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> Broken window theory is real: imagine a random person in spotlessly clean city versus a city where there is trash everywhere. More people would litter in the latter city, I don’t think that is too controversial. Thus a run-down neighborhood with lots of broken windows will normalize behaviors that would be stigmatized elsewhere.

Citation needed. There are plenty of counterintuitive things in sociology; the broken window theory sounds plausible but that in no way implies that it's true.



Not citations but some empirical anecdata: visit SF, then visit Singapore. Or, notice how a relatively clean room in the house stays clean versus a somewhat messy room that degenerates into chaos.


I think few people would dispute that places with more litter have more littering!

But surely that's because littering causes litter?




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