken up by the Republican-led Senate and a Republican bill did not even make it out of the Senate this week. The Republicans are focused on the wrong thing (e.g. businesses and supply) while Democrats are focused on everything, which is the exact same thing as being focused on nothing. 

American savings rates reached their highest levels in decades during the period of initial aid, showing a reluctance to spend that came from a skepticism that the good times could last. So far, consumers have been proven right, but those savings will also not last forever. Something must be done before the pinch causes a return to mass-layoffs and evictions.

In honor of the Labor Day holiday coming up this Monday, I want to talk about the biggest obstacle for America’s workers that never gets brought up in discussions about challenges for laborers: flexibility. Everyone should have access to the same yoga classes as the elite! No, not that kind of flexibility. The most difficult thing about finding work or getting paid what you’re worth is flexibility in who you work for and where you do it.

If you’re a professional athlete negotiating a salary with a sports team, they have to pay you what you’re worth (constrained by a salary cap in some leagues) because if they don’t, someone else will. It is, in its most basic form, an auction. Highlight reels don’t exist for accountants, though, and there aren’t detailed stats available for programmers to help every potential employer evaluate them in the same way. The information that rival companies have to make their hiring decisions are mostly those which an applicant places on their resume, LinkedIn profile, or personal website.

In many cases, corporations take advantage of this information asymmetry by paying their employees less than they are really worth because they know they have that information advantage. The market is not completely efficient because information is not fully distributed (a key assumption for economists). The US actually does have one of the most dynamic labor marketplaces in the world, but the counter-intuitiveness of the solution for this information asymmetry has caused it to undergo a bit of decay.

So, how can we encourage companies to take more risks on paying employees more money? We can make it easier to fire people. In the post-financial crisis economy of the past decade we saw the power of this solution. The US recovered years before Europe despite the fact that we were the epicenter of said crisis. When we make it more difficult to fire employees, the risk of hiring someone is much higher. It becomes a much more expensive process, so employers take more precautions before growing their labor force.

Here in the US, we have other creeping cracks in this previously strong foundation, though. The fact that our healthcare is mostly linked to our employers means that employees are afraid to take risks by going into business on their own or starting a new career. Growing licensure requirements in all sorts of careers – even for jobs like florist – means that starting a new path has become that much more difficult. Vines are growing across the trail and branches are beginning to obstruct the view. We need to maintain the many paths to varying careers for our workers so that they do not get caught up in lower-productivity work that does not pay them what they deserve.

A surge in violence in the midst of the COVID pandemic has appalled Chicagoans, leaving in its wake broken lives and bankrupted businesses. Much of it is symptomatic of a different problem, though. Crime is concentrated in low-income communities and only occasionally spills over into other neighborhoods. This is not unique to Chicago; poor people are much more likely to commit crimes. Disinvestment and depopulation have gone hand-in-hand to blight once-thriving parts of the country, creating broken communities that drain resources and stand as tall obstacles in the path of success for children who grow up there. In Chicago, most of these communities are on the South and West sides of the city.

In many cases, this is at least partly because of the disappearance of jobs. The flow of money through a community dries up and deterioration drives more people to flee for greener pastures. In some cases, this can be compensated for by commuting, but in others there either isn’t enough access or insufficient jobs within an easy commuting distance exist for people with the skill set of those in the community. When the money in a community dries up, businesses start to leave as well in an unfortunate downward spiral.

Turning that around is a difficult proposition and requires significant investment. Even with those investments, sometimes it is not enough. Money is a limited resource, so targeting infusions based on where their effects can be maximized is paramount. Luckily, we have a little bit of data on what sorts of things help catalyze a revitalization. In Chicago, we can look to recent examples such as Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Pilsen. As their economies have grown, nearby communities have been able to enjoy some spillover benefits. Restaurants and retail stores have more customers which allows them to pay more employees who in turn spend money in the communities. The ‘velocity’ of money (how quickly a dollar moves around as it is spent by various people) increases, another key sign of sustainable growth.

The key to those communities’ growth is their perception as affordable substitutes for other already-vibrant neighborhoods. It started with good restaurants and other amenities and culminated in booming real-estate markets driving more and more businesses to set up shop. More businesses means both more amenities and more jobs inside a community, making an even more attractive place to live. None of that is possible, though, without access to jobs. New residents to ‘up-and-coming’ neighborhoods don’t come in there to work, they move into a convenient place to commute to another place where more high-paying jobs exist.

For Chicago, this is the Loop. The Loop’s central location in terms of transit access make it an ideal place for a business that wants access to the largest possible cross-section of the city’s pool of talented human capital. For a community to attract more residents (a requirement for revitalization), it must have transit stops to bring residents quickly to their place of work.

Early adopters to a formerly downtrodden community want to live in a nicer apartment than they can afford in other, more expensive, parts of the city without sacrificing convenience. When jobs disappeared in those communities decades ago, amenities like good restaurants, grocery stores, and entertainment disappeared as well. Convenience requires both access to transit and those amenities near your apartment or home. This creates a chicken-or-egg scenario where skilled new residents with money would attract the businesses offering those kinds of amenities, but businesses don’t want to invest without the money those residents bring.

This is where reinvestment programs come in. Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative looks to create commercial corridors that might return downtrodden communities to their prosperous ways of decades path. It’s a good idea and, if levered properly, could result in a stronger Chicago. Small wins can build momentum for bigger private sector investors who may want to see confirmation before deploying their capital. Still, it MUST be targeted in a thoughtful way. In an ideal world, we could redevelop all of the impoverished communities at once, but this is not the world we live in. Of the three initial corridors chosen, only Englewood’s is near public transit. Without that, commute times to the office become too long and the tipping point into sustainable growth never gets reached because new residents are never attracted.

This is not to say we should never turn to those communities, but doing so before commuters move out there is a recipe for losing our investment. We need to leverage existing infrastructure wherever possible so we have a bigger lever when we try to do the heavier lifting. Eventually, we can use revitalized South and West Side communities near transit stops to attract more businesses looking to sell their services to those future economic centers or utilize skilled workers there.

Employers become the centerpiece of redevelopment as they bring jobs into the communities themselves, but that can only happen after certain parameters are met. Access to a pool of employees with the skills that employers need is perhaps the most important one. The existence of transit infrastructure also expands that pool of employees. If it is a business that needs to be near its customers (think retail or service sector like accounting), the existence of potential customers with enough money to afford their goods or services is also necessary. The first businesses servicing those neighborhoods will also be price-conscious; affordable real-estate is perhaps the easiest part, but can be subverted when too many people cry gentrification and attempt to block development.

The blueprint for redevelopment is a short list, but each item is easier said than done. Bringing in amenities before people move in is a tall order and nobody wants to take public transportation if they don’t feel safe doing so. Still, it’s important to have some sort of guiding light. Otherwise, we are fumbling around in the dark and that helps precisely no one.

The Eastman Kodak Company, founded in 1888, has a rich history in photography. They once commanded a 90% share of camera film sales and 85% of cameras. In 1975, Kodak developed the world’s first digital camera – and promptly scrapped it to avoid harming their film sales, which is where they made the bulk of their profits. In a capitalist society, however, innovation will not be stymied. Rivals took up the fallen banner of digitization and film sales began to fall in the late 1990s and plunged in the early 2000s. Instead of facing up to their mistakes, they blamed the loss of sales on the September 11th attacks. On January 19, 2012, they were forced to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Since then, they have scraped by with printer and ink sales and some low-end film software. With all that in mind, it was quite a shock when they put out a press release about a government-subsidized loan for three-quarters of a billion dollars to start producing pharmaceuticals. How could such a thing happen?

To understand, we need to look at the inner workings of the Trump Administration. The most trusted economist on the team is one Peter Navarro, previously best known for his bizarre YouTube videos detailing elaborate Chinese conspiracies to destroy America. This is a man who believes in an antiquated mercantilist theory of trade; essentially, mercantilism is the belief that nations accumulating trade surpluses are ‘winning’ economically. Mercantilism went out of fashion in the early 1800s after David Ricardo came up with the theory of comparative advantage and was not even believed among mainstream economists long before that. Comparative advantage says simply that some populations are better equipped for certain tasks than others. Even if one nation can do everything better, they still benefit from specialization because they will be able to put their resources towards their highest-productivity task. For the US, that is technology, finance, and design.

For reasons known only to him, Navarro seized on the antiquated idea and didn’t let go. We now have tariffs on all manner of goods from steel to cheese. These measures were even taken against our friends as well as our rivals. The EU has been slapped with tariffs just as readily as China. Steel tariffs in particular were touted as a way to revive the uncompetitive steel producers here using old, inefficient equipment. Instead, the result was a loss of jobs among high-tech manufacturers that relied on imported steel to sell their products at competitive prices. 

Rather than support citizens and let the American consumer dictate what sorts of products they buy, the Trump administration – and Navarro in particular – would like to recreate the past by throwing money at industries and companies already in the middle of their death rattles. The consequence is that the US is becoming less competitive in the industries we should actually care about.

A large-scale coordinated burglarizing of stores from River North to the Gold Coast left Chicagoans stunned. It followed the shooting of a 20-year-old suspect, Latrell Allen, who fled a confrontation in Englewood over the illegal possession of a firearm. Allen allegedly fired at officers during the course of the pursuit and was then shot in his shoulder. Rumors sprung up from the event like wildfire. The 20-year-old shot by the police became a 15-year-old shot 15 times and killed in a particularly unpleasant game of telephone. Businesses still reeling from the lootings amid the protests following the killing of George Floyd, not to mention the COVID-fueled economic disaster this year, were hit again. Macy’s is reportedly planning on leaving their position in Water Tower Place they have occupied since its opening.

The damage should not be discounted. It will likely be felt for months to come. Still, we also must put this into context. These grimes are not happening in a vacuum. Violence, the likes of which we have not seen in decades, plagues the South and West Sides. Unemployment in low-income neighborhoods has hit depression-era levels. Working from home is not an option for many low-income occupations.

This pain, while particularly acute now, is nothing new. People everywhere want dignified lives with the prospect of upward mobility and safety. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for many of the communities from which these burglars came (I say burglary and not looting because this did not come during a natural disaster or a protest). These communities are starved for any trust in our institutions because they have not seen the benefits come their way. They feel they have nothing to lose. We have even seen the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter encouraging this distrust. A press release posited that Latrell Adams was right to run from the police and that ‘looting’ was a form of ‘reparations.’

Not everyone feels this way. When protesters gathered in Englewood, a group of local residents protected the police station from vandalism. Many of them fear the aftermath of the destruction of their communities. The police, after all, were called when people feared for the safety of a playground when a man was seen with a weapon on that playground. Adams was the man the police found. So many children’s lives have been lost in the crossfire of violence this year, so this was particularly concerning for them. Although police could not possibly have known this, Adams had also been charged with multiple violent crimes in the past. This was not a man innocent of wrongdoing. Without bodycam footage, we probably will never know with complete certainty what happened, but I would place a higher likelihood of the police’s story landing nearer the truth in this case. A gun found at the scene looked identical to one Latrell Adams had posed with in social media posts as well.

Kim Foxx, the Cook County States Attorney, does not have a record of much enforcement. Many crimes go unprosecuted. Retail theft (shoplifting, for example, has been intentionally ignored. Unsurprisingly, it rose somewhere around 25% after she took office. Although she claims the data support her decisions, she does not do much to elucidate that claim and reporters have found information conflicting with her claim. The probability of a person being caught for a crime is already far from 100%. Lax enforcement turns it into a running joke. Foxx means to solve the issue of an unduly harsh prison system, but a States Attorney is meant to prosecute. She needs to do that job and lobby for prison reform using her clout in that position or modify the severity and type of sentence sought for various crimes if she wishes to create lasting and productive change.

She is correct that harsh prison systems and dehumanizing conditions do nothing to help and could, in fact, increase recidivism, or the rate of released prisoners being charged with new crimes. Data from European countries ranging from the UK to Norway show it’s the likelihood of punishment and not its severity that determines the level of deterrence for a given crime. Norway’s method of treating prisoners humanely brought their recidivism rates down by half. The key, other than treating prisoners with dignity, is showing them another path. Those that found jobs were less than a quarter as likely to commit new crimes. It may even make economic sense to cut prison sentences and instead spend a fraction of what we would have to subsidize wages paid to former prisoners. We can help businesses in high-crime areas get on their feet and create better neighbors at the same time.

The keys to creating a better, safer city, then, are going to be enforcement, rehabilitation, and investment. Enforcement discourages crime. A higher chance of getting caught means less people commit crimes. Rehabilitation, including educating prisoners with new skills and treating their mental health, will help mold them into contributing members of society. As a bonus, this helps build institutional trust (which also helps with enforcement – a virtuous cycle!). Finally, investment helps a community develop by increasing employment while making a productive path more attainable and more attractive. Details need to be fleshed out, of course, but the first step is focusing on the right things.

Nine-year-old Janari Ricks spent his final moments playing with his friends in a fenced-in area behind his mom’s row house in Cabrini Green, blissfully unaware of the evil that would soon befall him. His story is not unique. More than 430 people have been murdered so far this year in Chicago alone. Twenty-five children under the age of 10 have been shot as of this writing. Chicago is not the only city experiencing a surge of violence this year, either, but it has been the most drastic and the impact has been indiscriminate. A lack of trust in the police in conjunction with insufficient protection for witnesses that come forward means that the law is unable to effectively pursue perpetrators in many cases as well.

Darrel Johnson is 39. He has two young children with a third on the way. He walks with a limp as a result of a gunshot wound to his ankle many years ago. He parked his car a couple blocks from the back yard where Janari Ricks played and he limped up the alley, peering through the fence in search of a man with whom he has a standing feud. Janari laughed with his friends while neighbors watched over the children and Darrel Johnson pulled a .40 caliber handgun from his jeans. Darrel spotted his man, but the bullets found Janari Ricks instead.

Hours earlier, dozens of children marched and a man known as Dreadheadcowboy rode astride his horse in a parade for ‘Kids Lives Matter.’ Families and dance groups joined them to call for an end to the violence. They plead for the shootings to stop and hope for a day when no more children are caught in the crossfires of a feud they know nothing about. If a child never watches his friend die senselessly again, it will be too soon. The endless cycle of revenge has settled like a noose on the necks of many low-income communities across Chicago’s South and West sides, but no amount of street justice will bring anyone back.

Janari’s mother screams, begging the life not to leave her child’s body. The boy is rushed to nearby Lurie Children’s Hospital, but the bullets have already done their work. It’s too late. There is nothing left to save. Her life feels so much emptier without the bright smile she loved so dearly.

Janari’s friends will never be the same. They watched hot lead tear through his body, pouring hot red blood onto hot asphalt under a beautiful blue sky in their own back yards.No peace will come. They will no longer feel safe in their own homes. Fear will grip them tightly and make growing up that much harder. How could life ever be normal again? Who could focus on their math homework when the vivid details of their friend’s death are always in their mind’s eye?

Communities beset by violence are always under a cloud of fear. You don’t have to be directly involved in it to feel the heat of its flames. The mere fact of its existence is enough to drag everyone down. Very few people don’t think about taking advantage of new opportunities or learning new skills when they have to think about the possibility of a stray bullet finding them when they walk home from the grocery store.

Treja Kelley saw her cousin shot down last year and decided that she had to do something. She had to deal with that same fear; she knew the risk she was taking when she stepped forward. Nonetheless, step forward she did. She decided to bring her cousin’s killer to justice and she went on to testify in an act of unusual courage. A bounty was soon placed on her life. Months later, a pregnant Treja Kelley was walking down the street, talking to her boyfriend, when she was gunned down. Insufficient protective measures were taken by police to prevent something terrible from happening to her. She was 18. Aside from the tragedy of the loss of life, these kinds of events have a lasting impact on trust in the care the police and by extension the government have for brave souls such as Treja.

Trust is difficult to come by under any circumstances, but the police in Chicago have a sordid history of aggressive and unsavory tactics. Just a few decades ago, a scandal broke over police beating people until they confessed. Witnesses getting picked off by gangs after testifying undercuts any attempt to build on the scarce supply of trust. The problem is certainly complicated enough, but policing without the trust and cooperation of the community becomes a nearly impossible task. Adding even more dimensions to that complexity from a policy standpoint is the fact that police officers are people, too. They are not automatons that are capable of responding to a call about a kid getting shot and not being affected by it. This was one of the things that brought previous iterations of dedicated violent crime response units to an end. Officers in that unit came to see the people they were meant to protect as the enemy and flagrantly excessive uses of force came to the surface on multiple occasions. The unit was disbanded in disgrace. This only serves to exacerbate the problem as community members come to fear both gang violence and police violence. Is it any wonder that many struggle to function in school or at work under such stress?

To combat the issue, we need to build the trust. It means more than throwing money or police at the issue. It means we need a targeted plan to build trust and rehabilitate communities. When witnesses such as Treja Kelley come forward, we need to make sure we do everything we can to keep them safe. When entire communities participate in their own safety, people are not going to be committing brazen acts of violence in the middle of the day. When people are greeted with compassion instead of punitive action for nonviolent offenses, the downtrodden will be more willing to come forward. When investments are made in poor communities, good jobs will be more attractive than joining a gang. A virtuous cycle is possible, but it starts with involving the community in the promotion of their own safety and showing them that the goal is their well-being, not punishment. With trust established, the truly violent criminals will be much easier to locate because we will have the help of the people that live there.

There are still rays of hope. The witnesses of Janari’s murder came forward and an arrest was quickly made. The man who committed that heinous crime sits behind bars today. The key was the help of the neighbors.

The result of all this violence is more than the tragedy of the individuals harm. People need more than just freedom to pursue happiness for innovation to spring forth. They need to feel secure while doing so. Economist Lisa Cook showed the impact of violent racial incidents in the early 1900s on patent applications from blacks. That will hold no less true for the impact of violence perpetrated within these poor communities. People have a much harder time working effectively when they are preoccupied with their own or their children’s safety. Children struggle to open their minds to learn when weighed down heavily by stress, fear, or anger. The cost is in both lives and the future of disadvantaged communities.